Wisdom Revealed by Results

In my devotional today, I have been following a reading plan on YouVersion, a free bible app.  This was a verse within the reading and I wanted to share it.

Matthew 11:19 

The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by its results.

The part that really stood out was the last sentence.

"Wisdom is shown to be right by its results."
Look for the reality of the result

Where do we find wisdom?  I say we find it in the counsel of the wise.
Who is wise among us?  Those who seek, study and practice truth.
What is truth and where can it be found?  For those who know me, you know what my answer is.  Truth, according to the dictionary is a fact or belief that is accepted or that which is true in accordance with fact or reality.  However, if you seek the source of truth in the scripture as I do, you can go to John 18:37-38 and see a conversation between Jesus and Pilate, the Roman governor discuss truth.


John 18:37-38 
I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?"

We should also bear witness to the truth as we live our lives.

John 17:17 

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

John 8:32 

and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

John 14:6 

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

1 John 4:6 

We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

So, I repeat my question "What is truth and where can it be found? "

We find truth in the person of Jesus and in his word.  We are set free by it, we walk in it, it becomes our road map and guide to our life.  We are even sanctified and purified by it according to John 17:17 and 1 Peter 1:22.  However, we must study the word of truth.  We must meditate on it often.  We need to obey the truth.  However, we cannot do it alone.  We must be seeking the Holy Spirit's counsel and companionship as well as the companionship of other seeking believers.  

Oh how I long to walk in this with other seeking believers.  Don't you?  Is the cry of your heart for this sort of fellowship?  

So, I return to the verse that spurred my heart today to write this blog; 
        But wisdom is shown to be right by its results.

Shall we know wisdom?  Yes, when we study the word of God and see it demonstrated in the lives of ourselves and others.  Not for any exaltation but in order to know what is wise and what is truth.  So, we become a light of hope to the world that is hungry for it.  It is what brings glory to our Lord.

[The fundamental conflict in human life is human desire or will versus truth.  Believing or desiring something doesn't make it true.  Truth is truth no matter our opinion, desire, will or belief.]  (summary quote from one of my favorite authors, Dallas Williard)

Interesting comment from JP Moreland a professor from Talbot School of Theology defined truth this way:
Truth is when things are the way one takes, believe or thinks them to be.  When I heard this, I almost discounted his comment, until I went on with him as he explained what he meant...

He went on to say:
Truth is a matching relationship between a thought or belief and reality.  It isn't the believing it or the taking it to be true that makes it true, it is the reality that makes it true.  The relationship between what is reality with what we think determines that which is true.  
You can believe that grass is green but it is the right relationship between that belief and the reality of the green grass that is defined as truth.  If you believe the grass to be pink, and the reality is that the grass is green then the belief is not correct and therefore the relationship between your belief and the reality is not true.  
This simple example demonstrates how simple this concept really is.  It is important that we return to the reality of absolute truth.  The source of absolute truth is found in the One whom created all things.  He is our reference point and guide into all truth. Without it we are going to be tossed to and fro with every thought, mood and wave that comes our way.  The truth will ground us solidly and direct our course.  We will become a beacon of light to all who are seeking wisdom and truth.

We look at both our lives and the lives of others and see if the truth is displayed in each of our lives.  Does our lives line up rightly"?

One last look at the verse to which started these thoughts and blog.

 wisdom is shown to be right by its results.

Is our life in Christ demonstrating right results.  Does our life line up with the wisdom of the word of God  and is the Spirit of Truth leading us into all truth?  

No condemnation here, just pondering these questions along side all who read it.  I too need to do the soul-searching these words demand.

Join me, will you!?

Are You Being Cooked by the Culture?

This is a re-release of a blog I wrote in 2013 which still applies today.  Wanted to share it.

Lately I have been feeling the decay of this world all around me.  It makes me sad at times.  I see what is happening to this amazing nation.  I see a high level of sin all around me and see evil being called good and good being labeled evil.  Right is wrong and wrong is right.  We are in strange times.

But it is not for the world to identify this.  Until one is in Christ, it is truly not their fault they think the way they do.  However, those who are in Christ are at true fault.  If you are in Christ and the spirit of the living God has taken up residence within you, you have the capacity to discern that which is sin and that which is good.



So here is my story.  There was a frog that was placed in a boiling pot of water.  The frog immediately jumped out of the pot and that was the end.


