June 2

Proverbs 1-3 Brad Harrub instructed a group of men at a men's retreat in Montana recently on rising up to be the men God intended. On the subject of parenting, he said that our instruction manual is the book of Proverbs. Indeed, Solomon is instructing his son with wisdom coming straight from God! From today's reading, he says, "Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." Proverbs 3:3 He wrote many other pearls of wisdom in these three chapters, but this particular one touched me, because Jesus said that all of the law and the prophets rest on love. The Apostle John tells us that God is love. And the Apostle Paul proclaims that the greatest of all spiritual gifts is love. When we come to understand love as a gift from God, and that this gift is God Himself, we gain an appreciation for love, recognizing its power and purity. There are those who would distort this gift, tarnishing its image, and making it something it isn't. We should have nothing to do with that perversion. Instead, we must remain faithful to the pure, perfect, presentation of the love of God in Christ.