True Wisdom Through True Faith

[HKHaugan]

Faith 9 True Wisdom Through True Faith

Life Is What You Make It, Or Is It?

There was an old banter around years ago. It went like this:

“Life’s tough.”

“What’s life?”

“Life’s a magazine.”

“How much does it cost?”

“A quarter.”

“I’ve only got a dime.”

“That’s tough.”

“What’s tough?” “Life’s tough”……and on and on. It was really meaningless patter but it did convey that life itself raises questions that the private quest for personal balance leaves unanswered.

In the last segment on balance we used the gyroscope as an example to show how Jesus operates within us as we allow Him to be Himself through us. He gives us direction, stability, confidence and guidance. In a world that is overcome with imbalance and its cause, sin, we need an internal balance adjuster. Sin is the spiritual wrench the devil threw in the invisible dimension that knocks us out of balance and causes us to lose confidence. Fear is the confidence killer and the devil-sent spirit of fear inspires the spirit of pride which pulling us into our selves and isolating us from truth, faith and wisdom, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

The proof of sin is the internal struggle for a self-pleasing identity that struggles to feel right in the mind, the heart and the spirit. Sin curries our favor to desire control, take control and maintain control. As the writer of Ecclesiastes notes, trying to gain wisdom to be in control is ‘chasing after the wind.’ The result of the chase he concludes “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief (1:18).”

The wisdom he talks about is being able to control one’s heart and spirit with the accumulation of knowledge in the mind. He seems to believe that we build up a reservoir of experience upon which we can call as the need demands. The secular world calls that 'common sense.' Common sense is looking at life through the rear view mirror. Common sense is secular wisdom. It is a phrase that falsely promises wisdom that you can control life. It eventually fails and falls because it has no life but the lonely faith you invested in it.

Sin is the magnet that encourages that kind of thought, that kind of pursuit and its depressing result. It’s like saying I worked so hard at being wise and what did I get for it? Nothing. Again see the writer's rather blunt conclusion, “I thought to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me. I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but learned this, too, is chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge the more grief (1:16-17).”

There is no true wisdom outside of God. What passes for wisdom in this world is compromise, learning by trial and error and whatever kind of thinking enables long-term personal and social survival. It';s that 'common sense' thing. That is the substance of his chapters in between the beginning and end of his writing. He concludes the way he began, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless...”

But check out what he says next:

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil (12:8,13-14).”

The importance of Ecclesiastes in the Bible is its contribution to the idea that without God, a personal God, there is nothing but lonely frustration at the end of life. It gives us the reality of a spiritual dimension awaiting fulfillment in the mind, heart and spirit. The writer searched with his mind, accumulated life’s experience in his heart and finally realized that it is our spirit, our soulm that has to be resolved from without and that through surrender to God.

When Jesus becomes our focus, that long sought after balance He brings is our peace, our stability and our confidence. What the writer of Ecclesiastes searched for would be realized when God the Son took on human nature and lived the wise, stable, balanced and confident life.

True wisdom comes from without, from a perfect person, the only Wise Person. It is not a quality we control or should even try to control. He is wisdom in the flesh. He knows all the ins and outs. We are meant to experience His wisdom as a relational experience of His presence. It is daily growth as a person in mind, heart and spirit in faith. That is how we are built as an image of God, to gain all that God has to offer in a relationship with Him.

Restated, we have the capacity for wisdom but that capacity can only be filled with the Person of wisdom, the Lord Jesus, who waits at the door of our heart for an invitation to be wise through us. That's a daily request He is always ready to answer. Again, wisdom is not a thing, it is a personal quality of the living God. He brings the person of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom within. Through Jesus He brings us His peace, balance and internal rightness. Life is tough but ultimately life is not about us. It’s all about Him. Faith in the Lord Jesus is wisdom at work.