Day 312, Year 1

Receive Truth from Wisdom

“For my mouth will speak truth; Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.” (Proverbs 8:7 NKJV)

The “truth” in the above verse is from the Hebrew word ’emeth. The scripture means the mouth of God uttering abomination to wickedness. Similarly, we need to hate evil and eliminate all problems of dishonesty and untruthfulness. This is only half of the work, and the other half is to nurture our love for truth and wisdom. The Bible is God’s breath (2 Timothy 3:16); so, we need to know, understand, comprehend, remember, and obey His truth. God’s truth can dramatically change the dishonesty, unfairness, false beliefs, unbiblical doctrines, and distorted emotions in us.

The opposite of honesty and truth is lying, falsity, evil, and wickedness. In other words, doing evil with sincerity is also the opposite of honesty or truth. We cannot attain God’s truth without abhorring evil. Or, we cannot love dishonesty and yet be free from dishonesty. And before a person hates evil, he or she must know how to distinguish between good and evil. We usually need a prayerful heart to receive God’s guidance so as to discern good from evil in various issues.

To successfully discern evil and good, we must not only hate evil judgments or doctrines, but also have the right hatred for evil and wickedness. Often, people who have lived in wickedness for years find it difficult to hate it. Thus, we must have the greatest determination to ask Jesus for help in changing our emotions and speech so as to unite our emotions with His truth in us, and also value spiritual receptions from God. One way to embark on this path of change is to express our hatred and disgust for wickedness according to the Scripture. We are sometimes forgetful, but it is not easy to forget what has been seriously talked about many times. This means two things. First, we are not to say anything about loving or delighting in any evil. Second, we condemn all evils with our words.

If we fail to condemn evil and wickedness, it is easy for others to mistakenly think that believers approve of evil and wickedness, and this allows evil spirits to be at work further. When we condemn evil by speaking, right emotions slowly grow. And doing so is not brainwashing, but counter-brainwashing. It is because when we become accustomed to allowing evil within us, we will also become emotionally distorted and tolerate evil. But when we continue to condemn evil, our conscience will be awakened. Then, we will have greater motivation to turn away from evil, thus giving birth to right hatred for evil and wickedness, just as God’s.

Reflection questions:

1) Do you feel that you love the truth and honesty, while you hate evil and wickedness? Why?

2) Are you willing to verbally condemn evil and wickedness so that your conscience is sharpened more and more?