Wise At Heart

Knowledge of a thing may come rather quickly but wisdom requires time. Knowledge can leave one puffed up with pride when he learns a thing. Gaining wisdom will first break your pride then humble your heart. And I think that’s where true wisdom lies, in the heart. Knowledge lives in the head. One solid place to look in the Bible in regards to wisdom and knowledge is the book of Proverbs. 

Proverbs 2:1-10 My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;

We see at the start of this set of verses that His words, God’s words, are where we are to look. God’s all sufficient infallible word is the only blueprint for life that we need. It’s the only one we can ultimately trust with our lives. In it we find his commandments. We Christians are to love God’s commandments. We, most people anyway, know the 10 commandments. These 10 show us how to govern our lives , how to treat God and how to treat people. They are a summary of the many Old Testament laws given to the people. The first 4 deal with our relationship with God and the last 6 are guides to interacting with other people. 

The New Testament is full of commandments to God’s people as well. Some of them are repeated from the Old Testament and some are “new” commands. But make no mistake all the commandments of God are meant for His people to grow in understanding of Him. These next 2 commands are likely known by many Christians young and old.  

Mat 22:36-40 Master, which [is] the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

We followers of Christ are commanded many things in the scriptures. Jesus lays out these 2 as the greatest commandments. The first one is the most important one. We must Love God with everything we have. This is something we must work on every day. This is dying to self and living for God. When we strive to get that first one right , the “loving our neighbor as ourselves” is a little bit easier. This is only possible if God has given you a new heart.