Many passages in the Bible speak to the importance of humility. One example is when James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, came to him asking if they could be on his right and on his left when he came to power. Their request immediately caused an argument among the other disciples. Jesus was quick to teach them all the great flaw in their thinking. Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43—44). 

Yet, the passage in 1 Chronicles reveals King David’s praise of God, whose hand of power is to “make great and to give strength to all” (1 Chronicles 29:12). There is no doubt that God gives some people the power to be great and influential in our world. We should pray to be “great” Christians, knowing that means we are asking to be “great servants” of God.

Our blessings, our gifts, our abilities, and our calling comes from God the Father, who has “all power and might.” God decided how to make each of his children great and strong. We decide to accept God’s blessings or deny them by our choices.

King David had to wait a long time after he was anointed king to become the king and to take the throne. Those years of waiting were spent as a fugitive running from King Saul. Personal greatness also came with great consequences for most of the leaders in the Bible. 

We should pray to be “great” influencers for the gospel, but when we voice that prayer we should also pray for the great strength we will need to handle our personal consequences. 

A great Christian is one who is a committed servant of God. To be first in some circles is to be last in others. Greatness is living for God and using our gifts for his kingdom purpose. 

Riches and honor can come from God. So do servitude and submission. Yielding to God’s wisdom provides the spiritual strength we need to serve him in whatever ways we will be called to be great as we serve our kingdom purpose.

Psalm 59 is David’s song of prayer and praise for the protection God provided when Saul had sent his men to spy on his home. The psalm begins, “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God” (v. 1). 

Scripture is clear that if we choose to live a holy life, we will be persecuted by those who are antagonistic to our faith. How comforting to go to God with David’s words of wisdom and praise, “O my Strength” and “You, O God, are my fortress.”

There are a lot of places we might run for God’s protection. His word is our wisdom and the answers we need in times of trouble. His Spirit is our Counselor who provides wisdom and direction. But, we have also been given a “place” to run. We have been invited into God’s presence, which is our “fortress” and our “refuge.”

We can rest in God’s presence, knowing him as our “Strength.” We can remain with God for as long as we need him to be our refuge. We should not leave the fortress until our Commander instructs us to go back into the field.

Wisdom and strength are necessary to fight for the Lord, and sometimes God calls us away from the field and into his protection to spare us from the battle. King David knew God as his King, his Commander, and knew him as his great Protector as well.

Persecution shouldn’t be a surprise for people in ministry. Jesus taught us to expect that. We will all be faced with a few “fights” in our lives. Wisdom is knowing what to do when we face these confrontations. Are we to take up the battle or retreat to the fortress and find refuge? The only answer to that question is God’s individual word for your life.

Follow David’s wise example and say, “O my Strength, I will watch for you.” Look for God in the words of your Bible. Pray for God’s counsel in the quiet voice of his Spirit. Run to your refuge and pray until your direction is clear. 

After David said he would watch for God, his fortress, he said, “My God in his steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.” When God fights for us, he always wins the battle. That is why we look for God’s refuge and trust his steadfast love to “meet” us there. We can’t fight our battles without him.

Yielding to God’s wisdom is spiritual strength. Wisdom is running to our fortress to rest and wait until we are strong enough to let God fight for us and through us. Spiritual battles are fought under the Commander’s orders. So we pray, “Be our strength, O God. We will wait and watch for you.”

We often approach God with the things we want, hoping that God will give us some of the things we ask of him. That approach to God is not what Scripture prescribes. God is our Father and we are his children. Do you want your children to be “partially blessed,” or do you want your children to be greatly blessed? 

If we as parents want to give good gifts, how much more does our Father in heaven want to abundantly bless his children with good gifts?

Our approach to God should be as a child to their father. We approach God:

Confident that we are loved

Knowing that he is worthy of our awe and reverence

Aware that his ways are higher than our own

With the gratitude of one who humbly receives what has not been earned

The apostle Paul told the Ephesian church to praise God, “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” We approach our Father with the understanding that he wants to give more than we know to ask for. God wants to bless our lives with an abundance that only he understands we need. 

We need to remember that God will always “out-give” our requests. We also need to remember that God’s blessings are about so much more than the “stuff” of life. We want our children to have material things, but, even more, we want them to have the spiritual blessings that mark a life that belongs to and is favored by Jesus.

The Holy Spirit of Christ is at work within us, guiding us along a path of righteousness that God will be able to abundantly bless. God will bless all he can but will not bless what is not blessable.

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. His blessings are far more than we can ask or imagine. We need to remember who we are in Christ Jesus and know that our heavenly Father wants nothing more than to pour his abundance into our lives. We can strive to live wisely, keeping our lives on God’s path of wisdom, his path of blessing.

