Walk Of Life – Day 8, October 2020, Thoughts From the Book of Proverbs

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. Proverbs 8 : 13

The theme verse in most of the Christian schools is “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and probably the first verse to be memorized by many. This verse speaks of the blessing that proceeds when we fear the Lord. Whereas the verse that we have taken for our today’s thought portrays on the action that we have to do when we fear the Lord. That is to hate evil.

What is evil?
Evil, in a general sense, is the opposite or absence of good, so says Wikipedia. All immoral values are evil. The author jots down four evil things that he hates.
1. Pride
2. Arrogance
3. Way of evil
4. Perverted Speech

Certainly, the Lord hates them as well. These are not new thoughts to us but it is good to learn as the Lord intends to teach us.

Pride:-
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” – Proverbs 16:18

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” – James 4:6

“Humble yourselves before the lord, and He will exalt you.” James 4:10

The above mentioned verses and there are many in the list insisting on the vile of Pride. This pride comes into our heart even before we could analyse it as a sin. Not only in physical context but also in spiritual context. We tend to have pride with the number of years we are being used by the Lord in His church for singing, ministering the word, playing instruments, translating, ministering to the children or youth and so on. Let us be alert. Let us cleanse our heart and mind frequently so that we will learn daily to be submissive and humble before our Lord and in turn to be humble before other fellow human beings.

Arrogance:

This is more or less equivalent to pride but pride can be hidden within whereas arrogance will be deliberate in actions. It is the manner in which pride is exposed. Arrogance leads to vulgar arguments and ill-treating others. It makes one stubborn to achieve something they want to achieve through haughty ways.
The word of God vividly gives us the ways of living a life without arrogance.
Respecting others – “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves”- Philippians 2:3

Being polite & courteous – “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person”- Colossians 10:27

Loving one another – “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude” – 1 Corinthians 13:4
May we be filled with a soft and tender spirit.

Way of Evil :-

All ways that are not good, that displeases the Lord are the ways of evil. The closer we walk with the Lord and the nucleus of it is given in a nut shell in Proverbs 6: 12-15
“A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, scrapes with his feet, points with his finger,
With perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord;
Therefore, calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.
A wicked man is considered as a worthless person in the sight of the Lord. Thanks be to our Saviour for turning all of us from our sinful ways by washing our sins with the blood of the lamb that was slain for us. If at all anyone has not turned away from being evil, now is the time to repent for our evil ways and to lead a life worthy before our Lord.

Perverted Speech:-

This is something which is improper or incorrect, contradictory to the truth. Many vices can be covered in this topic like telling lies, gossiping, bearing false witness, changing the content and so on.
“he who is perverted in his language falls into evil.” – Proverbs 17:20

“A soothing tongue is a tree of life, But perversion in it crushes the spirit.” – Proverbs 15:4

Let this be our prayer.

“A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will know no evil.” – Psalm 101:4

Shall we once again take this opportunity to cross check our lives. Do we really have the fear of God? If the answer yes, we should for sure hate the above four evils that we meditated. I thank God for being gracious to remind us these lessons again and again.