“Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved: but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once” (Proverbs 28:18).
TEXT — Proverbs 28:9-18
Message
The story is told of a convenience store customer who pleaded with a cashier to change his twenty-dollar bill into four five-dollar bills. As soon as the cashier opened the cash register, the customer pulled a gun, demanding all the cash in the register. The petty thief ran away with his loot of less than ten dollars only to discover he left his twenty dollars with the cashier. He came back to the waiting hands of law enforcement agents. It speaks poignantly to the saying that The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine as illustrated in our passage today.
The text today contains a series of narration on actions and reactions as they relate to our existence here. It opens with the divine-human relationship. It affirms that righteousness and unrighteousness pay dividends, but not in a similar fashion. While righteousness delivers from trouble; guarantees divine assistance, wickedness and unrighteousness attract just divine displeasure and evil. Walking uprightly brings deliverance while perverseness leads to a fall.
We live in a time when crooked dealings and corrupt practices seem to pay supposed huge dividends. An unrighteous mammon with quick positive outcomes can be more attractive than pursuing the straight and narrow way that will earn us a more peaceful and enduring reward. Both divine and natural principles establish the reality that no action or inaction by anyone, for any reason, in any place, will go unrewarded. There is a reward for every action. If the believer can only consider the unfathomable nature of rewards awaiting the righteous, there should be no consideration for unrighteousness. The everlasting Father of grace and mercy always takes care of His own. If we belong to God through Christ’s saving grace, we have no reason to be anxious or to envy the wicked. God will surely reward the upright and punish the wicked unfailingly.
We must never forget that the same God who pays good dividends to the righteous is the One Who rewards evil doers without fail.
Thought for the day
Righteousness pays good dividends. Unrighteousness brings grievous punishment!
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
Thank you