Yesterday’s few verses in Proverbs included this, which I want to share:
Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless – Proverbs 13:6
I read that, which is similar to a few other Proverbs I’ve read recently, and this time I asked the Spirit how this was so. How it worked.
He immediately reminded me of another verse that I have often found noteworthy:
Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
So a curse without cause does not alight. – Proverbs 26:2
This verse will mean nothing to you if you do not believe in blessing and curse and the power of both. Some people believe in curses but have no faith in the power of a blessing, and others believe the other way around. I believe in the power of both… and I believe what the Bible says:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants… – Deuteronomy 30:19
Death and life are in the power of the tongue – Proverbs 18:21
But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God. – James 3:8-9
This, then, could lead to fear, for we all know that people can and will say things against us… which is, I think, why God wants us to know this truth:
Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
So a curse without cause does not alight. – Proverbs 26:2
Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless – Proverbs 13:6
What righteousness is God talking about? I believe it is both kinds:
1) The righteousness that we inherit because Jesus paid the price for our sin and “became to us righteousness” “so that we might become the righteousness of God“. This is a position of righteousness that becomes ours through faith which we receive as a gift.
2) The righteousness that we walk out “in fear and trembling” as we are transformed and learn to be holy in our conduct through the power of His grace. This is the constant changing in our life that is a result of His Spirit and life within us, for as Paul says, how can the one who has received the righteousness and grace that Jesus gives continue to walk in sin?
These two sides of righteousness are important to understand, for one without the other isn’t complete.
But oh, the promise and security that Proverbs says is available to those who rest in the righteousness that Jesus gives us and walk in the righteousness that His grace leads is in!
This righteousness protects us from the schemes of the evil one!