Wisdom Matters

Old Testament believers understood that the heart was the center of life and also believed the heart was the center of a person’s passions or motivations. Consider how your heart quickly responds when excited, scared, or nervous. 

When the psalmist says “my heart trusts,” he is giving an example of what it means to set aside personal motivations and trust God’s leadership completely. He knows that is how he is helped.

The psalmist also says “my heart exults.” The word in Hebrew means to be openly joyful and filled with praise. People will notice a heart that exults when they see our reactions and our joy. The psalmist’s praise motivates his actions and causes him to openly sing a song of gratitude to God.

Our goal as believers is to abide in God’s holy Presence, trusting him to be our strength for the journey and our shield of protection. God is our help, and we should live gratefully aware that he walks with us as a protective, loving Father walks with his child.

When last was your gratitude for God’s help and blessing so overwhelming that those around you could see that your heart was exulting, rejoicing with songs of thanks? Wisdom is offering our gratitude to God. Wisdom will fill our hearts with thanksgiving because we understand that God himself is our strength and shield. Our hearts will exult with an attitude of praise so that others will know we are children of the one true and holy God.

Every day is blessed with circumstances only God could orchestrate in our lives. We will see God at work in our lives if we know how to look for him, see his hand, and trust his heart. Paul wrote, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

This month we will talk about how wisdom leads us to be grateful for God in all circumstances, even those circumstances we wouldn’t choose. Wisdom is offering our gratitude to God. We will live a life of grateful praise when we walk in God’s wisdom. A life of obedience to God causes us to be grateful because we can know that we are living the will of God through the power of Christ Jesus.

Legions of angels are at work in this world. God’s Holy Spirit is actively guiding every life yielded to his voice of direction. Christians have been saved by grace, and we continue to live each day by God’s grace.

If we could wave a wand and become the people we could have been had we lived apart from God’s grace, we would each drop to our knees, overwhelmed with gratitude to God. He has spared us from things we cannot know, and he has blessed us with things we have not fully appreciated. God loves his children, and his grace to us is “not in vain.” 

No one’s life is perfect or perfectly easy. Paul knew that better than most. But each of us has a unique life filled with the guidance and blessings personally given to us by our perfect God. Just as he gave each of us a fingerprint, so has God given each of us a unique blueprint for our life. 

We can be grateful for all we know and understand about God’s plan for our lives, but we can also be grateful for the grace we have been given for the moments we lived contrary to his plan. 

Wisdom is offering our gratitude to God. God’s grace is uniquely at work, building and directing each of our lives through our hard work. His grace is our strength and our blessing of grace.

Is any day of the year better for sharing our faith than Halloween? The world is celebrating scary things today by making the day sweeter with candy. Meanwhile, television, movies, decorations, and costumes have become evil and increasingly grotesque.

People dabble in the occult for fun. Most walk away with little damage to their soul. Some, however, continue to engage in the process that costs them their soul. We live in a culture that doesn’t often consider the reality of Satan and his love for all things dark and evil. Halloween is a good chance to live as a separate witness from the world and speak of things that are holy.

Jesus said, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me.” We will be given the chance to share our faith wisely and joyfully with others if we follow Jesus around today. What we do or don’t do can speak a loud testimony to those we know. When they ask us why we believe like we do, Jesus can answer their question through our opportunity.

Today, and all days, we can wisely and joyfully share our faith if we will “keep in step” with the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:25). If we want to serve Christ today, we must follow his leadership and serve him as our King.

Jesus said, “If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” We will have a good night’s sleep tonight, and every night, if we know we spent our day with the One who created it. Satan didn’t create October 31; he just refocused the day on his priorities. He can do that on any given day if we choose not to follow and serve Jesus.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Halloween is a great day to walk in the wise footsteps of Jesus. If we serve Jesus, the Father will honor his servant.

Zig Ziglar was a motivational Christian speaker who once said, “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” We have spent the month considering our personal calling to share Christ wisely with others. The only wrong way to end the month would be to end it with the same convictions and behaviors as we began. Do you have a new ambition about sharing your faith in Christ? Zig Ziglar would say, “You’re halfway there!”

Paul told the church in Rome, “I make it my ambition to preach the gospel.” It is safe to say that the overwhelming success he experienced changed the history of the church and the world.

But Paul made one other statement about his ambition to preach the gospel. Paul said that he wanted to preach “not where Christ has already been named.” Paul was a missionary as well as a theologian. Paul planted churches that changed the world.

