PROVERBS - "WORDS TO LIVE BY"

Good Evening to All!

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverse mouth I hate.
Proverbs 8:13

The devotion I read tonight spoke about a woman who joined a church and within a short time became a key figure in running the programs and events. Although she did a good job and everything she did was successful, eventually people started backing away from her and not supporting her efforts due to her attitude. She constantly was talking about all of the good "she" had done and how talented "she" was. She really messed up, because not only did the church members stop wanting to have anything to do with her, but she seemed to forget who she was doing it for. She should have been wanting to please God, not doing it because it would earn her respect or praise. Pride can do SO MUCH DAMAGE to us, and it can happen before we know it. We must always keep a check on our attitudes and remember who should get the credit and honor at all times.

To really understand fully what this verse is saying, we must understand the word "fear" in this context.

According to the Hayford Bible Handbook, fear is defined as a godly emotion, feeling of reverence, awe, and respect toward the Almighty, or an unpleasant emotion caused by natural circumstance of supernatural assault. Fear may be either healthy of harmful.

A healthy fear is reverence or respect, and older translations use this word in this way (Leviticus. 19:3; Ephesians 5:33; 6:5).

The scriptures declare that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge"
(Proverbs 1:7) as well as the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 16:16) thereby indicating the propriety and righteousness of a sense of awe before God and His Word.

With this in mind, let's look at the Key Scripture again. It says "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. This tells me if I respect God, then I will hate everything He hates, such as all things evil, pride, and arrogance as well as a perverse mouth. The dictionary defines perverse as being turned away from what is right or good : corrupt, improper. (2) obstinate in opposing what is right, reasonable, or accepted.

I know what you are probably thinking. We tend to think of "evil" as being sins such as murder, thievery, witchcraft, satanism and so on. We have a hard time realizing that "patting ourself on the back, searching for attention or recognition, boasting and so forth are "evil", but here is a way to understand it better. The OPPOSITE of good is evil. Therefore if something is not good, then it has to be evil. There is NO in between. just as there is no in between for right and wrong. If it's not right, then it is wrong. There are no gray areas of sin. Sin is sin. God doesn't say well this sin is worse than that one. They are all equal. However I will stick my neck out and say there is only ONE sin that cannot be forgiven, and that is blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.

To step further on on my limb, I will say if we LOVE God as we should if we are true Christians, then this is another way to show our love for Him.

You would show respect to your employer or parent by watching how you speak to them. Talk to them with kindness and not use foul language, or with a hateful attitude. You wouldn't tell your parents that you don't believe in them, that you don't appreciate them, so why would you do that to God? He deserves just as much (actually MORE) respect. He even says that we should love Him more than our families or we aren't worthy of Him.

I know in this day and time, it is so commonplace for all of the above attitudes to be prevalent in society and it's hard to walk away from them, but we must. I know it is hard to interrupt someone while they are speaking and say I really wish you wouldn't use that language, or I'm sorry but I prefer not to listen to gossip and walk away,but we must.

We have to let Satan know that God is strong in our lives and that we respect God too much to listen to anything Satan has to say. When people are doing any of the things or showing the wrong kind of pride, and acting arrogantly, we must remember it isn't the person, it is the spirit inside of them that is coming out. Therefore we don't want to be mean and hateful to that person, we must explain why we are telling them these things with the love of God in our hearts.

For every mean way to say something, I am sure there are many more nice and tactful ways to get our points across.

We must be diligent in turning away from the abominations of God. If we are to live in eternity with Him, we know that sin will not enter in, so we must flee from it, and turn toward God.

We must work on being more humble. There is no such thing as being too humble. If you aren't sure of your level of pride, then become more humble. You won't be kept from heaven from being too humble, but you can be banned from heaven for eternity for being too proud, too arrogant.

Good Night to All and May God Bless!