Sorry for the delay this morning. We are in Minnesota celebrating the birth of our second grandchild, Lindsay Alice Groen, and Pastor John Strain has been forwarding me the daily FF's from Proverbs that he is writing. For some reason we didn't the one for today. Here it is . . .
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. Proverbs 15:3
Too many men live hidden lives. We keep secrets. We maintain appearances that don't truly reflect our hearts. Many of us actually think we're really good at it. "Nobody knows and nobody needs to know" is often our thinking.
This line from Proverbs strips us of our secrecy. All the people who know us may not know our secrets, but God does. Those who struggle with life-dominating sins that they think are secret need to wrestle with this revelation. Try as we may to hide, it's impossible to hide anything from God.
This reality brings us back to the beginning of our thinking in Proverbs. Do you remember "the fear of the Lord?" Pursuing the fear of the Lord-that humble, obedient spirit that puts God first-makes Proverbs 15:3 incredibly important.
We try to hide from our wives, co-workers, friends at church, etc. We really live, however, for an audience of one. Someone has said that what we do when no one is watching reveals our true character. That statement has one huge problem; someone is always watching!
All of us who live with the "residue of the flesh" sometimes want to satisfy that flesh. Knowing that God always sees us ought to motivate us to flee from evil whenever it comes near us. Resisting and fleeing make sense because we know evil is dangerous. We know it will do us damage rather than good. Most of all, however, we flee from evil because God sees us. If we choose not to flee from evil, we run the risk of hurting God. For all of us, that's just unacceptable.
When we nurture those addictions that plague our lives, we live in a fantasy world. We think we're OK; no one will ever know. Proverbs 15:3 is real-world truth. We're never OK when we do wrong. We're never going to do wrong without that "audience of one" knowing. So, let's quit fooling ourselves. Let's make sure that what the Lord sees from our lives is good, not evil.
Don't forget: We have no secrets from the all-knowing God!
Good word for today!!!
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