"Keep it up..."

"Keep  it  up..." 

Did you hear that when you were growing up?

I did. 

It may sound like an urge to press on, to persevere. 

Where I came from it was a warning, a threat.

• It was a call to wisdom.
• It was an indirect command to cease & desist 

"Keep it up  (this stupid behavior)...  &  I'll pound you,  give you a ticket, end this friendship..."

"Keep it up"  came to mind when I read Proverbs 17:9 

Whoever covers an offense seeks love,
but he who repeats a matter separates close friends. (ESV) 

To be an insensitive repeat offender is to abuse the forgiveness spoken of in the first half of Prov. 17:9.

To carelessly push your luck,
okay, presume on grace,
can build barriers between the best of buds.

Certainly life and relationships call for forgiveness;

overlooking and covering up things that hurt. 

Love leads us to purposefully push aside offenses. 

Tragically, some people break relationships over the smallest of matters. 

Love requires repenting of pettiness, pickiness. (17:9a)

Love also requires laying aside things that offend as well  (17:9b). 

To seek to stop saying or doing things that are painful to others.

Want to ruin a friendship, marriage, partnership:

realize a relationship ruining behavior and "keep it up"
- persist in being selfish, insensitive. 

Such living ends or hinders multiple relationships. 

In Him who covers, atones for our sins

and calls us to lay aside folly,

Kerry - Pastor CCF 


As the NET Bible, a great free on-line Bible study tool has it:

17:9 The one who forgives an offense seeks  love,
but whoever repeats a matter separates close friends.