Category: Meekness is not weakness

Wisdom is….


Wisdom is the most useful gift which God gives graciously to those who ask to understand His ways and His Word. Wisdom is like love in its ways. It is not proud, nor does it seek its own exaltation. Wisdom is the most useful of graces which we are given by God, but don’t consider your wisdom as being yours alone. It comes from God and His Word alone. Schools cannot give you wisdom, only life and living can give you wise counsel to carry with you all of your days.

Wisdom is humble and not proud. It is meek and seeks not its own pleasure. If you consider your wisdom is great and that you have gained this of your own accord, then you have not wisdom but prideful feelings about your own abilities. This will bring you to a place where only wisdom can gain your exit, if you are able to use it in such a fashion.

Wisdom is from God, knowledge is from man and the two of them are separate. It is true that knowledge used in the right way could be seen as wisdom, but just as Solomon asked only for wisdom to be king over Israel, it is given to each of us in our portion. We can’t gain it from someone else, and it is only useful if we put it to use in our lives and our ministry, whatever that may be.

Proverbs 4: 5-9

5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.

6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.

7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.

9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.

Wisdom in life usually comes with experience, if you apply what you have learned in your life’s work. Wisdom is not easily forgotten, but pride can shut down your own wise ways. So, what should a man do about gaining wisdom? First, he should seek it out from the very Book that contains words given by God to man, which is the Bible. Why do I say this? Because, the Spirit moved men to write God’s Word and His wisdom down as they were prompted to do so. Even if it was written by the hand of man, the words and the wisdom contained in it came from God

Man couldn’t have written the Bible out of their own imagination because there is prophecy in the Old Testament which has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled today, which man cannot know the future in order to make those predictions. God gives us a portion of His Wisdom in the Bible, all that we need to do is pray to Him for guidance while reading it so we can glean all of His wisdom from what we are reading. If you don’t do that, then you are just reading it as a book and nothing more.

By doing so you are missing the entire reason for which God’s Word was written in the first place. Reading the Bible as “just a book” is like reading one of the Greek writings as just a book, it shouldn’t be read that way nor can it be learned from in that way! I don’t mean to say that you can’t learn something from the Bible by just reading it but you are missing out on so much more that is in it if you read it that way.

God’s wisdom is eternal so His Word is eternal too. We can’t add anything of value to it and we had better make sure that we don’t take anything from it, especially if we are teaching from it. Wisdom is what is needed today in our society, but when you are found to have wisdom from the Bible, many people want to shut you up. Why? Because deed down, they know that your wisdom comes from God’s Holy Word and it can’t be dismissed because it is the Truth.

What is important to you?


There seems to be many people who are running around searching for something which makes them feel good. The travel to places which are beautiful, they go to sports arenas and watch football games and baseball games, some go to race tracks and watch professional drivers run around in circles. Many go on trips called vacations to places that they do not live, to see things for a few days and live there for those few days, sometimes in the lap of luxury. Then what?

You come home. The excitement and the newness of living has worn off. You are sitting in a house, a home, with the same people who went on the vacation but..something is missing. You feel restless, unsatisfied, nervous, anxious, what do you do? Many who can afford to will be off on another trip, somewhere. Anywhere but at home, in a place that is boring and uninteresting.

Contentment is hard to find, unless you have allowed it to find you first. Contentment is a state of mind where you know where you belong and to whom you belong. You don’t have to be married to be content, but it doesn’t hurt! Paul wrote “I have learned to be content in whatever state I find myself in” Philippians 4:11 , wouldn’t it be great if we could all find that place?

Contentment, what is important to you, these two are not exclusive, they are the same. Have you found your place, your “happy place”, the place where you are content and fulfilled with where you are and who you are? Sadly, some people never find that place. Many search for it their entire lives and don’t realize it until they are on their death-bed. By then, it’s too late to enjoy it. I see it in many of my friend’s lives and some of my classmate’s lives as well. Over the years I have watched many of them chase after something which is elusive like a puff of smoke.

A few have found it, but some are still looking even after their children are grown and they are retired from their jobs. Why? Your job doesn’t usually give you contentment and sometimes neither does your family. It seems that many people are content until one or the other is gone, the job or the family and children. Then what do you do?

