Helps for Daily Life 15
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BIBLE STUDY 2: HELPS FOR DAILY LIFE
A SERIES: THERE IS HOPE
LESSON 15: James 1:5-8 WE NEED GOD’S WISDOM FOR DAILY LIVING
James 1:5-8 (KJV) “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
INTRODUCTION
I'm sure you are as interested in that subject of GOD’S WISDOM FOR DAILY LIVING as I am. We are living in a world that is inundated with a mass abundance of knowledge but it is obvious as we look all around us there is a crucial element in our society among the old, middle aged and especially the young of which we are deficient. We are living in a day and age when we desperately need the wisdom of God for our daily decisions.
In the opening verses of the book of James, he has expressed the desire from God for all of us as believers that we might be complete and mature and that we are to lack nothing, that we need to live a full and a fruitful Christian life. He says that very specifically in verse 4, “But let patience have her perfect work…” Then James closes that verse by saying,”…that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” He means that we would lack nothing for our daily life as believers.
He has just been talking about how to deal with trouble and the fact that God does not allow trouble to come into our lives to trip us up, but to transform us and mature us to be the kind of believer that He wants us to be. However, if you and I are to be moved by God to maturity because of trouble, we desperately need the wisdom of God to know how to apply that situation.
We have more people educated than ever before, but we do not have a lot of people who have wisdom. It is one thing to have an education; it is another to have the wisdom of God in our daily life. Someone has said “we have become a race of clever fools.” We know a great deal, but we do not have a lot of wisdom. Some people are educated beyond their intelligence. Some people are so smart they don't have any common sense whatsoever. God wants us to have wisdom because we need His wisdom to understand the daily problems of life and how to deal with them. Someone has also said, "If you can keep your head while all others around you are losing theirs, it's a sure sign you don't understand the situation." You and I have those kinds of situations that come up every day in our lives.
Keep in mind that James was steeped in Jewish literature. He was steeped in the Old Testament and one great section of the Old Testament has to do with wisdom. It is classified as wisdom literature. James must have filled his mind and his heart with the book of Proverbs because that's the great book in the Bible that gives us the wisdom of God. I have tried to read frequently and constantly three books of the Bible - Acts, because that will keep you spiritual; Psalms, because that will keep you sweet; Proverbs, because that will keep you sensible. It gives you the wisdom of God in your daily life.
EXPLANATION
James 1:5-8 is one of the greatest promises in all of the Bible about how you and I can claim GOD'S WISDOM FOR OUR DAILY LIVING.
CONSIDER THE SHORTAGE OF WISDOM.
In verse 5 James points out the shortage of wisdom. "If any of you lack wisdom." The indication is that we find ourselves sometimes short of the wisdom of God that we need. In order to understand that, first of all, we have to understand and define what wisdom is. Wisdom is not intelligence. It is good to have a high IQ, but that does not necessarily mean we are a wise person. We can have a PhD and yet we may not have wisdom.
Job said, "Great men are not always wise." I'm not talking about superior intelligence. I'm not talking about the ability to write a master's thesis or a doctrinal dissertation. Wisdom is not mere human intelligence. Wisdom is not common sense. It certainly is important and good to have common sense, just good old horse sense. It is good for us to have some good horse sense. That's not what wisdom is.
Wisdom is not common sense; wisdom is uncommon sense. Wisdom is supernatural. I'm talking about something we can only get from God. I'm not talking about knowledge either. Knowledge is the accumulation of information. It is the acquiring of facts. We can go to school and get knowledge. We can accumulate facts and gather information, but wisdom is not the ability to acquire facts, wisdom is the ability to apply those facts with the heavenly wisdom of God.
We have more knowledge today than we have ever had. We have knowledge to go faster than sound, but we don't have the wisdom to know which way to go. We have knowledge about how to make a life, but we don't have the wisdom to know how help that life live in the most Godly way. I'm not talking merely about acquiring information.
What do I mean when I'm talking about wisdom? I'm talking about a supernatural gift from God that enables us to take the knowledge that we have and the knowledge that we gain from the reading of God's Word and apply that knowledge to the daily issues of life.
