To All You Proverbs 31 “Wannabe’s”

During the last nine months, you have committed to studying the book of Proverbs. You are to be commended for your perseverance in sticking with this endeavor because you chose to put God first in your life and you continued the journey even though there were times when you wanted to quit. It is always easy to quit and make excuses about our decisions, but endurance wins the race. And you my sisters in Christ have endured and did not give up.

Although you may not feel like there are changes that have taken place with you spiritually, mentally and physically; I believe there were many. Recognition is the biggest step that leads to permanent change and we now have the knowledge from God’s Word from which to base our future decisions.

Because you have been taught what the book of Proverbs says about your life, you will now recognize the areas of your life that God desires to change.

It is now up to you to become the woman God desires you to be. Transformation takes place one chapter, one verse at a time.

God has called women for such a time as this to rise up and show ourselves approved. Our country is in duress, our families are in duress, and Christians are being molded into the image of the world rather than to the image of God.

The time has come for women to stand up and say I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength to do whatever comes my way. It is time we leave the pity parties of whoa is me and why me and join “the praise God I am one of the chosen” team.

It is as if God ends the book of Proverbs with one last cry to all women to get their act together and press on towards the course for which you have been created. Press on towards the goal of becoming the woman God has created you to be.

Do not look back, He says. Today is the day of salvation. Today I say, press on and do as I command. Stop sinning. Start obeying.

I believe Proverbs 31 was written by Solomon’s mother. I believe King Lemuel and Solomon are the same person. The wisest man in the world’s mother has some words for us to live by.

I think Chapter 31, verses 10 – 31 is a summation of all that God said to us throughout the book of Proverbs. It is His concluding words to us and one last request to us to get on task and stay strong.

Why did God choose to address women at the conclusion of this book and not men? I believe it is because throughout Scripture God chose women to be the helper or the backbone to make everything run smoothly. It is evident that we indeed have tremendous influence over whoever God puts in our path. Therefore we must choose to be God fearing influencers.

We are to become the woman who God created us to be. One who fears God first and foremost in her life and knows without any doubt that she belongs to Him and will spend eternity in Heaven with her Father.

Proverbs 31 is called The Virtuous Woman.

The phrase, “a virtuous woman” was first used by Boaz to describe Ruth’s reputation in the book of Ruth 3:11. It is used again by Solomon in Proverbs 12:4 which says: A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.

Perhaps you have spent your Christian life being intimidated by these twenty one verses of Scripture. I would jokingly say, I could never be like her for she is too perfect. She was a source of guilt for me, a level of perfection that I could never achieve.

She is a reminder of what I am not.

She is a measuring stick and I will never measure up.

But this time, I took a different look at the Proverbs 31 woman. Whoever she was, whoever this intimidating woman that King Solomon’s mother was describing, I now wanted to become just like her because I realized that she was God’s description of what He wanted me to become.

She is the ideal woman. She is an example for which we must run our life’s race. She is our goal. She is the direction for which we are to be moving. She is the epitome of what we should become.

She is the example of what God wants all of His daughters to become.

We read her description and we say with an already defeated attitude, I could never become like her.

And you would be correct in saying this.

But we have learned that it is not us that does the changing. It is God that changes us.

God is the one who has transformed you over the last nine months. Can you honestly say it was anything you have done other than be obedient to reading and studying His holy Word?

God is the one working the transformation. He who began this good work in you, will be perfecting it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).

Seeing what you can become is why you can look at the example the Proverbs 31 woman sets, not as a condemnation guilt trip but as a goal for you to set for yourself.

We have to allow God to do the changing. In our own power, we could never be perfect like this woman. But with God, all things are possible.

We are to strive to be perfect.

When all is said and done in our life, the focus has to be on Him and not on us. We are to decrease, He is to increase.

The message to glean when we study Chapter 31, is that God, not me, is to be our focus.

What was the original goal when we began to study and read Proverbs? It was first to obtain the knowledge of what God was saying to us about becoming wise women, but more importantly it was taking the information and applying it to our life.

Application is the hard part. When we study we have to have a teachable heart to ever become this Proverbs 31 woman. In contrast, Proverbs 1:7 told us that “fools despise wisdom and instruction” and fools continuously repeat the same stupid behaviors over and over. Why, because they never seek to find out what the Word of God says about becoming wise.

By sticking with nine months of studying the Word of God, we have proven ourselves to be teachable, to be pliable, to desire to be molded into the woman God created us to be.

When we seek true wisdom, we will find the Lord. That is where you find the Proverbs 31 woman; at the feet of Jesus.

Proverbs 1:7 told us that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” The word fear did not mean to be afraid of God, but rather to revere Him as to fear displeasing Him, in how we live our lives.

These words from Solomon’s mother are not about improving our reputation for reputation is all about what others think of us. Instead the Proverbs 31 woman is a woman of godly character. Character is what we know we are not what someone thinks we are.

Who we are in Christ; that is what godly character is.

No makeup will make you look better than godliness.

There is no hairstyle that can hold a candle to holiness.

There is no piece of jewelry that earns respect and honor like living a life of righteousness where you are blameless before the Lord.

Remember, the Proverbs 31 woman is not the measuring stick for which we must measure ourselves up against, but instead she is the goal for which we strive to become.

There is a big difference.

You strive to become her, because she is what God desires for us to become. But the key is the word becoming.

Becoming is not immediate. Becoming is a process.

Look at verse 10. Solomon’s mother says to her son: “Who can find a virtuous woman?”

She makes it pretty clear that a woman of this type of character is very rare. She is hard to find. This is not because God does not desire that we woman are virtuous, it is because few stay consistently yielded to Him as to attain this level of excellence!

