God’s Wisdom
“Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the LORD.”
Today’s Text: Psalm 107:23-43 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
God presents us with a choice. We can either accept His love and in His love experience the goodness of life that He intended for us to have, or we can reject His love and take our chances living outside of His kingdom.
But rejecting God’s love and living outside of His kingdom is not wise. Outside of God’s kingdom, a few fortunate people may find prosperity, but never peace. The vast majority of people outside of God’s kingdom find neither prosperity nor peace—just a difficult life filled with struggle and a trail of broken relationships. Welcome to the bad lands.
And even if a small, small minority of people outside of God’s kingdom do find some tiny measure of peace and prosperity, their eternal destiny is still hell.
But no one has a right to blame God for that. That is their choice, not God’s. Because there is another choice they could make.
Wisdom is knowing and practicing what is best for us personally. And wisdom is grounded in one simple truth: God created everything, and everything in this world operates according to God’s economy.
Understanding that one simple truth and living according to it is called “fear of the LORD.” That is why the Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10).
In other words, fear of the LORD is simply to accept God’s love in Christ Jesus and abide in His kingdom.
Most people may have some sense of what that statement means, but it may be helpful to unpack it a little bit.
To accept God’s love in Christ Jesus and abide in His kingdom means to follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives. OK, then, what does THAT mean?
To follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives means to believe that everything the Bible says is true, and to do everything that Jesus tells us to do. And everything that Jesus tells us to do is found in the Bible.
But we must not do everything found in the Bible literally. That’s not wise. Thankfully, Jesus gave us a guideline for how to follow Him: Loving God as the priority of our lives, and loving others as we love ourselves. If those two guidelines are not being followed, we are not really following Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Of course, no one is able to do follow Jesus perfectly. No one is perfect. But the point is that we want to follow Jesus. That’s what matters. And that’s why reading and studying the Bible is so important for us. It is the entry point into our relationship with Jesus.
What is the measure of my wisdom? Well, I have received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I desire to follow Him as best as I can. I study God’s word and do my best to obey it using the guidelines of love that He has given to us.
But every day, I find that I fall short of God’s glory. Even so, my security is not in my ability to obey God’s word perfectly. No one can. My security is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Him crucified for my sins, resurrected for the hope of eternal life, and returning to judge the living and the dead.
That is God’s wisdom.
Father, Your ways are perfect. And as much as us humans make a mess of things because of sin, Your love overcomes our sin. Continue to grow me in wisdom and love. Continue to grow my family and this community in wisdom and love. And may we reflect Your love to a world that needs Jesus so much. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
