Theological Commentary: Click Here
Proverbs 21 gives
us a really neat opening. “Every way of
a man is right in his own eyes.” This is
completely true. Our actions and our
words stem from our heart. When we do
something, it is because in the moment we are convinced we need to do it! Sure, we might go back and reflect on our
words and discover an error in our decision-making process. But in the moment, everything we do or say is
done because we convinced ourselves it was worth doing or saying.
“But the
Lord weighs the heart.” In other words,
when we do something, God knows why we did it.
In those moments when we convince ourselves to pursue evil, God knows
our hearts. He knows the lie that we
chose to believe. He knows our inner
darkness. In truth, He knows us better
than ourselves because we choose to believe the lie! He knows the truth.
“To do
righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” This proverb is the natural extension of the
prior proverb. Why would God accept a
sacrifice from a person who only appears to be righteous on the outside? Anyone can give a sacrifice. True righteousness comes from the heart, not one’s
actions.
“Haughty
eyes and a proud heart – the lamp of the wicked – are sin.” Here we come to the crux of the issue. Pride comes from the heart. A haughty attitude comes from the heart. This is why God cares about our heart. If our heart is right, our actions will
follow. When our heart is not right, we
will see ourselves as right but willingly head down the path of sin.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment