Wisdom
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10.
Remember when you were about to turn 16 or 18 years old? You thought that you were all grown up, right?
Various laws said that you were on the cusp of being an adult. In fact, in New York at 16, you could make many adult decisions. You could decide whether to go to school or quit. You could get married. At 16, you could even give consent to have intercourse. Now, we all know how prepared we were for those things. We were definitely ready to be adults… HA! 😀 That is just proof that satan is the King of this world and that he is a liar.
It doesn’t get any better at 18. We are old enough to vote, gamble, join the military, and use tobacco. To make matters worse, when I was 18, you could legally drink.
The funny thing was, I think we all thought that somehow, at 16 or 18, we suddenly gained intellect that we hadn’t previously possessed. It was like we had suddenly become incredibly smart. We were ready to tackle the world. Boy, were we dumb!
Our verse today says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy (God) is understanding. “The fear of the Lord” mentioned here is actually reverence. When we start to revere God, we begin to understand that the treasures of this world are no more than bondage to us. The pursuit of money, success, and material things are futile. They don’t bring happiness. However, they do cause us to strive for more and more. In the end, we die with lots of stuff and not much else. In doing so, we sacrifice relationships, friendships, and our greatest commodity… time. And why do we do this? To obtain things that, in the end, we can’t take with us and that just get left behind for someone else.
“To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 2:26. It took Solomon most of his life to discover this.
When we recognize that God is the beginning of everything and that, without Him, we are lost, we begin to possess a reverence or “fear” for God. Then, we begin to understand that our treasurers are not our possessions in this world. Our treasure is the Son of God who died and gave His life for us, that we may have everlasting life. At this point, we stop striving for possessions and begin to strive for things that please God/make an eternal impact for Him. We stop striving for status in this world. Our Status is that we are the sons and daughters of the God of all creation. We give up addictions, harmful relationships, and sinful behaviors that are actually bondage to us and begin a life of freedom, honoring, worshiping, praising, and glorifying our Heavenly Father. Herein lies WISDOM!
I pray that, if you do not know the Lord that you might go to our Life Preserver page (https://forgiven-n-loved.com/life-preserver/) and begin to obtain wisdom. If you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, I pray that He is growing your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of Him and His Word. I also pray that you are praising, glorifying, and loving Him with all your heart, soul, and mind.
Luv Ya!