She tells Solomon, that if he can even find a virtuous woman her worth will be far above rubies which means almost impossible to find.

Why is this?

Our virtuous character comes from being rooted in a right understanding of God and who He has made us to be and not rooted in anything with the word self in it.

Whenever self enters the picture, pride enters the picture. We are all guilty of desiring to receive the world’s praise and we are sometimes so caught up in the desire to receive the praise of the world that we become depressed and unable to function because the world does not give us what we so wrongly desire.

Vs 30 says, charm is deceitful and beauty is passing

What matters is our godly character.

Outer beauty is deceptive for God always looks at our heart.

Proverbs 31 also talks about the working woman. Some have taking this to mean that a woman should not work outside the home. Some say that a woman should work outside the home and that she should be able to balance all these responsibilities.

Is the woman who stays home with the kids a more godly woman? Is the woman with a job outside the home less committed to her family?

The Proverbs 31 woman is both a homemaker and a businesswoman.

While she earns an income outside the home, that does not come at the expense of her home and family. More verses are about her family as her #1 priority than anything else. She is able to balance a business, her family, her husband and also a ministry outside her family.

In the days of Solomon, a woman had her business in her home. There was no commute time, eating on the run, dropping the kids at the day care or school bus, or flying to DC for a conference.

It was abnormal for the woman to leave her home. Every woman worked out of her home.

She sewed, she baked, she kept the light burning for travelers since there was no motel 6, she made sure everyone in her family had warm clothing in the winter and cool clothing is the summer, she spoke only kind words about her husband and he was admired in the community, she brought income into the family because she was not idle.

Yes she is amazing and we could spend nine more months taking each of these verses and making them relevant to a Christian woman living today.

But the bottom line is that there are two verses that describe her that makes the rest of the verses possible.

Vs 30 says she fears the Lord and verse 13 says she willingly does what she does and she delights in what she does.

She does it all with joy. She does not grumble and complain about the responsibilities for which she has been created.

The key is to have God as your balancing scale. If you neglect your home and family and put all your emphasis on your job or yourself, you are not imitating a godly woman. If you are sacrificing your family’s wellbeing for your prestige and are consumed with what others think of you verses what God thinks of you, you are not imitating a godly woman.

If you are self reliant, self focused, self motivated and have an attitude that your household only functions because you are so wonderful, you are not imitating the Proverbs 31 woman.

If you martyr, gripe and complain about everything you have to do around the house, you are not imitating the Proverbs 31 woman.

If you worry about whether or not you will be provided for, where that next tank of gas is coming from or whether or not you will have enough income to even put gas in your car and food on your table, you have missed the message of Proverbs 31.

As wives, mothers, and just women, God has called us to reflect his Son first and then be a helper to our husband, our children and our community.

I have been challenged to rethink the way I thought God wanted me to enter into the working world. It looks as though the world’s description of the successful woman and the Proverbs 31 woman are completely different.

Get out of the world and get into the WORD.

Remember: there is only one letter difference between those two words and that is the L.

We are no longer LOST like we were when we were in the world. We are saved through the blood of Jesus. He paid the price so that we could indeed become the woman we were created to be.

You see the last nine months has taught us about how to stay on the WAY, or the path towards becoming the woman God created us to be.

God created us to have a relationship not only with Him but everyone He has put into our life.

We can make a huge difference in so many lives if we would just stop being so caught up in our own life. It is not about YOU.

Not only are we to take care of the home, we are also called to have a relationship with everyone else God has put in our path.

God said, Love me with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Loving God is at the top of our list but Proverbs makes it clear that a woman can master all kinds of tasks but still be a failure if she can’t manage the relationship first and foremost with God, secondly with her husband and her children and finally with the people He puts in our path.

The woman we are to become should be trustworthy, transparent, builds up our husband rather than tear him down, honest, not critical of others, nonjudgmental.

And how long must we do this?

Vs 12 All the days of her life. It is a distance run – not a sprint.

God’s design for a godly woman is unfamiliar to us because we live in a world contrary to the way God desires it to be.

And we are to delight in being this woman.

No martyrs allowed.

Vs 18 She is not working herself to death being a perfectionist, losing sleep over worrying and driving herself to an early grave……….no she is calm, balanced and secure in who she is in her Lord and Savior.

Remember, The Way to Go Lightly is about Becoming the Proverbs 31 woman, not living defeated and discouraged because you will never BE her.

Change happens when change happens.

She is the goal for which we begin to move towards. She is the woman God is developing in us as we follow Him.

The first step is the hardest and that is SURRENDER.

You must surrender your life to Jesus Christ.

All to Jesus I surrender …. All to him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.

I surrender all. I surrender all.

You see the most important word in the Christian life is not commitment but surrender. We can be committed in the flesh, but surrender is admitting what we cannot do in our own strength.

If you have never given your life over to Jesus Christ, now is the time.
Tonight is the night; for tomorrow is not guaranteed and eternity is forever.

If you do not know for sure that when you leave here tonight that you will be in the presence of God, then you must surrender yourself to HIM.

Surrender your life to him.

Get over yourself and give your life over to God.

God is waiting.

Let’s pray:

Father, I look at the Proverbs 31 women and see so many areas of my life that I have desperately failed you. I have been trying to change myself by myself.

Tonight I ask you to forgive me and I want to ask you to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior.

I want my life to become what you have created me to be and I desire to
Surrender my life to you.

I accept you as my Lord and Savior.

In the name of Jesus Christ I praise you forever,

Amen!