Lifestyle evangelism is living our faith through our actions but also through our words. People should see Jesus in our lives because of our choices and the character of Christ we choose to emulate.

Feeling uncertain when we want to talk to someone about their faith in Christ is good. Everyone is different and will have a unique path to their salvation. Just because some words worked well with one person doesn’t mean those words will be what everyone needs to hear. The reason we should feel uncertain is because that is how the Lord wants us to feel. Our uncertainty reminds us to pray. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to control and author our thoughts and words.

God told Isaiah, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lᴏʀᴅ. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” (Isaiah 55:8–9). Uncertainty is how we should feel if we haven’t yet prayed and yielded our thoughts to the higher thoughts of God.

However, feeling uncertain about our words can’t be an excuse to avoid speaking God’s truth. We are God’s “workmanship,” and we have been reborn as a disciple of Christ. Our ability isn’t our own; it is the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Peter and John didn’t heal the lame man at the gate called Beautiful; that was the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The disciples’ words didn’t save thousands after Pentecost; those were the words preached in different languages through the Holy Spirit, who had filled those disciples.

When we need to share the words of Christ with a person, we need to submit our thoughts to Christ and ask him to author our words through his Holy Spirit. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). People aren’t led to Christ because of our words; they are led to Christ because of his words—the words of Scripture that we have learned and are now called and gifted to speak.

Anyone willing to learn God’s word and learn to yield their thoughts to the Lord’s can share the message of Christ. We just need to allow the uncertainties we feel to remind us to lean on God for our message.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Evangelism is simply speaking the wisdom of Christ with others as Christ leads us. The Holy Spirit’s power and ability are just a prayer away.

Scripture speaks of the blessings of wisdom, comparing the value of wisdom to the value of gold and silver. Wisdom is of the highest value because it is a pathway to

God’s blessings. God’s wisdom enables us to live a life he is able to bless. If you found a buried treasure you were allowed to keep, you would feel both lucky and blessed. We have been given the most valuable treasure in God’s word. We have been given the wisdom we need to store up a treasure that will be eternally ours.

During the month of September, we will consider how to find and walk God’s path of wisdom so that we are able to live a life he can abundantly bless, now and forever.

In John 1:14 the apostle describes Jesus saying, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (NIV). He then says “from his fullness” or his “completeness” we have received one “grace” after another (v. 16).

If we know Jesus, we know how to live a blessed life. Jesus is the perfect example of what it means to be right with God. Moses gave God’s people the law, but Jesus came to give his life for all of us because we would always be unable to keep God’s law. 

When we walk through life with Jesus as our high and holy example, we realize that our salvation is only because of the grace and truth of God revealed in Christ. We will never walk the path of blessing perfectly, but that path is always available to us through the grace and forgiveness Jesus gives. His Holy Spirit stands ready to guide us back to the life God can bless. 

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. Living with Christ as our gracious guide enables us to find that path each day and humbly return to that path when we lose our way. Jesus often said, “Follow me” (Luke 18:22). Even when that isn’t easy, following him is still God’s will for your life because it is your path of blessing.

Most of us could easily fill a page with the many ways God has poured his love into our earthly lives. Our blessings can be seen in the faces of family and friends and in the “stuff” we have been able to buy. We all get sick, but most of the time our health is a blessing. But we also know that every blessing we enjoy on earth is usually temporary. Our health, our finances, and our “stuff” will have a beginning and an end.

James, the half brother of Jesus, spoke of the blessings of our lives that will continue to be our blessings in heaven. He said, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” Every gift God gives us is perfect and therefore has eternal value.

You might say those “good gifts” are actually “God-gifts.” God-gifts transcend time and are consistently given to every generation. God is unchanging and so are his gifts from above.

God gifted King David with confidence, encouragement, and a keen mind.

God gifted David’s son Solomon with extraordinary wisdom and the riches of this world.

God gifted the apostle Matthew with a fresh start because he followed Jesus.

God gifted Paul with intelligence and the humble confidence needed to stand for the gospel, endure persecution, and write theology that would endure as Scripture. 

God gifted you as well. 

What are the “good gifts from above” that our unchanging God has chosen to be your blessings? How are you using those perfect God-gifts to serve his will and his people? 

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. It is wise to know your gifts and wisely use them to serve the One who gave you “every” perfect blessing of your life.

One of our most important spiritual blessings is the understanding that we can do nothing for God, but we can do anything through God. That’s a difficult statement to comprehend because we think from an earthly perspective.

Our world is transactional. We pay a certain amount of money and expect to receive what we paid for. We work hard and expect to earn a paycheck. The ways of God are not transactional because God’s ways transcend this world.

