Proverbs 24:27-29 says,...

Today's verses are Proverbs 24:27-29, which read,

v. 27 - Prepare your work outside and make it ready for yourself in the field; afterwards, then, build your house.

This is a very practical proverb that is not followed often in our world.  We want everything right now.  A very economical dwelling place was a tent.  You would live in a tent while you worked the fields until you had the money from the harvest to build a home.  The order in which things are done here is the wisdom to be followed.  Many times we build the house with the hope of the resources later to come to pay for it.  

I would like to stretch this beyond the obvious.  There are many times that we don't do the preparation work needed but want the final product.  We don't work the field and live in the tent for awhile before obtaining the home.  Or we obtain the final product by some other means and lose the opportunities of the benefits of the proper hard work to appreciate it and take care of it.  We want too much too fast.  We think that the house or the thing we desire is going to answer all of our problems and fulfill all of our desires.  What if the problems are answered in the working of the field?  What if the desires are fulfilled or maybe even changed while living in the tent?  

Don't overstep the step of hard work and preparation to achieve something.  Be it physical, emotional, mental, financial, or spiritual.  The growth comes in the work and many times changes the final outcome to be better than what you first were envisioning.

v. 28, 29 - Do not be a witness against your neighbor without cause, and do not deceive with your lips.  Do not say, "Thus I shall do to him as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work."

Another proverb to be observed today and every day is to not be a false witness of another.  In Bible days, if you were caught being a false witness then you received the punishment requirement of the one who was being accused.  So if they were up for murder and the punishment was death and you were a false witness and found out then you were given the death penalty.  This was a great system to ward off lying on the stand.  This is why it was so hard to find a couple false witnesses to speak against Jesus at His trial before the cross and why the leaders who were against Him offered money and probably protection to those who would do so.  

There are times when we will have to testify but make sure it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Proverbs 14:5 says, "A trustworthy witness will not lie, but a false witness utters lies."  Proverbs 19:5 says, "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who tells lies will not escape."  We also have plenty of other scriptures throughout the Bible which reinforce this wisdom along with the wrong motive of revenge against another.  Momma's words are ringing in my ears right now that two wrongs never make a right.  If you want to see the right then live the right in the midst of the wrong.

To want revenge usually means that something has been done wrong to you.  If it is something that is wrong then we have procedures set up by authorities that we need to avail ourselves to rather than taking matters into our own hands.  We also have measures set up in the church to handle matters according to the Scriptures rather than spreading gossip or slandering another of the flock.  It is not that wrong would go unaddressed but that those who are wise will follow God's wisdom in the procedures of addressing it to uphold what is holy.  Back to the first proverb, we usually go for the end of getting even, the house, before working the field and living in the tent of His principles to see a better outcome.  Let us pray.

"Lord help us to not just be patient but to live holy lives while working to see what will come of it.  May you change our house plans as we work in the fields to be what You want us to have rather than what we think we should have.  May we desire Your house for us, Your plan for our lives.  May we follow truth rather than jump to lies to get our way or get back at another who has wronged us.  Amen."

Pastor Adam