THE WISDOM FOR LIVING

"Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:17). 

What is wisdom for living on the earth? It is gaining an understanding of the mind of God and doing accordingly. This simply means it is foolishness to ignore the will of God or to act contrary to it. As a matter of fact, "Be ye not unwise" here means don't be like madmen. Spiritual sanity is found in the environment of the perfect will of God. 

It has been demonstrated again and again in the last couple of messages that the Bible contains the basic principles by which we know the will of God at the general level. But there is also a special or specific will or purpose of God for each of us which should impress on the way we run our personal lives and communal affairs. 

For instance, whereas the Bible brings us important basic understanding of the general will of God concerning marriage, business and politics, the Bible may not tell whether you should marry Charles or Gloria. That specific identity of the person to marry, the line of business to do, the route to take on your next trip, the candidate or party to vote for in an election, the city to live, etcetera is usually concealed and we are expected to search it out. 

That searching out is done using the spiritual tools that God has provided. The first of such tools is prayer. We shall discuss the details of praying to discover the will of God in the next message. But for now, let us first understand that you are not qualified to employ the tool of prayer when you have not availed yourself of the provisions of the Scriptures as a tool to unravel the mind of God. As a matter of fact, it is also with the help of the Scriptures that you will interprete and validate other means of knowing the will of God. 

I have always maintained that the person who is not ready to hear God in His word should forget about hearing Him in any other way. By the same token, if you cannot obey the word of God that you read in the Scriptures, you will also lack the capacity to obey the word of God you hear by some other means. If you cannot be guided by the 'logos', the written word (or will) of God, you will not prosper by any form of 'rhema', the revealed word (or will) of God. 

Friends, the foundation for hearing what the Spirit is saying on any matter is to have first heard what the Word has said about it. Have you laid that foundation? If you don't have a disposition to abide by what the Word has said, you will hear nothing from the Spirit of God in the place of prayer. Worse still, you could be opening up yourself to hear from another spirit.