I hope all of us have been inspired to share our faith with others. I hope even more that we share Paul’s ambition to share our faith with those who might not hear a testimony about Jesus from someone else. Are you willing to stretch every relationship in your life to include your testimony of faith in Jesus Christ?

Is the person who cuts your hair saved?

Is the person who cuts your grass saved?

Is the person who lives next door saved?

Is your dentist, doctor, accountant, or handyman saved?

Is your coworker, your supervisor, or your CEO saved?

There are people in your life who are yours to witness to. Quite possibly, you are the best person to serve as an effective witness in their lives.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Do you wisely share Paul’s ambition to joyfully share Christ with people who have never heard the plan of salvation before? Zig Ziglar would say, “If you will share Paul’s goal, you are halfway there.”

Maybe you have shared your faith with someone, or many, who have appeared politely disinterested. Maybe someone even hurt your feelings after you prayerfully shared your testimony with them. We can eagerly and joyfully testify about our faith in Christ and be shot down by an unbeliever. It’s okay to be shot down; it is not okay to be shut down.

Measure the success of your witness by whether or not God spoke through you to someone else. Your success is measured by your obedience to God, not the other person’s response. Paul encouraged the witness of the church in Corinth telling them, “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

We aren’t responsible for a person’s spiritual growth. Truthfully, we can’t be responsible because we can’t judge what only God can know. That is between the person and God. We can judge whether or not we are faithfully telling others the gospel message. Our success, our accountability to God, is measured by how we step up to join the Holy Spirit in his work.

Christians have always been shot down and always will be. We shouldn’t be surprised, or even disappointed, because Jesus told us to expect that. Remember in Matthew 17 when his disciples returned from their mission disappointed? Remember when the apostle Paul preached to the men of Athens and very few came to faith? Most there mocked his words. If the apostle Paul, the great theologian of the New Testament, was mocked, we should expect to be treated the same. Paul learned not to measure his message by who didn’t believe. He measured success by those who did come to faith and by those willing to share their faith with others. 

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Wisdom is knowing that we will often only be there to scatter a few more seeds. God’s job is to “give the growth.” Heaven will be full of people we thought we had failed to convince. God knew better. We aren’t accountable to people who shoot us down. We are accountable to God if we allow those people to shut us down.

When God calls you to share your witness with someone, don’t mistake the fluttering of your heart for nerves. God will tell you when to speak up, and your heart will often flutter with conviction. That is simply the Holy Spirit at work, calling you to the moment. I like to think of my fluttering heart as being tapped by the wings of that dove that descended upon Jesus at his baptism.

When conviction comes, pray Paul’s words to the church in Rome. You can pray, “God of hope, fill me with all joy and peace as I believe in your name. Fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit so that my words may abound with the hope of your salvation.” God will answer that prayer as you yield your thoughts and your words to him. The Holy Spirit is an excellent witness; in fact, he is perfect. If you pray for your witness, God will create and author your witness.

The only reason a Christian would be unable to witness is because that Christian has forgotten to pray and forgotten that it isn’t about the words we speak. It’s about the words God wants to speak through us.

If you allow your nerves to be a hindrance, you will miss the conviction and the abundant blessing of having your thoughts and ideas filled with the “joy and peace” of believing. Nerves can hinder you from knowing the abundance the Holy Spirit can bring to your life.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Wisdom is sharing Christ through the power and abundance of God’s Holy Spirit. Wisdom is also learning that a fluttering heart is God’s encouragement to pray so he can fill you with all you need to be his witness and share your belief with someone who needs to know and receive their salvation in Christ.

Sometimes people think they don’t know all the right things to say about God so they hesitate to share their witness as a result. Almost any conversation about God could begin with his greatness and his holiness. A beautiful sunrise or sunset is God’s painting. A tremendous storm reveals his power. The intricacies in nature reveal his vast imaginative ability to create. God makes himself known to the nations. Our words of witness about God may be as simple as pointing people’s thoughts toward the many revelations of God around us.

If we want to preach the gospel, we can use the message of John 3:16. If we want to speak about the need for God, we can point to the stories in the evening news. If we want to prove the existence of God, we can point to the glimpses of God in his creation.

We already have a witness to his “greatness and holiness” because God has made himself “known in the eyes of many.”

People may believe in the Big Bang Theory, but we can ask them where they think the big bang came from. Science can point to evolutionary changes, but we can point to the consistency of each rotation of the earth, each star in the sky, and every season that continues to come and go every year. People can proudly consider themselves non-believers and we can be just as proud to say why we believe. In fact, we have a legacy of faith that has existed from the beginning of time.