This is my definition of Wisdom:
WISDOM IS THE ABILITY TO APPLY GOD’S SUPERNATURAL INSIGHTS TO OUR EARTHLY SITUATIONS.
James said, "If any of you lack wisdom." There are many, many times when I feel I just do not have the wisdom I need? James could have left off the "if" in that sentence. It's not a matter of "if" I lack wisdom. The fact of the matter is I find myself in a hundred situations a day where I desperately need the wisdom of God. Before another seven days go by we will ALL find ourselves in probably in hundreds of difficult situations. We need the wisdom of God.
Maybe there is someone who is facing a job change opportunity. You are pondering if you should I take that job? On the other hand, you are thinking maybe I should not take that job? We lay out of the pluses and the minuses and all the alternatives and the good points and the bad points. When we have done all of that we still don't know what we need to do. We need the wisdom of God.
Maybe there is someone is facing a marriage decision. There might be some young lady out there thing “Should I marry this boy who has proposed to me or not?” However, for some of you young ladies that may not be a big decision at all, but for others it may be. I heard about a young lady whose phone rang. A timid voice on the other end said, "Matilda, would you marry me?" She said, "Sure! What is your name?" There may be some out there that may be that anxious about it and it won't be a big decision. However, for most young ladies it is a tremendously huge decision. We need the wisdom of God.
Maybe there are some parents out there who need wisdom on how to deal with a difficult child. The difficulty may be medical, physical, behavioral, psychological, spiritual or a number of other of other issues. There are some difficulties and problems there in the growing up and development of that child. Those parents or that parent really doesn't know what to do. Therefore, there is a need for someone to help handle this problem with the child. We need the wisdom of God.
Maybe there is a marriage situation and there is the need for some kind of intervention and assistance to know what to do. There may have been some type of infidelity, neglect, abuse, no communication, no compassion, no sensitivity, no intimacy, no romance, or many other things that can cause a marriage relationship to grow cold, stale, and almost nonexistent and the two become nothing more than seemingly just roommates. To people who once were in love enough to make a commitment to each other and make a commitment before God for life still have that seed of love deep in their heart and they need help in bringing that seed of love back to the surface. We need the wisdom of God.
Every day of our lives we become keenly aware of the fact that we lack the wisdom of God. I think the Scriptures have laid before us our shortage of wisdom and James makes us all very well aware in our own lives that the wisdom of God is available to each of us.
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF WISDOM.
THINK ABOUT THE FOUNTAIN OF THAT WISDOM.
God tells us how we can get that wisdom. We see, from where that wisdom originates. When you look to the source of wisdom you have to be aware that you are talking about a spiritual commodity. I have already indicated that it's the supernatural gift of God that enables us to apply heavenly wisdom and judgments and insights to earthly situations. Therefore, if it is a spiritual commodity, we always have to go to spiritual sources in order to get spiritual commodities. There are some things God has a monopoly on. When we need wisdom we don't run down to the hardware store and say, "I need a bucket of wisdom." We don't go into the clothing store and say, "I need three yards of wisdom." If we are going to get spiritual commodities we have to go to spiritual sources. If we need grace, the Bible says God is the God of all grace. That means He has cornered the market on grace. We can't get grace anywhere except from God. Therefore, If We Want Grace We Have To Go To God To Get It. The Bible says He is the God of peace. If we want peace, the only place we can get it is to go to God. There are a lot people who desperately need peace. They desperately need that inner tranquility of heart and soul. Therefore, If We Want Peace We Have To Go To God To Get It. The Bible says in 1st Timothy 1:17 that “Our God is the only wise God.” He has cornered the market on wisdom and so if we lack wisdom we have to go to God to get it.
GOD GIVES LITERALLY.
I want us to see what kind of God we have. I want us to notice how anxious this God of wisdom is to give us His wisdom. "God that giveth." Literally, you could translate that "the giving God." James is making a statement about the character and nature of God. He is saying that it is God's nature to give. That's what kind of God He is. James 1:17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights..." He is the giving God. The tense of the verb there is present tense which means He is the continually giving God. It is just God's nature to give. The sun continuously shines because it is the nature of the sun to shine. God continually gives because He is a God of love and it is the nature of our loving God to continuously give. Keep in mind what kind of God we are dealing with. We are dealing with a God who is very anxious to give us what we need in this matter of wisdom.
