Moderation

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

MODERATION

Prov 25:16-17

16 If you find honey, eat just enough — too much of it, and you will vomit. 17 Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house — too much of you, and he will hate you.

NIV

In one word, moderation. We have already been warned many times throughout the scriptures about the glutton. Way too many of us believers make such a big deal about not drinking wine or other adult beverages and smoking but are what many doctors would consider obese. The only reason we are overweight for the most part is the overuse of food. We have eaten way more honey than is, just enough. The problem is we are not vomiting, we are storing up all that fat on our bodies. Maybe, just a thought, this storing up for the future could apply to the large amount of fat and calories we consume. The scripture says we are not to store up, but pray for our daily food, our daily needs. Well, that is just a thought, but the truth here in this proverb certainly deals directly with doing things such as eating in moderation. It also deals with being with the same people all the time as well. That neighbor’s home refers to the being with the same person over and over again, which implies we do not spend any time making new friends. In fact we can wear out our welcome with that neighbor. Could this also apply to that age old adage, “Us four and no more”? That certainly means that we can get really introspective in our little clique, keeping to only socializing with that select few. How are we to spread the gospel message if we only hang around the same group of believer all the time? This could also be applied to another age old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt” The definition of this phrase is interesting. Extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it. If we only associate with the same people all the time, sooner or later we see the real them, their faults, their failures in character, their wrong attitudes, in general their sin. It would take a very spiritual person to overlook all that and continue to respect them. This of course applies to us as well. If we allow others to always be around us they might well see all our faults and lose respect for us. This is why we believers pray that they will forgive us as we forgive them. But the world is not like that. So then we should be careful to not become too friendly with the world and hang around it too much, for it will begin to hate us, lose respect for us. Now that hanging around with it, may not to mean we do not engage the non-believer with the message of the gospel, but it means we do not hang with the world or be like it, live the same type of lifestyle. Many in the world know we are believers, at least they should. They are watching us to see if we live up to what we profess. If we become too familiar with the way they live, and things they do and attitude they have and begin to mimic some of those, they will lose respect, may actually not hate us, but hate who we represent because of our hypocrisy. So let us live in moderation, both in eating of honey and our association with others.