But there was another frog that was placed in a pot of water at room temperature and the pot's temperature was slowly increased until it was boiling.  The frog was cooked and never jumped out of the water.  So why does one stay and one leave?  Because the one that stayed was immersed in comfortable water, and as the temperature was increased it was so gradual the frog didn't notice.  The frog was desensitized. Eventually it was his undoing.


So isn't that Christians and sin.  If we are immersed in this culture where we are participating in its sin, evil practices, and pleasures, we loose our sensitivity to its effect on us.  We were called to live in this world but not to look like it.  We were called to draw those in darkness to the light in Christ not to live in the darkness with them.

I believe the moment we start saying yeah, but...  we are at the start of justifying our reason for staying in the pot.

I believe Christians as a group have lost their effectiveness in our society because we are enjoying the same boiling water as the world.  Truth be told, this culture can wear us down.  We are constantly bombarded with sin to the point we are picking and choosing what to be offended by.  Our culture is the pot of boiling water.  The water was turned up so gradually, most Christians don't even notice it.  We sit there being fed the lies that we need this or that to be happy, we must be liked and popular by the world's standards to be of value and to be able to affect the world.  We dishonor ourselves and God by our actions to fit into this culture.  We do it under the assumption we will be able to witness to the world.  Yet if we look like the world, sound like the world, how will the world know that we are not of the world.  Where will we be able to be effective.

We live in a world where young Christian ladies dress provocatively.  Words like gentlemanly and lady-like behavior, virtue, integrity and modesty are now old fashioned  (even common decency).  Dances mimic fully dressed sexual activity, and resemble orgies with clothes on.  These dances have names like humping, jerking, twerking and both male and female isolate and shake their pelvis.  A dance where crotches are frequently grabbed.  (that use to be something someone would do out of necessity and usually discretely)  Most of the couple dancing is done where the male is behind the female.  They don't even have to look at each other face to face  Wow!  Where a female is sandwiched between two males, (of course the gender choices are optional) So basically dances have turned into fully dressed sexual acts set to music.

This is certainly not honoring to God, it is not lovely, it is not pure, it is not of good reproach.    Unfortunately, there are some who remain on the dance floor and take these acts to its full completion right there on the dance floor.  And how this comes about I will not dignify with details or give more light to it. I am amazed at the lack of shame, the lack of outcry, or disgust by the Christian community.

So what does that reveal about our Christian culture?  I believe it is revealing the pot is boiling, and we are fully immersed in it.  If we cannot recognize the prevailing sin that is all around us, perhaps we are involved in it, or just desensitized, but by our silence are we not condoning it.  If fitting in and being popular is more important than character development, virtue and decency, we are in the pot of boiling water and we may not even be aware.

At this point, this culture is winning in infiltrating our hearts.  This culture corrupts.  If we look at these activities directly and cannot see them as offensive, we have been cooked by our culture.

My prayer is that God will open the eyes of our hearts and sensitize us once again to see sin as sin.  That God would open our eyes to see that we are fully saturated by the boiling water, and we need to take action to first off jump out of the pot.

Little by little we are compromising until we look just like the world to whom we were suppose to be offering the good news.  But we are no longer able to affect it because it has fully infected us.  You will either affect the world or it will infect you.

According to scripture, the world may believe in Christ by our unity and  they will know we are his by our love for one another. Jn 17:21 & Jn 13:35  We need to learn how to walk in this culture and not be desensitized by it.  We were placed on the earth at this time in this culture, for such a time as this to not be infected but to to be a light at this dark time in history.  Don't be cooked by the culture but be one that helps rescue others from the pot.

This link will show a demonstration of the boiling water on a frog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svpsLZDgFK4


Please know that I am not endorsing condemnation of sinners nor am I calling Christians to go on a sin warpath. (please love sinners but do not condone or love their sin)   I am calling Christians to simply wake up to see we are all immersed in a sinful culture and that it wears us down.  Let this be a wake up call to Christians to no longer be duped by the enemy and his tactics to desensitize us from the sin that is so prevalent around us.

Sin will either bring death to the individual who is not in Christ or death to a testimony for those who are in Christ.  We are called to go and make disciples.  So if that is the case, we need to look like Christ's disciple first before we can go make disciples of others.


Be blessed today, reflect Christ to the world and for crying out loud, get out of the boiling water, NOW!!!!!