We identify with our jobs or our family during the productive years of our lives and then when we get to a point, whether young or middle-aged or past 65, where we have the option or maybe we have been forced to “retire” from work, we find that our identity was our contentment. Now that we are past the point of being productive in work or raising a family, life is a big question mark now. Who am I? What do I do now?

Seek out your Savior! If you have not done this during your so-called “productive years”, then truly you need to make it a point to do it today! Why? Because, that place where you have placed your contented feelings during your career or while raising a family is now empty. It was supposed to contain the Holy Spirit all along! Ask Jesus to come in and clean out the space which has been occupied by life and all of its busyness and place His Spirit in there!

That is where Paul got his contentment from. He was a murdering, hunter of the followers of “the Way”, until Jesus stopped him and got in his face. If you have felt the call of Jesus, but you have pushed Him aside, it isn’t too late. Seek Him out in scripture and in a real Bible teaching church, then ask Him to come into your life and clean out the cobwebs and the left over stuff from your life. When He does, you should begin to study and read His Word!

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t understood it before, with His Spirit helping you, the meanings will be clearer. If you can’t grasp something that the Bible says, ask Jesus to make it plain to you so you can.

Then, the things which are important will rearrange themselves and begin to line up from His perspective and your perspective will be lined up with His. That is contentment and being in that place is more rewarding than any “vacation” or any amount of fun that you could have before. I don’t mean that you have to stop doing those things, just keep your eyes focused on Jesus first. Take Him with you, learn to love things from His point of view. He is the Creator, so enjoy His creation, and when you do it in that order…contentment will come to live with you.

Meekness


Jesus_Loves_UI used to wonder what that was. What does it mean to be meek? Then I read a definition from the perspective of a horse trainer. He said that meekness is strength under submission. Like a horse who responds to a bridle and rider. The strength of the horse is many times that of the rider, yet a well-trained horse will be able to respond to the slightest touch or twitch of foot or bridle and will turn to the left or right or speed up or slow down in response. This is what meekness really is.

Regarding the life of a Christian, in today’s world, meekness is not so easy. Why do I say this? Because it implies that we are attentive to the will of God and will obediently follow His lead, His Word, His direction in our everyday lives. The problem is that we are not that attentive to Him. Some followers of Jesus may be, but on the whole most are not. We are too much like toddlers in that respect. We tend to say to God, “Me do it!”, even when we are not sure we can do it whatever “it” might be.

One other person who was described as meek was Moses. The man who led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness by God’s direction. Meekness is not a description of someone who is weak, but of someone or something that is completely submitted to the One Who is in control. God loves us deeper and more completely than we can imagine, even when we haven’t accepted Him as our Savior or even acknowledged that He exists!

He knows each of us because He created each one of us and He accepts us for who we are, but He wants to become yours too! We belong to Him because He is our Creator, but He patiently waits for us to accept Him and He gives us a chance to learn to love Him for Who He is! It is our choice. Love cannot and will not be forced and that is why God created each of us and gave us that choice. Not because He doesn’t care, but mostly because He does!

All that God asks of us is that we decide to give our hurts and our pain to Him and understand that the pain won’t go away but His strength will be with us from that point on. Asking Him to come into your heart and mine is not a hard thing to do, but you have to come to a point where you feel the need for Him. He doesn’t push His way into your life and He won’t but when you ask Him to come in and make you a whole child of His…He will.

From that point on life will not be a bed of roses and it won’t really be better in physical ways, but spiritually you will be different. The person that you are, the one that God sees, will be whole and pure and your soul will be singing even if you can’t! Some people think that when you give your heart to Jesus and ask Him to come into your life that you won’t ever have any problems ever again. That is when the forces of this world take notice of you. Satan will not let you get away with being a voice for Jesus because he is going to try to stop you every way he can.

The best part of it is that you have Jesus on your side now and all you have to do is walk in step with Him every day. It sounds like a hard road but it isn’t, it is narrow and you do have to watch your steps some times because Satan will try to trip you and make you fall. Jesus will pick you up and carry you when the going gets particularly hard and He will give you strength to get through those times as well.