Proverbs 10:2
Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit,
but righteousness delivers from death.
Usually when you see a proverb it tells you a straight up comparison between the righteous and the wicked. In this case, though, you’d need to take a little more time in the mind of the Teacher to get something of value.
I mean, the way I see it, you’d think that the second part of the verse would say something like, ‘treasures that are gained by righteousness profit’. Instead, it merely mentions just righteousness, and that it ‘delivers from death’, in comparison to wickedness that ‘does not profit’.
So is this to say that (1) there are no guarantees of any sort of treasure gained by righteousness, and/or (2) righteousness ITSELF is the treasure? And also, is it to say that wickedness does not deliver from death, and that righteousness profits? Or can we say that righteousness profits by way of delivering from death, just as the ‘treasures gained by wickedness’ do not profit, considering that they do not deliver from death?
I’m choosing to think that there is no profit to be made if there is death present. Or, we should consider that the wages of sin is death, and that sin is present in wickedness. With that said, any treasure gained by wickedness is surely laced with sin, and therefore laced with death.
Thankfully, for the believer, we have been declared righteous. This means (1) sin has been separated from us as the east is from the west, (2) we do not only HAVE righteousness, but we are righteous as the One with whom we are one is Himself righteous, and therefore (3) not only are we declared fully fused with righteousness, but righteousness unto eternal life. Besides any treasure we may gain, all that we do is in the presence of righteousness.
Surely, righteousness does deliver us from death. But so it also is the everlasting life in us, present in all that we do, far beyond the treasures we gain, far beyond any profits we perceive and declare with our own limited minds.
(scribbled while I was waiting for my car starter to be addressed and repaired)
I thought I’d be somewhere, laptop on and connected to the internet, coffee on one side. At least, that’s what I expected. Instead, I’m here having the car’s starter checked, and later on the repair guy is going to be doing a deep dive on the internal electronics under the dashboard of the car, to figure out where the short that’s messing up my starter is coming from.
I’m writing, and I guess I’m enjoying it. No better place for me to just get everything on my mind sorted out.
With that said I start all of this off with the usual:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
Choice words, for those of us who have the time to think about the elections; For those of us sitting still and calm, knowing that the people we voted for won. I also believe it is necessary for our brothers and sisters whose candidates lost. In fact, it’s really more for them. For see, in their apparent bitterness, anxiety, and confusion, they need to know:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
I pray that they – well, all of us, while I’m praying anyway – would understand that short sightedness behind strong emotions compared to the Truth of the endless love of the Lord, very present and very for them even in these times.
His mercies never come to an end.
In our seemingly merciless tirades of accusation, I pray that they would realize the accusations dealt to us, and how, even in all that, God’s everlasting mercy is greater still. It’s out of this same everlasting love and overwhelming mercy that I speak.
On one hand I’m thinking to live life how I usually do it in video games – that is, to take my time, and to build myself up to win.
On the other hand, I’m believing that the win of wins has been won by my King of kings, so what’s the point of building myself up?
I’ve tried to reconcile these two thoughts by saying that we ought to think of celebration of Christ as the motivation behind building ourselves us.
But what does it mean to celebrate Christ? I’m led to thinking that it’s to live for others, as Christ lives for us. I’ll be honest, as I write that I’m not as excited as I push myself to be.
I tell people, if you’re having trouble loving other people, take a look at how Christ loved you. What, then, does it mean to live for others, as Christ lives for me? What comes to mind when we say – when I say, Christ lives for me?
Does it mean that He lives in consideration of others? That He lives for others? That He does what He does, thinking of others?
When I asked, ‘what DOES He do?’ I ended up asking myself, ‘what DOES He do, apart from me?’
And for a moment I thought that sounded selfish, until I realized the other side of that question: ‘what DO I do, apart from Him?”
I gave some thought to it, checked on the progress of the repairs while I was at it. That’s when I realized there was something I wasn’t putting into consideration. There was, as I typed in my notes:
A glitch in the system.
Build. Train. R&D. That’s the mindset I developed from gaming.
But it appears that I’ve finally seen a flaw in this approach. Among the real life factors that are not applied in gaming, I’ve never really noticed until now that video games do not consider involving others in the development of the protagonist..
Well, that may be true, but it also probably means I’ve been playing a lot of single-player games, or matches against an AI versus another actual person. I’ve never even considered playing in online co-op… or, at least I haven’t been playing multiplayer for the longest time. Last time was college, really. But as it stands, sure, I may learn a lot, and a lot has already been fused into my mindset from single-player, but there is much learning to be out in the world, even if it is earlier shades of the metaverse, if only to interact with others.
I’ve been looking for a change in environment for the longest time, but I believe now that this also means a change, increasing the amount of interaction I have with the rest of humanity.
I don’t even know if I’m making any sense now, but I believe these are the moments to connect.
Certainly something worth the ponder.
Until tomorrow, God bless you.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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