Recently, my wife and I have purchased some patio furniture for our deck at our home. One beautiful Saturday morning after I had bought breakfast for my wife and son, she hits me with the proposition, "I want to eat breakfast on the deck". There's one caveat necessary here in order to make this achievable: I had to take the furniture out of the box and fix the table. Thirty or so minutes later, I had completed constructing the table and now we were able to eat on the deck. Two weeks later, I go out and try to move the table and next thing you know, it falls apart. Much to my chagrin, I had to re-construct the table and this time, it will not fall apart on me again. If truth were told, we have all tried to fix something and come to find out, we eventually had to go back and fix it again. It's important to strive and do things the right way. God challenges us, as men and women of God, to do things the right way. Today's text provides clarity on why one should do things the right way.
Within Chapter 12, Solomon dealt with many issues, as he has throughout this book. Some of these issues include discipline, the worth of a good wife, how to be a real person instead of a fake one, and the distinction between a righteous man and an unrighteous man. Within this particular text, Solomon allows us to understand the worth of doing things the right way. He begins the text by saying, "In the way of righteousness there is life". Do you remember when you were a child and you got in trouble in school and knew if your parents found out that you had to deal with their wrath? Have you ever been in a situation where you have done individuals so wrong that you would do your best not to hang around them? Have you done God so wrong that you knew His wrath was coming amongst you? Well, if you answered yes to any one of these questions, then you get the gist of this part of the text. Unrighteousness causes us not to feel favorable. It has like a "deathly" feel around us. On the other hand, when you operate righteously, there's life! When you serve God with the right Spirit, then you have a joy that the world did not give you nor the world cannot take away! When you serve others the right way, God has a way of using them to bless you like you have never been blessed before! When you operate in righteousness and do the right things to progress you and your family, God will open up life's doors like never before so you can explore places and do things you only dreamed of! I can recall serving God at my home church in Greensboro while going through graduate school and my Ph.D. program. As I served God in the right way, He provided me the chance to visit places like Monterey, California, Reno, Nevada, Tucson, Arizona, Chicago, Illinois, and other places on the school's dime where I did not have to pay one red cent! Doing things the right way has a way of paying off!
Not only does doing things the right way provide life, but if you keep going down this road, there's even a greater payoff! Solomon concludes the text by saying, "along that path is immortality". Brothers and sisters, if we continue to do things the right way, Heaven will be our destination! Yes, we have sinned and come short of His glory (Romans 3:23), but that does not stop us or impede our progress of traveling down this road of righteousness! Granted, we will experience a detour, here and there. We will detour down the street of fornication! We will detour down the street of backbiting! We will detour down the street of tattling! We will detour down the street of disappointment! One thing about it, when you are striving to get to your destination, you'll either MapQuest it or use your GPS (the Word of God) to get you back on the right road! Aren't you glad that He gave you a GPS, just in case you get lost!
In closing, it would've been right for me if I had put the table together the right way the first time. The blessing is I had the opportunity to do it right. Many of us have made initial mistakes on things, but aren't you glad that God gave you a second chance, a third chance, and many more chances after that? When you do things the right way, it brings life and its path leads to immortality! Don't you want to be immortal down the road? If so, continue to do things and live your life the right way!
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