Proverbs 11:20
“Those who are of a perverse heart are an abomination to the Lord….”
To be of a “perverse heart” is to think and therefore speak fraudulently. It is to pervert the truth. Perverting the truth can be- but is not usually out and out lying. More often than not, the thought is not purely true, and it is not purely a lie- usually it is a mixture. This is what the Bible calls “double minded.” It is the mixing of the truth with anything that God has not said or that is not actually the case that will cause double-mindedness. For instance, the Bible says in 1 Peter 2:24 that “by His stripes you were healed.” A perverse thought would be that you believe because your mother and your grandmother had a disease, that you will get that same disease. This is perverse because it is a mixture of what has happened with something that goes against what God said. It is true that your mother and grandmother both had that disease, but it is not true that you will be diagnosed with it too because God told you that He healed ALL of your diseases! To allow human facts to deny the truth of what God has instructed us, promised us, or told us is a perverse heart. In James 1:6, we can see that if we ask God for something {in this case wisdom} we are to ask in faith. If there is any doubt at all that God will manifest the answer, we are immediately of a perverse heart. Basically when we doubt we are saying one of two things. Either we are saying inside ourselves that whatever answer we need; God is not willing or able to respond. Or we are saying that we somehow don’t “deserve” the answer, and this of course is the spirit of Antichrist. This spirit says that we receive things from God on our own merit and so if we don’t receive something it’s because we fell short somewhere- this completely discounts the fact that we are in Christ and it is with His righteousness we approach and receive from God.
Our study verse states that people who have perverse hearts or who are “double-minded” are abominations to the Lord. This does not mean that He hates them. In fact, it is not even a personal response. To understand this idea, look at the man that brought his son to the disciples to be healed but they could not cast out the demon. The man said finally to Jesus- “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” {Mark 9:24} If God hated anyone who had unbelief -or doubt- then this boy would have never been healed. No the man humbled himself and told God the truth and the mercy of God showed up! There is a spiritual law that God has built into the system that is a law and is not personal. This is the law of humility and grace. In short, unbelief is pride- it is a feeling that God will refuse to answer our prayer or meet our need based on outside circumstances- it is essentially perverting the mind. The law of humility and grace states that God resist the proud and gives grace to the humble. This is another way of stating Proverbs 11:20- “Those who are prideful in their minds and speech by allowing what they see around them to tell them what God can and cannot do bring on themselves resistance from the grace of God and they short circuit all of the promises of God. But those who are willing to believe God more than anything they observe or hear from the natural world around them are humble and will receive His grace!”
Essentially Proverbs 11:20 and James 1:6 are saying the same thing- Allowing our circumstances to dictate our faith will stop our faith from changing our circumstances!!
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