GOD GIVES LIBERALLY.
He also says that, “God gives to all men liberally." The word, “liberally,” means generously, unconditionally, with no strings attached. The root meaning of that word, “liberally,” is "to stretch forth." It's a picture of an outstretched hand. God is the giving God who gives with an outstretched hand. What kind of concept do we have of God when we need wisdom for daily life? Do we look on God as a God with a clinched fist? On the other hand, do we look on God as a God with an outstretched hand? The Bible says God is the God with an outstretched hand. God is willing to give liberally, unconditionally, with no strings attached. I really do like that! Don’t you?
GOD GIVES LOVINGLY.
The second little statement says, "He upbraideth not." That means He won't scold us for coming. He won't scold us for asking. I hope you don't treat your children this way, but sometimes people scold their children for coming to them. I heard a man say, "I gave you a quarter yesterday, what did you do with all of that?" I say a man who had a little boy who asked his Dad for some pocket change because he wanted to buy some ice cream at the park. The Dad reached in his pocket and gave him 3 quarters and said, "Here Son, take this and don't spend it all in one place and be sure to bring me back the change." I sure am glad God is not that way. My dad didn’t have much but he wanted to give me what he could and he wasn't that way either. God doesn't say, "You blew what I did for you last time, why should I give you anything else?" Unfortunately, there may be some parents that way, but our Heavenly Father is not that way. Our Heavenly Father will never get irritable with us because we are constantly bugging Him because we need wisdom. We can come to God a thousand times a day and ask Him to give us wisdom and He will never get impatient with us. We can come to God as often as we need to and the Bible says He gives liberally, without strings attached, unconditionally and He won't scold us for coming. It absolutely delights God when His children come to Him admitting our desperate need of Him. Admitting our inadequacy and our need of the wisdom of God. It just thrills the heart of God. That is the fountain of wisdom. It comes from a giving God who gives to us liberally and He won't scold us for asking.
THINK ABOUT THE FLOW OF THAT WISDOM.
The fountain is God. He's the One who gives the wisdom. How do we get this wisdom to flow to us? James 1:5 says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God...and it shall be given." He is saying that if we want God's wisdom, the way we get it is to pray for it. We go to God in prayer. He didn't say, "Sit down and think." He didn't say, "If we lack wisdom go to a teacher and get taught wisdom." He didn't say, "If we lack wisdom read a book." It's good to think; it's good to go to a teacher and it's good to read a book, but that's not what he says we do to get wisdom. Keep in mind I am talking about wisdom, I am not talking about knowledge. Sometimes young people will use this statement right here not to study. They will fail to get up their homework and study for a test. The next day the test will be handed out and the questions will look foreign to them and they will pray, “God give me wisdom so I can pass this test!” Well, that is not the way it works. If we do our part you can be assured that God will do His part. God is always faithful so we need to make sure we are faithful also. I can tell any young person that it would be WISE to study your homework adequately and be completely prepared for the upcoming test and God will give you the wisdom to pass it.
"Let him ask God." It means to let him continuously ask God. Keep on asking God. We get God's wisdom on the installment plan. Just like we get our daily bread. Jesus taught us to pray in the model prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread..." God wants us to come every day and ask Him for our daily needs. I heard they have a pill that we can take daily and that will supply all our food needs. I don't want that pill. I enjoy the taste of food. I enjoy cheating a little - eating more than I should. What if we went to God for our daily bread and God says, "There's one pill, take it and it'll feed you for the rest of your life." The wisdom of God doesn't work that way. We have to come to God daily and God gives His wisdom on the installment plan - day by day by day by day. "If you lack wisdom, ask of God continuously." Jesus said, "Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you." The tenses of the verbs are present tense - keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. God has promised that He will give us the wisdom we need.
