May God help us devise good

Proverbs {14:22} Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth [shall be] to them that devise good.

Mercy and truth.

Jesus came to earth as a human and with Him He brought mercy and truth personified. Our Savior's mercy saves us, the truth sets us free.

All through the Bible we hear of mercy and truth. God is love and love holds mercy and truth.

We might joke and say 'everything' good, but it's true. God is everything that is truly good.

'Mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.'

Good- devising good.

Here we go once more, the 'action' of a Christian.

Devising good. We need to devise good, so many devise evil.

Devise-
'To form, plan, or arrange in the mind; design or contrive'

What did Jesus say- Matthew '{5:27} Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: {5:28} But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'

Devising evil.

We need to pray to God to help us, to guide us, to forgive us and never leave us. We need to trust in Him whole-heartedly as a child trusts. God alone can enable us to be His, but we have to choose to let Him enable us. We have to focus on the good, dwell on the good, not *US* and our good works, make no mistake there. Pride is a sin. When we focus on the good, when we devise good, we are allowing God to live in us, work in us. If we find ourselves devising evil, if our thoughts are embroiled in thinking more bad than good, we need to shift our thought process or at least be willing to ask God to help us do that. It can be a problem for a lot of people- bad thoughts, very rarely do bad things take place without first having bad thoughts. I call them bad as if I've softened the real word and maybe I am. Evil. Very rarely do evil things take place without first having evil thoughts. The thought comes before the action. Jesus says just lusting is as bad as committing the act, so many might think that if they're guilty already they might as well do it. Is the 'act' worse than the 'thought'? It's the heart that matters. Evil thoughts need to be treated as sinful and we need to ask for forgiveness for those thoughts. We can't pat ourselves on the back and say- well at least I didn't do it. We have to realize the thought is evil as well and seek forgiveness for the thoughts.

It seems so hard sometimes, and 'too' hard at other times and that is what Satan wants. He wants us to say, this is just too confusing and too hard, I can't control my thoughts and everything, I just can't.

Well, that's true- we CAN'T. But we also can't give into Satan. We can't give up, we have to trust God and keep on trusting him. If there is a fight to be fought it's in keeping on trusting, keeping on with the faith, even when things seem the darkest. Giving up is automatic defeat when we give up to Satan. Giving up to Jesus, trusting in Jesus, is life, it's winning that race. We only win because Jesus won and we're trusting in His victory for us and not in ourselves.

If we love Jesus, we'll want to please Him. When you love someone you want to please them. Maybe you love only yourself- you want to please yourself, right?

We need to devise good.

May God help us devise good, by the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Amen.