Last week we saw how the Book of Proverbs is crammed full of wisdom and how to get it. Today I want to share some of the blessings of wisdom from chapter 3v13: “Blessed are those who find wisdom”. What blessings can we expect? Let’s look at chapter 2 where three are named.
First of all is DISCERNMENT: chapter 2v9: “Then you will discern righteousness, justice, and integrity, and every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be delightful to your soul”. Discernment is a wonderful quality and means to be able to make good judgements with respect to righteousness, justice, integrity and good walk. If we have this quality we are blessed with contentment. Because each of us is a soul housed in a body, we experience life through the windows of the soul which are our five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. Sadly, they are the way sin enters our minds as 1 John 2v16 makes clear: “For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.” But the good news is that if we have new life in Christ, our senses have been awakened by wisdom and if we have wisdom in our hearts what we taste, see, hear, smell and touch will keep us spiritually healthy. For instance, if we are feasting on God’s Word our taste buds discover from Psalm 119v103: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Two verses later we read that God’s Word is what our eyes need: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119v105). As far as our smell is concerned, our lifestyle is the most desirable fragrance ever made: “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing”(2 Corinthians 2v15). Finally, what we hear has to change us “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says”(James 1v22).
God Bless
Graeme Greenwood