Proverbs 12:20
Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil:
But to the counsellors of peace is joy.
We were originally created in God’s image, that is, in God’s character. We were made to emulate God’s virtues; be His representation on the earth; the most perfect of His creations. As the influence of sin filled us, we became less and less like Him. After only fifteen hundred years, the earth was filled with violence and all had to be destroyed except the family of one man who was said to be righteous in his generation. From the dawn of creation, the ‘image of God’ on earth has been in peril.
We were created to represent God, to think and emulate His thoughts. When we do anything else like when we imagine evil, our heart is full of the deceit of God’s enemy, from the one Yehoshuah called the father of lies. When we want to exert vengeance; when we want to solve deficit through a less that totally ‘kosher’ financial scheme; when we grudge the sharing of our increase; whenever we rationalize God’s commandments so we don’t have to obey them, we imagine sin which is evil. And when we imagine sin, evil comes out of us; and the evil that comes out of us eventually comes back to us. The evil imagined in our heart contributes to the decadence of God’s image of virtue through us, as well as of our health.
By way of contrast, this proverb teaches us that instead of moral decadence and of the onset of disease caused by the imagination of deceit, we can be a healthy copy of God with joy in our hearts. This proverbs reminds us that through the counsel of peace, that is counsel originated not from the imagination of our hearts but from that which comes through the influence of other godly people or through God’s Words, we return to the healthy image of God that we are supposed to emulate.
May we take a minute today and check our hearts. Are our thoughts towards God’s ways as taught us in His Words? Do we rationalize His commands so we, like in a cafeteria, pick and chose what we agree or disagree with in what He asks of us? As we comfort our aches with pills in time of sickness, do we avoid asking ourselves if it perhaps our ill health is the result of wrong actions, a wrong way of life or wrong thought patterns? Is the lack of peace in our hearts due to our kicking against the ‘pricks’ of our conscience, of God’s voice in us? Does He, like He did to Paul, have to cast us to the ground from our high and mighty horse, make us blind, vulnerable and at the mercy of others before we start living a life that emulates what He originally formed in us?
Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil:
But to the counsellors of peace is joy.
We were originally created in God’s image, that is, in God’s character. We were made to emulate God’s virtues; be His representation on the earth; the most perfect of His creations. As the influence of sin filled us, we became less and less like Him. After only fifteen hundred years, the earth was filled with violence and all had to be destroyed except the family of one man who was said to be righteous in his generation. From the dawn of creation, the ‘image of God’ on earth has been in peril.
We were created to represent God, to think and emulate His thoughts. When we do anything else like when we imagine evil, our heart is full of the deceit of God’s enemy, from the one Yehoshuah called the father of lies. When we want to exert vengeance; when we want to solve deficit through a less that totally ‘kosher’ financial scheme; when we grudge the sharing of our increase; whenever we rationalize God’s commandments so we don’t have to obey them, we imagine sin which is evil. And when we imagine sin, evil comes out of us; and the evil that comes out of us eventually comes back to us. The evil imagined in our heart contributes to the decadence of God’s image of virtue through us, as well as of our health.
By way of contrast, this proverb teaches us that instead of moral decadence and of the onset of disease caused by the imagination of deceit, we can be a healthy copy of God with joy in our hearts. This proverbs reminds us that through the counsel of peace, that is counsel originated not from the imagination of our hearts but from that which comes through the influence of other godly people or through God’s Words, we return to the healthy image of God that we are supposed to emulate.
May we take a minute today and check our hearts. Are our thoughts towards God’s ways as taught us in His Words? Do we rationalize His commands so we, like in a cafeteria, pick and chose what we agree or disagree with in what He asks of us? As we comfort our aches with pills in time of sickness, do we avoid asking ourselves if it perhaps our ill health is the result of wrong actions, a wrong way of life or wrong thought patterns? Is the lack of peace in our hearts due to our kicking against the ‘pricks’ of our conscience, of God’s voice in us? Does He, like He did to Paul, have to cast us to the ground from our high and mighty horse, make us blind, vulnerable and at the mercy of others before we start living a life that emulates what He originally formed in us?
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