Shalom,

Proverbs 19:17:

¹⁷He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and that which he has given He will repay to him.

This is a great verse, but it is even better in the Message Bible:

¹⁷ Mercy to the needy is a loan to God,
and God pays back those loans in full.

And better yet in the Living Bible:

17 When you help the poor you are lending to the Lord-and he pays wonderful interest on your loan!

We cannot out-give God! He even pays us interest! AMEN!

Verse 20 describes the reason for Proverbs!

²⁰Hear counsel, receive instruction, and accept correction, that you may be wise in the time to come.

That's what the Book of Proverbs is all about! Little portions of Truth that we can understand, put into practice and, by doing so, gain wisdom!

My favorite verse in this chapter is verse 23:

²³The reverent, worshipful fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it rests satisfied; he cannot be visited with [actual] evil.

Having reverence and awe for the presence of God gets us in position to receive God's richest and best! And if that were not enough, this verse also says that we can't be visited with ACTUAL evil! What does that mean? It means that we may experience attacks from the enemy, but he is liar and the father of all liars and CANNOT bring "actual" evil into our lives! He has no place in us!

Ephesians 2:4-7:

⁴But God--so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, ⁵Even when we were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; [He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and mercy which you did not deserve) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation). ⁶And He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together in the heavenly sphere in Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed One). ⁷He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable (limitless, surpassing) riches of His free grace (His unmerited favor) in [His] kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.

This is what God's great love has accomplished! The love that we see in John 3:16 has accomplished THIS in and for us! Our rightful place is now IN Heavenly places IN Him! Read through your Bible, if you haven't already done so, and circle or highlight every reference you come across that says "in Him", "in Whom", "in Christ", etc. Renew your mind to understand just who YOU are in Him, what YOU have in Him, and what YOU can do, now that are IN HIM! It will change your life!

In 1 Kings 1-2 we see Solomon becoming king. David has this charge to him in 1 Kings 2:1-4:

¹WHEN DAVID'S time to die was near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, ²I go the way of all the earth. Be strong and show yourself a man; ³Keep the charge of the Lord your God, walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may do wisely and prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn, ⁴That the Lord may fulfill His promise to me, saying, If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and mind and with all their soul, there shall not fail you [to have] a man on the throne of Israel.

We know that Solomon heeded David's advice for awhile because he WAS wise and he DID prosper in all that he did and wherever he went! If WE obey God's Word and do things His way, we will be blessed in all that we do and wherever we go, too! AMEN!

Shalom in Him!