God doesn’t need us, but he knows we need him. God chooses to use our lives because it’s what is best for us now and eternally. God doesn’t need our money, but he knows we need to give our money away in order to live our best life now and in heaven. God doesn’t need our praise, but he understands that our praise will cause us to comprehend his sovereignty. We can do nothing for God because he is already able to do everything perfectly.

God is unlimited, yet he often chooses to limit himself to our free will. God cannot bless our choices unless we have a choice.

We achieve God’s blessings because we choose to abound in every good work. We are sufficient when God is our sufficiency. We accomplish good work when we allow God to work through us. We can do nothing for God, but we can do anything through him.

Our best ideas are not always God-ideas. Our talents and abilities are not the same as our spiritual gifts. We must question the source. Are we motivated by God and talented because of his strength? Are we “self-sufficient,” or are we utterly aware that our sufficiency is all in God?

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. Wisdom is knowing that our service for God is accomplished through God, not ourselves. Will we wisely allow God to be our sufficiency in the days to come? God doesn’t need us, but we desperately need him if we want to live on his path of blessing.

I’ve often wondered why the Bible doesn’t tell us very much about heaven. We know it is a place where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain” (Revelation 21:4). We know we will see the Lord “face to face.” We know that people will not be “male or female” and our ethnic differences won’t be an issue. We will never have darkness, sin, or Satan to contend with. Those things alone would make it perfection, yet we know there is much more.

Our greatest blessings on earth will not compare to the blessings in the “heavenly places” Paul talked about. Yet, each of us seeks and wants God’s blessings now, for our days on earth, in addition to those we know we can hope for eternally.

According to Paul, our greatest blessings will be eternal, but we can live with that hope today. Sometimes we forget to enjoy our greatest blessings because we consider them to be available only in the heavenly places.

Paul told the church in Ephesus that they had already been blessed by God in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Those blessings will be received in heaven, but they already belong to us. There hasn’t been one day since our salvation when we’ve lived without our greatest blessing. 

Quite simply, since the day we placed our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God chose us as his child. We can live every day of our earthly lives with the knowledge that we will stand before God “holy and blameless” because of Jesus. God established that plan even before he created the world.

Our greatest blessings are because of our new name. We are the adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. The mansions, the banquets, and the other blessings of heaven are real and guaranteed.

We don’t know much about heaven, but we know enough to look forward to living there. Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. Knowing that our path on earth ends at the gate of heaven is the best reason to live as wisely as we can. His greatest blessings will always be our God-given and guaranteed promises.

The peace of God is one of our most significant spiritual blessings. Lacking God’s peace is one of our most crucial spiritual warnings. Why is that?

Paul told the Philippian church that the peace of God “surpasses all understanding.” God’s peace is unique and it is a gift. We don’t work for God’s peace; we ask for it. God’s peace isn’t found; it is received. 

God’s peace is given for a reason. According to Paul, it will “guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” God’s peace connects our minds to the mind of Christ. His peace guards our hearts with the priorities and passions of Jesus. 

We will sense God’s peace regardless of our circumstances. We can know and accept God’s will even when it is not our own. God’s peace surpasses human understanding because it is a miraculous consequence of walking in the wisdom of God.

Wisdom will lead you in the direction of God’s immeasurable, unsurpassed peace. The peace of God is one of our greatest blessings, and lacking that peace is one of our most important warnings. 

God’s peace stands guard over our hearts and minds. Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. One of his most significant blessings is the peace that surpasses all understanding. Does his peace surround you right now? That answer will direct your next steps along or toward God’s path of blessing.

I used to love to try a new roller coaster because it was impossible to know all the twists and turns ahead. Roller coasters are a fun diversion but not a place we can stay. They’ve stopped mid-ride, stranding the riders. No doubt, all of them were more than anxious to get off!

Our spiritual lives can sometimes land us on a roller coaster. This world hands us situations we couldn’t have anticipated, yet we have no choice but to take the ride. Sometimes, although rarely, the ride seems to stop and strand us in a difficult place. 

How do we live with God’s continued blessing in a world that can impose unwanted circumstances?

Paul told the Philippians, “You have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” The key to a life of consistent blessing is consistent obedience, regardless of our inconsistent circumstances.

Walking the high road was probably easier for the Philippians when Paul was with them, holding them accountable with his presence and teaching. He wrote the letter of Philippians while under house arrest in Rome. He couldn’t be with them, but he wanted them to live as if he were. He wanted them to continue in their obedience to God whether he was with them or not. He wanted them to be consistently faithful, even when his imprisonment had created doubts and problems.

Paul taught them how to stay on the path of blessing. He reminded them, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Their Source of blessing wasn’t the presence of Paul or the certainty of circumstances in this world; it was the power of God at work in their lives. 

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. Our path may include a few rides on a roller coaster, but if we will wisely remain obedient, even in the difficult places, we will be able to remain consistently on God’s path of blessing.