Weekly Impressions - Words of the Wise

Proverbs 1:2-7

“To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,

To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;

To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,

A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

I have been looking for practical ways to help me shift my focus off of myself and to fix it on God.  I get frustrated when people say things like, “Don’t be selfish,” because that doesn’t tell me how not to be selfish.  It’s like expecting me to just stop without knowing how.

I encounter this sometimes with verses.  For instance, I was reading Philippians 2:3, which starts out, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit,” and I started to mentally roll my eyes in frustration.  However, God stopped me as I kept reading:  “...but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves[.]”  

At first, I didn’t think that this was really telling me how, since having “humility of mind” seems like another concept that doesn’t explain the how.  Don’t be selfish by having humility.  Okay.  How do I have humility?  Well, it says to regard one another as more important than yourself.

This presented a different problem for me.  It seemed a little backwards to shift my focus to others instead of to God.  By placing my focus on God, I will naturally regard others as more important than myself.  However, this is the Bible that’s telling me to do this, so I can’t say that it’s wrong.  So I continued to read, hoping that it would give me a better idea of how to have humility.

Philippians 2:3-8

“...do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.  Have this attitude which is in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

So Christ was humble by becoming obedient to the point of death.  Obedience I understand.  However, I do sometimes have an overactive conscience, and I knew that God was not telling me to become legalistic.  (Don’t take this out of context, but as Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.”  1 Corinthians 6:12)  So I tried to delve a bit deeper.  Here is what God told me.

He has shown me in the past that when I serve Him and my heart isn’t in it, I am not fulfilling His purpose for me.  (“If I... [fill in the blank], but have not love, I am nothing.”  Paraphrased a bit from 1 Corinthians 13:2)  In those instances, if I am obedient to Him, then in my obedience to God, my heart will eventually come around.  It is much the same with this instance.  It is true that if my focus is on God, I will naturally serve others.  However, if I am having trouble focusing on God, then Plan B is to serve others, and in my obedience to Christ, my heart will eventually follow, which will lead my heart and focus to God.

This revelation is an example of why I am so thankful for Instruction.  As it says in the passage above in Proverbs, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” and God recorded that knowledge for us in the Bible.  Another verse to back this up is Romans 15:4.  “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

I just had the Author explain a part of His Bible to me (as I mention in Truth.)  For this, I am exceedingly thankful, and by it, incredibly encouraged.