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Discerning Real Wisdom
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James 3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.
Listen to the radio broadcast of Discerning Real Wisdom
Download audio fileMost of my life, I’ve believed that wisdom comes with age. And to some extent that’s true.
Normally someone who’s been around the block a few times, will have made enough mistakes, and seen enough things to be able to impart some real wisdom.
But just because you’re a bit older, doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily any wiser. Sometimes a person’s blind spots, you know their weaknesses, their failures, stop them from, I guess laying hold of real wisdom.
And sometimes, something that holds itself out to be real wisdom, is tainted by self-interest or other motives that may not be in your best interests.
Let me ask you, is it wise for a woman to have an abortion or not? Well, that depends – at least out there in the marketplace of ideas – on where you’re coming from; on your perspective; on your interests.
So how do you know what real wisdom looks like? How can you tell real wisdom from false wisdom, when you see it? Being able to discern that, being able to tell the difference between these two types of wisdom, as things turn out, is incredibly important.
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. (James 3:13)
So it seems that, according to God at least – probably not such a bad place to go for wisdom when you think about it – the first marque of wisdom is a good life full of works born out of gentleness.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not naturally a gentle person. I’m more your get things done kind of person. So a huge part of my journey has been to learn gentleness. Now, gentleness doesn’t mean weakness. It doesn’t mean being airy-fairy and indecisive. It doesn’t mean being ill-disciplined.
But what it does mean is getting things done in love. What it does mean is that as much as getting things done is important, people, these people who annoy us and who frustrate us … who, to be honest drive us crazy sometimes … these people who are made in God’s image and loved by Him every bit as much as you are loved by Him … yes, those, people matter more than getting things done.
So when someone holds themselves out to be wise, ask yourself What does their life tell me? Is it a life full of good works done with gentleness? Because that will tell you the nature of their wisdom – real, or fake.
And, come on, let’s look in the mirror too. Let’s take a look at our own lives. What’s the rest of the world seeing in how we live out our lives? Good works born out of gentleness … or, not.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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