Proverbs 21, 21 says, He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor. We live in a dog-eat-dog world. Everyone is out for themselves, out for number one. It's all about me. For nearly 40 years, one of the most popular print magazines was just titled Self. Since 2017, you can still find it at self.com. And you'll still find it's all about the reader living life to the fullest. The catch is they're deceived and deluded because the fact is when you live your life all about you, you aren't really living life to the fullest. And that's a major point in this proverb. After establishing what it means to follow after righteousness and to follow after mercy in the two previous proverbs, we now move on and are told that such a selfless life produces three positive consequences, beginning with number one, life, number two, righteousness, and number three, honor. We only have time to consider one of these positive consequences at a time in these short devotionals, so we begin with life. He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life. What does that mean? Obviously a person is already alive if they're conscious and considering what we're even talking about and the path they'll follow in their life. So it seems obvious that this is what we might call better living or the good life in the sense of the really good way to live. And what Jesus was speaking of when he said in John 10 10, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Jesus is talking to living people. They're alive in the flesh. They have life in that sense. But here, Jesus is saying, you're alive bodily, but you have yet to really have life in the ultimate and spiritual sense of the word. It's as John the Apostle wrote in John 1, 4. In him, speaking of Jesus, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. and the life that God wants for us is a full life that never ends, eternal life. You see, the only person that can truly follow after righteousness is the one who has received God's imputed righteousness and having His Holy Spirit within them, then acting out this new nature with the new Spirit of God in them. as he or she lives by the Word of God while under the control of the Spirit of God. And the only person that can truly follow after mercy is the one who has been shown mercy by God and received full forgiveness of his or her sins through no merit or works of their own. Only that person is fit for and available to God for his purposes of righteousness and mercy. And that person really lives life as God intended, with abundance, and only that person has eternal life. And again, it's that simple as John the Apostle wrote in 1 John 5, 12. He that hath the Son, S-O-N, hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, both in the practical sense, as your life in the flesh takes on a higher purpose with greater eternal significance, and in the spiritual sense, as those who live this life in the Son, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, will never die. Life is now a part of what and who you are as a born-again Christian. You will never die. Even when your fleshly body gives out and you take that last dying breath, you, the real you, lives. As he said while speaking to Martha in John 11, 25, and 26, we read, Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? That's the question. And I can only answer for me. But I tell you, I believe.