Wisdom cries out in the street; she utters her voice in the markets. [...] whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure from fear of evil.
(Proverbs 1:20,33)
The Bible tells us that wisdom is "the principle thing" (Prov. 4:7) and that it is to be desired and sought after (Prov. 2:4). Wisdom is extremely precious (Prov. 16:16) and there are endless promises in God's Word for those who acquire this treasure.
True wisdom comes from above, it is heavenly and pure, and God wants to bless us with this priceless gift (James 1:5). It may be foolishness to many, but what a blessing to those who understand its worth!
Wherever we are on our faith journey, there is always room to become wiser and none of us can say that they have attained perfect wisdom and understanding. But we continually need to seek this wisdom to enable us to mature and grow in Christ. This is a lifetime endeavour as we fix our eyes on Jesus and desire Him, who is the ultimate Wisdom of God.
We are living in unprecedented times. Never in history have we seen people – sick and healthy alike – being quarantined in their homes, prohibited from going to work and forced to keep their distance from one another on such a global scale, all for the fear of an invisible virus. If we had been told even a few months ago that this would be happening soon, most probably none of us would even have believed it!
When I was praying the other day, this phrase dropped into my heart, "prayer keeps you from pride". As I was pondering on these words, I suddenly realised that the opposite is also true, "pride keeps you from prayer". [Sigh...] I know too well what that means - from experience!
Prayer has a way of humbling us because praying means that we acknowledge our need for God. It means recognizing that we are not able to face situations on our own; that we need help from above.
This post could also have been called "the way we want others to see us" or "how we love to be seen in a good light" or something along these lines; but I thought "Show and Tell" was shorter and sweeter... It is about what we SHOW others and what we TELL others about ourselves through what we do. I was reading Matthew 6 recently and it became clear to me that it was all about that beautiful image of ourselves we like to project to other people.
(Please read "The 2 Sides of God" before reading this if you haven't as this is part 2)
So the Old Testament reveals God mainly as a holy God and the New Testament reveals Him mainly as a God of love in Jesus Christ. Because He is holy, He is a righteous Judge who has to punish our sins. But because He is also love, He comes down to earth as a man and receives the just punishment Himself on our behalf, so we can be forgiven and cleansed by His blood.
Thanks to the price paid on the cross, we are now back in fellowship with a holy God and we have access to His presence. We are proclaimed "not guilty". Our debt to God has been paid! If it stopped there,
God reveals Himself in His Word as a personal God who has a clearly defined character. He does not change and He always acts according to who He is. Like the 2 sides of a coin, His character is made up of 2 main aspects as is alluded to in Romans 11:22.
"Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God..."
God's goodness flows from His love and God's severity flows from His holiness. So let us say that heads is "love" and tails is "holiness".
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:8 that "God is love". This is who He is, not something that He has. He does not possess love, He is pure love.