One of the compulsory pillars you and I must raise as we go into the New Year is the pillars of wisdom. The bible calls it, the principal thing. If wisdom is the principal thing, it means that every other thing is a secondary matter. Sadly, one of the major problems facing many Christians, and even some true followers of Christ is the lack of wisdom. What is wisdom?
God’s ways of doing things. Period! How do you know God’s ways of doing things? Simply through His word.
There is no issue of life that is not covered by God’s wisdom in the bible, marriage or finance or government or business or whatever. But for the most part, rather than believers turning towards God’s word, we have begun to change books. We switch books on different issues of life. In our marriage, we lean on God’s wisdom, in our finance, we switch books and go for earthly wisdom. In raising our kids, we use the wisdom of God, in business, we switch books and go after earthly wisdom. And time and again, we don’t maximize God’s blessings in our lives. A child of God is in this world but is not of this world, your entire life’s affairs must be dominated by the wisdom of God.
The bible in James 3:15 identifies four different types of wisdom, sensual wisdom (wisdom derived through the use of our five senses of sight, touch, taste, hear and smell etc); earthly wisdom (wisdom derived from life’s experiences, education, skills and mentorship), devilish wisdom (wisdom derived from Satan) and the wisdom from above which is God’s wisdom. Of all these four types of wisdom, of course, God’s wisdom, the wisdom from above is number one and only sensual and earthly wisdom are other good sources of wisdom. The last one being devilish wisdom (wisdom from the occult, witchcraft, etc) is a no go area. For today, our focus is on God’s wisdom, and God’s wisdom only comes through the Spirit of wisdom that only the Holy Spirit imparts.
See friends, everything rises and falls on the laps of wisdom. You have to build on God’s wisdom for 2023 if you will look back in December 2023 and say, “thank you Jesus”.
And we are living in a world full of a lot of foolish people. Foolishness is so cheap nowadays, and sadly, we have plenty of foolishness in the church as well.
Let’s look at some of the signs of foolishness that is in our world
1. Denying the existence of God is a mark of foolishness, A fool has said in his hearts that there is no God (Psalms 14-1).
2. Self-centeredness is a sign of foolishness, In Luke 12: 20, Jesus told the story of a man who built a barn and then began with the word, I, I, me, me me… Don’t we have plenty of self-centered Christians too, people who only live for themselves?
3. Anger that produces sin (Ecclesiastes 7-9 says, “Anger rests in the bosom of fools”. “ Also in Proverbs 14-7, the bible says, “ A quick tempered man acts foolishly”; The bible says, “be angry and sin not” meaning that there are realms of anger that leads to sin, anger that leads to unforgiveness, violence, etc
4. Dishonoring or despising your parents (biological or spiritual), the bible says, a wise son makes the father glad but a foolish man despises his mother (Proverbs 15-20)
5. Winning souls (living a life of impact), He that wins souls is wise (Proverbs 11-30), what about he that ruins souls?
6. Dishonoring your wife. Read with me 1 Peter 3:7,
“In the same way you husbands must live with your wives with the proper understanding that they are more delicate than you. Treat them with respect, because they also will receive, together with you, God’s gift of life. Do this so that nothing will interfere with your prayers.
7. Mismanaging or misusing your resources, basically being a bad financial manager of God’s resources
8. Looking for wives or husbands in other places apart from God
9. Living in sin, of any kind, stealing from people; lying, cheating; robbing the poor etc
10. Staying under evil and corrupt pastors, but because of what you want to get from them, you continue to stay there
All of the above are signs of foolishness that must not follow you into 2023. You have to be intentional about wisdom.
In some more practical aspects, men like Moses, Joshua, Daniel, Joseph, David, Stephen, Paul and the Lord Jesus rode on the back of wisdom to impact the world for God in this kingdom. In fact in Mark 6:1-2, the Pharisees said about Jesus, “what wisdom is this that such mighty works are done through him. The spirit of wisdom is extremely crucial to our walk with God and our survival and influence on earth.
Ayo Akerele, a leadership and system development strategist, Minister of the word, writes from Canada. He can be reached through: E-mail: ayoakerele2012@gmail.com
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