The devil knows that he cannot keep God from answering prayer. Nevertheless, he knows he can keep us from praying. There was an imaginary meeting of the demons with the devil. They were discussing how they could hinder Christians. They decided, "We can't keep God from answering their prayers, but if we can keep them from praying their prayers we have them where we want them. If we can keep them from praying we have them every time. But if they pray they will beat us every time." That's right. The devil can't keep God from answering prayer. Nevertheless, the devil can keep us from praying. Let me show you how it works. We are going to have a problem in the morning, totally unexpected. Our tendency is to fret about it. Then we fumble around trying to find solutions for it. Then, we try to figure it out. Then, we work with it. Then, we wrestle with it about half the morning - us and that problem are wrestling. Then it dawns on us, "God said if we lack wisdom, we are to ask Him and He will give it to us." Then we pray. The reason we don't have more answers from God is that we do everything else before we pray more. Why is it we don't pray more and do all that other stuff less? It's an amazing thing how we fail to pray.
Do you agree with these words you sing quite often it you attend church worship? “What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and grief’s to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. O, what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”
God has issued an open invitation for us to pray and ask Him to help us with those family problems, to help us with those children problems, to help us with those job problems and every other problem under the sun. If you are a born again believer you have access to a wisdom and an insight that the unsaved world knows nothing about. We ought to take advantage of it.
CONSIDER THE SECRET OF WISDOM.
What about the times when we asked for wisdom and nothing happened? What about the times when we prayed and got up from our knees – there were no bells ringing and we felt just as dumb as when we got down on my knees? The fact of the matter is that sometimes God is just waiting to give that answer and to give that wisdom that we need at just the time we are ready for it and at the time when it will benefit us the most. However, there is a secret in the rest of these verses we need to understand.
God says when you pray and ask me for wisdom keep in mind two things.
Number 1 – WE CANNOT PRAY WITH A DOUBTING HEART.
James 1:6 "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering." The word, “wavering,” means not doubting. It means inner hesitation. It's like a wave of the sea. That's the illustration he uses. A wave is never fixed and sturdy and stable. A wave of the sea is here and there. It's in and it's out. It's up and down. That is exactly what doubt is in the life of a believer.
"Driven with the wind and tossed." Any way the wind blows that's the way that wave goes. It's tossed up and down. Some Christians are like that. There is that inner hesitation. Sometimes we are like Simon Peter when Simon Peter was on the boat and Jesus came walking. Don't criticize Simon. He got out of the boat and that is further than most of us have ever gone. The Lord Jesus was walking on the water and Simon Peter said, "Lord, if that's you, bid me come to you." The Lord said, "Come on." The way we walk on water is to get permission from Jesus – so keep that in mind. We should never try to walk on water unless Jesus tells us to! I can see the disciples now as they shake their heads and say, "Man, he has pulled some big ones, but this one takes the cake." There he goes, walking on the water to Jesus. The Bible says that when Simon Peter he took his eyes off Jesus and got his eyes on the storm, he was afraid and he began to sink. He became like a wave of the sea, tossed and blown.
That's what happens when we get our eyes off Jesus. James didn't say, "Ask with faith." James is not talking about faith as an additive. James is not talking about praying and then at the end sprinkling a little faith on it like we sprinkle salt on a meal. No, James is not saying when we pray, then pour in a little faith like we pour in a little STP in our car motor. James says, "Let him pray in faith." That means pray in the atmosphere of faith. It means we must be living in the atmosphere of trusting God. We must pray believing in the atmosphere of trust in God. Someone said, "Pray and believe and thou shall receive. Pray in doubt and do without." So, we must not pray with a doubting heart.
God says when you pray and ask me for wisdom keep in mind two things.
Number 2 – WE CANNOT PRAY WITH A DOUBLE MINDED HEART.
James 1:8, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." “Double mind” means a person of divided loyalties. It really means a two-souled man. He is divided in his loyalty. That word, “double minded,” occurs only one other time in the whole New Testament. Interestingly, it occurs in the book of James.
