Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3
Tablets have been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember. I’m talking paper – not some electronic gadget. Actual paper. Lined, unlined, spiral-bound, glued, stapled, white, 3-hole punched or not, yellow, multi-colored, notepads, steno pads, legal pads, paper very small or very large – pages in a hold-in-your-hand tablet.
I’m a nondiscriminatory tablet lover. Sure, I have my preferences – but if it has blank pages, I can work with it.
As a little girl a small tablet and a tiny pencil accompanied me wherever I went. I tucked it into my white or black patent Sunday purse (depending on the season) or in my everyday purse made from an animal crackers box with a thick string handle – I was ready to draw, record, or list as the situation required.
Even now, tablets are my step-one tool to bring order, organization, strategy, planning, preparation, and creativity to what otherwise might simply be a chaotic brainstorming session. Paper tablets can represent serious business or serious fun.
I’ve been a list-maker for as long as I can remember. About the only thing I like better than making a list is checking off things completed, accomplished, done, and over.
Over the years, my lists have become more focused on the promises of God, promises kept, prayers to be offered, prayers answered, people and things for which I am grateful, and blessings received. These lists have become a treasure trove of precious memories of God’s goodness and His working in my life.
Perhaps this is why I resonate so strongly with God’s frequent instructions to “write this down.” Anytime God specifically instructs that His words be written down, it is an indication that we should be paying very close attention.
The first time Scripture records God instructing man to write down His words was in Exodus 17. God told Moses to memorialize in writing His extreme displeasure with the Amalekites because of their blatant disregard for Jehovah God and His people. God said, “Write it down, they will be blotted out” (Exodus 17:8-16, Deuteronomy 25:17-19). The harshness of the punishment was in keeping with the severity of the infraction – the total disregard for God and His people.
At Mount Sinai, God first spoke directly to the children of Israel. Then He gave them His commandments, guidelines for living, and the promise of victory in Canaan (Exodus 19-23) in written form. These words were written by God Himself on tablets of stone. God instructed Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandments, which I have written for their instruction.” (Exodus 24:12)
These original tablets were thrown to the foot of the mountain and destroyed by Moses as he descended and saw the idolatrous debauchery taking place in the camp of Israel (Exodus 32:15-20).
After dealing with the Israelites and the golden calf, God called Moses to return to the mountaintop with two cut tablets of stone to replace the two that had been destroyed. Then once again, God Himself wrote His commandments and His laws on the tablets (Exodus 34:1, Deuteronomy 10:2).
God’s words were powerful and critical to Israel’s ability to flourish and be victorious in the Land of Promise. The weighty significance of God’s commands was emphasized by the fact that God Himself inscribed the words in the stone tablets with His own hand – not once, but twice.
Scripture is filled with instances where the narrative is interrupted by specific commands, warnings, instructions, and messages that God wants written, delivered, heard, and obeyed. In every case, God’s power-filled words are vital to having a flourishing relationship with Him and a victorious life as a child of God.
God says “Write this down.”
Write this: Never forget how God rescued you, delivered you from slavery, called you His child, and demonstrated the majesty of His grace, love, power, patience, and provision during your days in the wilderness of sin.
– Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. Deuteronomy 31:19 (Deuteronomy 31:30-32:1-47)
Write this: God’s truth written on the heart of a believer is a guard against the attacks of sin.
– …Keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you; keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye; bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 7:1-3
– I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11
Write this: Cling to God’s truth, it is your defense against the deceivers of the world.
– I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. …I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 1 John 2:21, 26
Write this: Saints, contend for the faith.
– … I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints. Jude 1:3
Write this: Jesus says to the one who overcomes (holds fast, conquers, prevails) He writes the name of God on you.
– The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from My God out of heaven, and My own new name. Revelation 3:12
Write this: Child of God, you are blessed to be invited to the celebration of the marriage supper of the Lamb!
– And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Revelation 19:9
It overwhelms me to know that Almighty God, The All Sufficient One, Alpha and Omega, Lord of the Angel Armies — this Awesome God not only invites us to call Him Father, but He also takes great delight in writing His truth on our hearts.
God wrote His words on the tablets of stone for His chosen nation of Israel to emphasize the deep and direct relationship that He wanted to have with His people. In like manner, God Himself writes His truth on the hearts of His children to demonstrate to us the depth and fullness of the relationship He offers to us.
In permanent, indelible ink He writes His declaration of love and redemption declaring that we are His and He is ours.
Read that again and take it in. When I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, God wrote on my heart that I am His and He is mine.
That truth should bring you great joy and peace.
It should also cause you to reflect on the condition of your heart. You see, we have the choice to be diligent in the housekeeping of our heart – keeping the tablet of our heart clean. Or we can allow the smudges, scribbles, doodles, and stains of unconfessed sin, ungodly desires, rebellious attitudes, and self-centered focus to clutter the pages leaving little or no room for the many truths of God that should be written on pages of the tablet of our heart.
How’s the tablet of your heart?
… I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Hebrews 8:10
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds… Hebrews 10:16
