Read: Ephesians 4:17-23
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge," and "To fear the Lord is to hate evil." (Prov. 1:7 and 8:13 NIV)
How do you define a wise person? Someone who has a college degree? Who knows what's going on in the world? Who speaks foreign languages? Who has the ability to make a lot of money?
These standards may be beside the point. Biblically speaking, a wise person is one who fears the Lord, who lives with awe and reverence toward God, and hates evil, avoiding it as one would a coiled snake. Teddy Roosevelt said educating a person without changing him morally only makes matters worse. An uneducated thief can only steal things from a store; an educated thief can steal the entire company. It can all be done seated at his computer.
Dostoyevsky wrote, "It's not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them-the character, the heart."
Life with God begins with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ; putting off the soiled clothes of sin and putting on the fresh clean goodness of Jesus (see Eph. 4:22, 24). Living for Jesus demands a daily repeating of the same. It is the only wise path to walk.
Are you wise? That's another way of asking, "Do you fear God?"
Prayer: Lord, convert my awe of you into a holy life. Amen.
Used with Permission
