The Devotional – 1447 – Two! Or One?

The Devotional – 1447 – Two! Or One?

Proverbs 11:27 – He who diligently seeks good finds (seeks) favor (grace), but trouble will come to him who seeks evil (death).

Comments and challenges

Now I am not looking to establish a system of good works and evil works; God has accomplished this from the beginning (Genesis 2:9), nor am I seeking to reinvent religion. These efforts are the work of Satan and he can have that reward (Genesis 3:14-15).

And yet, I do want to talk about the things that people seek or pursue in a lifetime. There are those who diligently seek to do good, doing justly in their dealings with others; whose weights and measures are perfect. Proverbs 11:1 and those who are humble and use wisdom correctly, Proverbs 11:2.

Integrity guides these men and women in uprightness and delivers them from death; Proverbs 11:3-4. Righteousness is the direction of those whose heart is blameless and righteousness delivers the righteous in the right way; Proverbs 11:5-6. All whose way is righteous are delivered from trouble; Proverbs 11:8-9.

We could continue looking at Proverbs 11 in this way, but there is another truth in this Proverb that we need to uncover as well. If there is “good” or “righteousness” in this world, then there is also “evil” or “unrighteousness”! Both are the two products of the world we live in. EVERYTHING mankind does is either through good or by evil.

So, are there people who only do “righteousness” and others who only do “unrighteousness”? If that were the case, we should just kill off all the unrighteous and live happily ever after. Now would that make the righteous, more righteous are simply turn the righteous into unrighteous people? Hmmm?

Proverbs 11 reveals the results of the moment by moment accountability of “one” person whose heart in a moment of time can be as righteous and just as God would have them be; but in the next moment in time can be as evil and unrighteous as Satan intends them to be.

The apostle Paul has this to say about good and evil: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death”? Romans 7:24. Since our flesh (body) is sometimes good and sometimes evil, the law of God (righteousness) is impossible to keep. The mind of the flesh seeks to serve the law of God, but the body of flesh seeks to serve the law of sin (evil and death).

This is the condemnation that hangs over all of mankind and try as they may; they cannot get out from under this burden of living good one moment and living evil the next. Genesis 3:1-24 is the wrath, the curse or the condemnation that God placed on all of mankind following the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden.

In conclusion; God did something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. He provided a way back to Him through His Son, the LORD Jesus Christ. “Oh!” You say, “I have heard all of that before!” Well that is GOOD for you if you believe it; but it will be EVIL for you if you fail to believe and reject it again!

Change your mind about Jesus, “that at the Name of Jesus Christ (one day soon) every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and of those under the earth. And every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.

Now if you are (and you are) going to make that confession anyway. Why not do it believing in Jesus. For it is appointed for men to die once (only once) but after this the judgment (for those who will die twice) and this is the “second death” recorded in Revelation 20:11-15.

 

Hebrews 9:28 - so Christ was offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin unto salvation.  Jesse <><