It occurs in James 4:8, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. (That is the atmosphere of trusting in God) Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." (That explains how you get a double mind.) A double mind comes from an unclean heart. He tells us to cleanse our hearts. A double minded man is a man who has an unclean heart. A believer has an unclean heart when he has divided loyalties. He is trying to hold on to Jesus with one hand and trying to hold onto this world with the other hand.
He says when you get in that situation you are unstable in all your ways. The picture there is like a drunken man, reeling and rocking back and forth. Believers cannot expect to get the wisdom of God when in our hearts there is a divided loyalty. When there is a divided loyalty we are trying to hold onto Jesus and onto the world at the same time. Therefore, we have to ask God to cleanse our hearts, examine our motives, and purify our lives so that when we come to God and ask Him for His wisdom we can do so with a heart that is fixed on Jesus Christ. We do so with a heart that is absolutely in the atmosphere of total trust and confidence in God.
When we are as right with Jesus as we know how to be and when we have committed our life to him and we are trusting in Him with all of our heart, the Bible promises that we can ask for the wisdom of God and He will give it to us.
I want to this Study directing our thoughts to what I think is the greatest illustration in the Bible on this Scripture. In 2nd Chronicles chapter 1. This is the illustration of the young king, Solomon. Solomon was the young man chosen by God to secede his father, David, as king of God's people. God came to Solomon as he began his reign and in verse 7 it says, "In that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, ask what I shall give thee." Think about that for a moment. God told Solomon to ask whatever he wanted. God just extended to Solomon a blank check, signed by the God of this universe. You can just fill in the details.
If God should come to us today and give us a blank check, what would we ask for? We read verse 10 we see what Solomon asked for. Solomon asked, "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?" Did Solomon ask for honor? No. Did Solomon ask for wealth? No. Did Solomon ask for fame? No. Did Solomon ask to become a genius? No. Solomon realized he was a young man given a tremendous responsibility. He had to be the leader for the people of God on this earth. Therefore, in verse 10 He asked God for wisdom. It thrilled God to death. In verse 11 God said to Solomon, "Because this was in thine heart, and you have not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of your enemies, neither have you asked long life; but you have asked wisdom..." Verse 12 says, "Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honor such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like."
The Bible says that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. God just flooded his heart and soul with wisdom. In fact, he wrote three of the books of the Bible. He composed 3,000 proverbs. He wrote 1005 songs. The Bible says that the kings from the east came to hear this man's wisdom. The Queen of Sheba came to hear the wisdom of this man Solomon and when she had told him all of her heart and he had given the answers that the wisdom of God had provided the Bible says she said, "The half has not yet been told."
The same God who had His hand outstretched to Solomon and said, "I'll give you wisdom," is the God you and I serve and we can ask Him to help us with the daily problems and needs and burdens of life.
If you do not yet know Jesus as your personal Savior the Bible says in Colossians 2:3 that, "In Him (Jesus) are all the treasures of wisdom." You desperately need wisdom to live life in the 2000’s and beyond until the end. You need this wisdom of God and the only way you can get it is in Jesus Christ.
WE ALL NEED WISDOM FOR DAILY LIVING. We need to know how to bring up our boys and girls. We need to know how to make the right decisions on the job. We need to know how to live a successful life. We need wisdom. For an example, it's like this Bible was Jesus. John said “The Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Bible is the written Word. We say, "I want wisdom." God says, "Ok, I'll give you all the wisdom you need, but I'll give it to you in Jesus. But, you have to take my Son in order to get it." Do you want it enough to receive it? That is up to each of us personally, but if you receive it your life will be changed daily and eternally.
If you haven’t already, I want to invite you to receive Jesus as your Savior.
DO YOU NEED SOME HELP?
To find more help in receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior please go to the Bible Study Title Page “ETERNAL LIFE.” Please send me an email and let me know about any decision for Christ you make so that I may pray for you. Feel free to send me any questions, comments, or responses you may have as well. For those who are already Christians I invite you to also please let me know of any decisions you make in your Christian life for Jesus. Please send me your questions, comments, or responses and let me know if the Bible Studies are helping you.
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ALWAYS REMEMBER!
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