Get Wisdom

“Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee… Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov.4:5-9, 13,23). From this short passage of scripture from Proverbs 4, we readily see that wisdom and understanding are the most important spiritual faculties that we can attain unto. And why is this? Well, for beginners we are told that these things will “preserve” us. Preserve us in what? In the love of God of course. That is the only place to be, and whatever it takes to keep us there is what we want to have the most of. Next we are told that if we highly esteem understanding and wisdom, that they will “promote” us and “bring us to honor” [with God]. And last but not least this passage says that these divine elements can bring an “ornament of grace” to our head, along with a “crown of glory.” Seeing that it is grace that saves us, and a crown of glory that the Lord has laid up for the faithful, I would have to say that it matters much to have what it takes to obtain these things (Eph. 2:8; Tit. 2:11,12; II Tim. 4:8). As we have read, having divine wisdom and understanding makes a person able to be taught (vs. 13; Prov.1:5). In light of these things we can see that the capacity to “keep [preserve] our hearts with all diligence” is dependent on our having understanding and wisdom. And that capacity obviously carries eternal weight, for Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mat. 5:8).

Speaking of the end time and beyond, the angel of the Lord told Daniel; “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever… Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Dan. 12:3,10). So once again, it is as integral as it gets to our faith that we indeed attain unto the divine faculties of godly wisdom and understanding. To bring the point home we can look to a parable of Jesus, also regarding the end time: “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish” (Mat. 25:1,2). As the parable goes, the wise were prepared for the coming of the Lord, and the foolish were not. So then I think we could rightly say that it truly is not wise to NOT have wisdom in God. So then the conclusion of this matter can only be one thing: Seeing that it is absolutely necessary for us to have and retain understanding and wisdom in God’s Spirit, it is equally as necessary that we are able to define what wisdom really is, as well as understanding. If we’re looking for something deep, dark, and mysterious; then we are already off track. As is God’s way, the defining of these all-important spiritual faculties is quite simplistic and to the point: “And unto man he [God] said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that IS wisdom; and to depart from evil IS understanding” (Job 28:28). Well there it is my friend; the evident description of the two most important elements of faith in God: Forsake all that is evil, and fear the judgment of God against all who fail to do so. That’s it. Simplistic, pure, good, right and true. Amen.