THE UPRIGHT: God's Delight

"The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is His delight". Proverbs 15:8

To be upright is to be strictly honest;to have integrity. It is to be just and faithful. An upright man says what he means and means what he says.
God always seek to drink from the well of the upright. He loves to have fellowship with such. When the upright opens his mouth to praise God, God gets excited because praise from the upright is beautiful(Ps. 33:1). The NIV puts Psalm 33:1 this way: "... It is fitting for the upright to praise Him." Conversely, it means, it isn't fitting for the crooked to praise Him. Anything done by the crooked no matter how good is accursed before God.

If goat will give birth to goat and man gives birth to man, then God must give birth to gods! That is why scripture calls believers 'gods'(Jn 10:34,Ps. 82:6). For example, scripture tells us  God is love(1 Jn 4:7) and believers are called gods; that means when scripture says,"You are gods",  we can simply put  'love' in the place of gods and it reads: "You are love".
What I'm saying is that as God's children, we must have the nature of God. As God is love so is He upright in nature. God is upright because scripture tells us there is no partiality with Him(Acts 10:34,Rom 2:11,Eph 6:9,1 Pt 1:17). If our Father is upright, then so must we.
A child that does not take the good qualities of his parents, what do you call such?...Bastard! God doesn't want to raise children without His traits. He wants people that will take after Him like the early apostles till they carved out a name for them-Christians(Acts 11:26)
Living an upright life is not negotiable. God loves to prosper His children, but He will only prosper the upright-those with integrity. Scripture says God won't commit true riches to whoever is not upright with little things(Lk. 16:10-12).

 HOW CAN I BE UPRIGHT?

• Of course, you must be born again. To be like God, you must be borne by God(Jn 3:3&6)

•Make God's word your standard (Jos. 1:8). Never do anything that contradicts God's word. If God's word does not approve it, don't do it.

•Maintain a watchful prayer life (Matt. 26:41). Prayer makes you stay alert. It helps from falling into temptations that may make you compromise your standard of upright living.

• Have a good company(1 Cor. 15:33; Prov.27:17). You cannot be better than the company you keep. If you walk with the upright you will soon be like them because iron sharpens iron.

Kehinde Shogeke