He who diligently seeks good seeks favor, but he who seeks evil, evil will come to him.

 Proverbs 11:27

In the middle section of Proverbs lies a mountain of verses that use comparisons and contrasts to illustrate God’s principles for His Creation. It’s pretty basic. Humans can choose to follow God’s principles or they can choose not to follow God’s principles. These principles are actually part of our moral fabric which God instilled in all of us when He created Adam and Eve, it is called conscious. Every human ever created in the womb has a conscious and we, as said created humans, can choose to nurture our conscious with goodness (God’s ways) thus benefiting our entire being and our society. Or we can choose to feed our conscious with evil (The Evil One/Satan’s ways) and sear our conscious which will result in a slow and meticulous starvation of our very being.

According to Proverbs 11:27, our conscious is not neutral. It is not an empty slate. It was originally created as good, in fact, very good. But the first two humans sinned (chose evil) and the slow and meticulous starvation of the human conscious began. Ever since that original sin, there has been a battle, an all-out warfare, for our conscious and our soul! God empowers us, through the Gospel (Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and His bold resurrection from the grave) to feed our conscious with good, enabling us to win daily battles over sin and evil within us. Satan, entices us to keep feeding evil into our conscious and continue the slow and meticulous starvation of our conscious, bringing evil consequences to us personally and, all too often, even into the culture! 

I think of it this way. Food! Our body needs food. It is the fuel for every system within us. It is fuel for our organs, brain, skin, bones, muscles, all the senses and even for the tiniest of microbes. There are all types of foods with hundreds of creative variations that entice us to eat. If we don’t eat food, our whole self will be starved and, if that course of not eating isn’t changed, we will die and probably sooner than expected. So, we eat. We are designed to eat food. Our stomach tells us when it is time to eat. Our senses, and our minds, and emotions grab the enticing properties of food which compel us to eat food. 

And that is the key! It isn’t just our physical body that compels us to eat; it is our senses, and mind and emotions that dictate the choosing of which foods we will eat. I smell the yummy aroma of baking bread and all of who I am compels me to eat that bread. The next day, I smell boiling cabbage and all of who I am runs screaming from the house! I have a very strong aversion to cooked cabbage. Just sayin’ J I always hear the call of the Oreos and chips inside my cupboard. Rarely do I hear the call of brussel sprouts and yogurt from inside the fridge! But the Oreos and chips, even though food, are not nutritious for what my body and mind need for good growth and health. A few Oreos now and then won’t kill me, but a full diet of Oreos, chips and their compatriots, (the addictions to these) and I will suffer the slow and meticulous consequences that will kill me. 

The same is true of my conscious! The world is full and overflowing with ‘food’ for my conscious and it all clamors for my attention and for my consumption. God gives a panorama of great and good ‘food’ for my conscious, but sometimes it just doesn’t seem quite as fun and adventurous as the offerings of Satan. The Evil One’s ‘food’ gives immediate gratification, just like the Oreos. It is called the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. (1 John 2:16) These three world-approved ‘foods’ do feed our conscious and they don’t seem to have any immediate consequences. But, and this is a big but, they are addictive and relentless and empty. The more I partake of these ‘foods’ the more my conscious dies to God and His goodness. I convince myself that just one more world-approved ‘food’ and then I can get back to God. But, that getting back to God never seems to come. Over time, I don’t think about God very much. And eventually my conscious is seared and doesn’t seek God and His goodness at all!

But God! And as long as God holds back the end of this time and season, there is always a “But, God” for each and every one us! In this section of 31 Days in Proverbs we will see God’s “But” and how we can always choose good over evil!