Centuries of Christians have known God because he has revealed his holiness and his greatness to the world. We are simply part of an immeasurable group of people who have recognized the revelation of God in his creation.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. If you are wondering how you can begin to develop a powerful witness to the world, start at the beginning: “God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). When you want to share Christ, God’s greatness and his holiness are easy to point to. Then follow that practical and powerful view of God with the truth of John 3:16. When you are done, you will have served and glorified our great and holy God.

Spotting a Christian in a crowd shouldn’t be difficult. There is a tangible presence of Christ in the life of every believer. We all have bad days, we all get in a hurry, and we all damage our witness in multiple ways. That said, one of the best ways to spot a Christian is the conviction on their faces and, hopefully, the repentance that follows those lesser moments.

Lifestyle evangelism means walking in the Spirit, led by the Spirit, wherever we go. It’s getting to know the people who serve at restaurants, stores, the dry cleaners, or the doctors’ offices. It’s being a good neighbor, a good coworker, and a good friend to others. It’s opening doors, giving up parking spaces or seats, and just living a sacrificial life of kindness toward others.

Lifestyle evangelism is essential to our witness, but the heart of our witness needs to be our words. People can look at our kindness and glorify us if we don’t let them know that our actions are born from the Holy Spirit of Christ. We have to tell people about Jesus. “How can they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” Christians have to tell the world who Jesus is and why everyone needs to receive him as God’s gift of grace, for the salvation of the world.

Too many of us have relegated the idea of preaching to those who stand at a pulpit. In fact, if we are accused of preaching to someone, that accusation is often a slander of our words rather than a compliment. Paul asked the church in Rome, “How are they to hear, without someone preaching?”

Have you allowed the culture to hinder your sermon about Christ? Every Christian is called to preach. Only a few do that from a pulpit.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. Wisdom is preaching the gospel through your life and through your words.

Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He then described himself as “the true vine” (John 15:1).

We are “grafted into” the family of God through our faith in Christ. However, Jesus wanted to make one more lesson clear.

If a believer is truly attached to the “true vine,” he or she will bear much fruit. The fruit of our lives proves to the world that we are disciples of Christ. Our “fruit” glorifies our heavenly Father.

Just as a strong vine produces many grapes, a strong disciple will produce other disciples. When our faith leads others to faith, we prove we are God’s children. Jesus said, “By this my Father is glorified.”

If a Christian is yielded to the power of the Holy Spirit and walking with the purpose of Jesus, they will do the work of an evangelist. The overflow, the fruit of that intentional and dedicated walk with God, is a witness that draws others to glorify the Father. It isn’t difficult to spot a disciple in our world today.

When speaking to groups, I have often told them to consider a “five-minute measure” of their walk with God. When a disciple of Christ walks into a room filled with people having conversations, it shouldn’t take more than five minutes for someone to be aware that you are a Christian. Put that to the test, set that as your goal, and you will bring glory to your Father in heaven.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. It is wise to consider what it means to be a disciple of Christ and measure the fruit of your life by the numbers of people who have noticed you glorify your heavenly Father—wherever you go.

We often speak of sharing our faith, but, in truth, we are sharing the faith. The first commandment, the first thing people have always needed to understand, is that there are “no other gods” before Jehovah God. The world needs to worship the Creator God, not the gods created by men.

God causes the sun to rise and set every day. Only the Creator God’s name is great for every nation. Every nation should have a way to worship and honor the one true God. He deserves our pure and holy offerings because only the Lord of hosts is the great God for every nation of people.

The created need to worship their Creator. We don’t share “our faith.” We share “the faith” the world needs. There is only one God, and that message is essential to our evangelism.

It seems arrogant to think our religion is better than another. It seems intolerant to insist there is only one God and only one way to heaven. It is natural to be impressed with a person of great faith, even if their faith is misplaced in a false god.

God knew that this world would always be influenced by gods that were created by people. Satan seeks to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) by rewriting the truth of God. If we don’t stand firm in biblical truth, our respect for a person’s devotion to their god might keep us from sharing God and the faith with them.

The way is narrow, and that truth is difficult to hear. The first commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” None of the other commandments matter if the first is not obeyed.

Wisdom is joyfully sharing Christ with others. We can share the gospel of Christ as “our faith,” or we can wisely share the gospel of Christ as “the faith.” Belief in the one true God is essential to our evangelism.