The fear of the LORD leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble. It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a fool whose lips are perverse. Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:23, 2,1,22 NIV).
Today our sage’s first word to us is to fear the Lord. He is not saying that we should be afraid of the Lord but that like an obedient child, we should have such a reverence for him that we wouldn’t do anything contrary to his instructions. And we include him in all that we do because we respect and trust his judgement.
Although fear can have the connotation of fright or panic, the meaning here is very different. This is fear of displeasing the one you love and not being so afraid that you do nothing. He instructs us again to get knowledge first. So knowledge become the principle thing in our lives and with knowledge come the ability to temper our zeal, place all our plans before the Lord and exercise wisdom in all that we do.
dog & bone
In essence he would say that it is better to be poor with integrity than to be rich, own the whole world and be perverse in our language. Indeed Jesus puts it like this, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his one soul, or what will a man give in exchange for his one soul”[Matt 16:26].
Today don’t be so zealous like the dog on the bridge with a juicy bone in his mouth but when he saw his reflection in the water gasped at the bigger bone and lost everything!
Read Proverbs 19
Pastor Bell's Words To Live By 
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