Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Proverbs 27:17-22
Prov 27:17-22
17 Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. 18 Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who guards his master will be honored. 19 As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man. 20 Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man. 21 The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise. 22 Crush a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him.
Luke 6:43-45
For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Our heart portrays our true character. This is who we really are. This is us without the façade or the net draped over our actions or what we say. In the Bible there are two kinds of people. There are those who trust God and serve him and there are those who do not trust him and therefore, do not serve him. There is no in-between, “sort of good” or “sort of bad” as we like to classify people.
It is true that some of us work harder at living out what is inside, while it seems that others just do what is right without any effort. What this usually indicates is that one person is tempted by things that show more outwardly than what the other is tempted by and maybe actually gives in to doing. What we do not see is the faith of the person who is struggling or the constant battle that rages inside of them. We are not walking in their shoes so we cannot understand the depth of their trust in God and desire to obey him or the magnitude of their temptations.
This is one of the reasons why Jesus said that we are to get the log out of our own eye before we start trying to get the speck of sawdust out of the eye of another person. When I try to get a splinter out of my finger, I put on two pairs of reading glasses to see it clearly. This is how we need to look at our lives before we start judging others or trying to fix all of their problems. We don’t know their heart.
O Lord God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for being patient with me as you allow your Spirit to mold me into your image. I know that on this earth I will never be just like Jesus, but I also know that in eternity, I will be like him in a glorified body. Hallelujah! Praise the name of Jesus! Thank you for being willing to forgive me when I fail and for giving me wisdom and strength to do better. Increase my faith as I re-commit my life to you every day. I pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
