When I was a kid, I faithfully watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I collected the action figures and even had the Turtle Van with the pizza thrower. Every episode I remember, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo fighting the evil plotting and scheming of Shredder and Krang. Oh, that was good TV. With each story, the “bad guys” seemed to always want to take over and rule with world domination. They devised evil plans and attempted their take over relentlessly. We don’t live in a world with a large brain-like alien creature dividing evil plans… or do we?
Scheming, devising, and plotting evil is one of the things God hates, according to Proverbs 6:16-19.
Number Four: God hates a heart that devises wicked plans
Hearts that are imagining ways to bring evil to fruition are in complete opposition to God. Evil is sown in the mind before it is ever reaped in the field of action. Before you see the reality of evil, it was in the mind of someone who thought it up. The law of our land judges sin and evil according to the act (we don’t live in the Minority Report). But, God judges us according to the evil of our hearts. Jesus says, “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). He also teaches, in the sermon on the mount, we should not even let anger get the best of us and cause us to do something we might regret (Matthew 5:21-26). It what is in the heart that God is most concerned about.
We live in a time when the imaginations of men and women are evil in God’s sight. Evil surrounds us, and the Bible tells us that God hates it. No person with an evil imagination can be, nor remain in the kingdom of God. When evil hearts think up evil plots and schemes, it leads to evil actions and sinful habits. These habits lead us to bondage, and bondage leads to death. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). The outcome of such a thing that God hates leads to destruction.
Instead, let’s be a people that imagine good wholesome God-honoring plans. God will love it.
More to come…
I love you,
Alexander
Do you remember these?
