05/08/2019
Sometimes we are healed by Jesus, and don’t know where the healing actually came from. Quite often we encounter people who have been saved by their faith, and yet they know very little about God, or Jesus Christ. Don’t judge a person’s faith in Christ based on their knowledge, or education in the scripture... Jesus loved the children in faith just as He did His disciples.
“Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you."”
John 5:13-14 ESV
When I was a college student I worked many jobs during the summers to earn money for the coming year. One summer I worked in construction, and it was a hard and laborious job. I worked as unskilled labor, and although I learned quickly, I spent most of my time on what was referred to as the “dumb end of a shovel”. During that summer I met some remarkable men, and there was one in particular that I admired a great deal. This man was uneducated as book learning went, but was wise in so many other ways. We call this “common sense”, and he was flowing with it. He couldn’t solve a calculus problem, but he could tell you things about life that would keep you out of trouble... that is if you were smart enough to listen. He knew how many shovels full of gravel it took to fill up a wheelbarrow, and how to make you do it for him several, several, times as he counted them out loud before you finally realized that counting them wasn’t the real reason he was arguing with you about that number, and that you had done his morning’s work. You see wisdom isn’t about how vast your knowledge is, but how well you apply those things you know. This is true of our faith as well... God gives us knowledge through teaching us His Word, and by revealing it to us, but wisdom... wisdom is His gift to us.
“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,”
Ephesians 1:17 ESV
We have a tendency to confuse knowledge with wisdom... they are not the same, although we are meant to seek them both. I would prefer to have a little knowledge that I understand and apply exceedingly well (wisdom), than to know a great number of facts, but not how to apply them. If a new Christian understands who God is, and that Jesus, His Son, was sent to redeem us, then that is the foundation of all that follows. It allows us to love God, and love our neighbors, and on these things knowledge can be built. So do we judge the faith of those around us on how much they know, or on how wise they are in the foundational knowledge of their faith?
“And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."”
Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
The wise friend I met that summer while working construction would have said something like this about what Jesus spoke here... “if you know this, then all the rest is gravy.”
I think we spend an inordinate amount of time in the gravy bowl, and too little on the plate of spiritual life among the meat and potatoes of our faith. We run through the scripture looking to grab as much as we can instead of walking, and receiving the wisdom and understanding of what God has to say to us. It is a great accomplishment to have read the Bible through each year for the last ten years, but without understanding, and wisdom, that is simply an academic exercise... it is like gathering Easter eggs on Easter morning without understanding what Easter really means.
“that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Colossians 2:2-3 ESV
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the wisdom you give us as we follow Jesus Christ, and the knowledge we gain by reading your Word. Thank you Gracious Father for revealing the deep secrets of your Holy Word to us that we might become wise in their application. Help us Lord to resist judging our faith, and the faith of others by how well we recite, or gather knowledge, and help us to grasp that our application of your will through understanding, and the wisdom you give us, is the true rule of your judgement. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you who gives children understanding and wisdom, and hides these things from many learned men who seek knowledge alone. Praised are you Father who imparts wisdom to those who find one pearl of your knowledge and studies it for a lifetime... so that your will might be found in its perfection. All glory is yours Heavenly Father through the wisdom we acquire through our knowledge of Jesus Christ, His adherence to your will, and by your grace that flows from Him. Vast is the knowledge contained in your Word, but precious the wisdom with which we weave it into our lives.
“"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”
Matthew 7:21-23 ESV
Rich Forbes