PERFECT AND UPRIGHT

Proverbs 2:21-22


Thoughts for the Day

These verses are a wonderful promise for God's people. The first verse says that the upright and the perfect shall dwell in the land and remain in it. This is a great promise of protection and also is a promise that the devil cannot run us off of the land that the Lord has placed us in. What makes a person upright and perfect? The Bible calls us righteous or upright when we have accepted the Lord Jesus as our savior, and we walk in His will. When it speaks of perfect, this is speaking to us to be like Jesus and our Heavenly Father.

In the New Testament, we read this scripture: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).Immediately, we think that there is no way we can be perfect.The Bible would never tells us to be something that we could not be. The Bible meaning of perfect is better rendered mature. The Lord does not want us to remain immature and get in the flesh, and do things that are unbecoming as His followers. He wants us to grow up and be perfect or mature. He wants us to stand in His righteousness and not our own.

Notice that verse 22 tells us that it is the wicked that shall be cut off and removed from the earth, not the righteous. The Bible says in Psalm 24:1: "A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." God and His people will eventually inhabit the earth, and it will be the devil's followers who will be removed.

In the Lord's prayer, Jesus prayed, "They kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven." The Lord wants to demonstrate His will and kingdom in this earth to all people and the way He wants to do it, is for each of His people to demonstrate the will of God in their lives. He wants our light to shine in this dark world.

Matthew 13:41-43: "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."