“Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:13-18 ESV)
The Lord may be leading me here to take this a slightly different direction while not deterring from what is being taught here, but perhaps as an offshoot of what is being taught here. For we all go through experiences in life, some good, and some not so good, which are ultimately for our good to help us to grow in our walks of faith in the Lord and to mature us spiritually in our obedience to God’s will and purpose for our lives. And so I am sensing the Lord would have me share with you today one of those experiences.
The year was 1980. I was 30 years old and pregnant with my fourth child, and my uterus prolapsed 3 months into pregnancy. I had to spend the last half of the pregnancy off my feet, so I was not able to take care of my preschool age children. So I had to put them in daycare, which was extremely emotionally painful for me to have to do. So I had a lot of time during the day without children to care for, and so I spent a lot of time in Bible study and in prayer, growing in my walk of faith in the Lord Jesus.
Fast forward to 1982. Our pastor taught on Spiritual gifts and he gave all of us a form to fill out, sharing where we believed God had gifted us and expressing our areas of ministry we would like to be involved in and/or that we believed we were called of God to do. And the expectation was that we would now be called upon and asked to serve the Lord in a specific area of ministry. But a year had gone by, I believe, and no word, so I asked the pastor to come to my house so I could speak with him about that.
He did. And I asked him why I had not heard anything. And please know here that this man and I had no relationship, so he did not know me, and I don’t believe we had ever really talked to each other before. But his response just “blew me away.” He began accusing me falsely of all sorts of things I did not do. And then he asked, “Would you say you have been crucified with Christ?” I answered, “Yes!” And he said, “I would say you haven’t!” Wow! That hit me “like a ton of bricks.”
I was so hurt by his vicious attacks against my character, which I believed to be totally unwarranted, and I really felt that there was not anything that I or God, in reality, could do about it. For I had grown up being abused by my father and I really believed that this man, this pastor, had power over me that God could do nothing about. And so I retreated. But then as I was reading the story of Jonah to my children one day the Lord impressed upon my heart that I was running away like Jonah did. And he encouraged me to “fight this through.” My response: “But God, you don’t understand!!”
Yet, I called the pastor on the phone and he suggested I speak with the elders of the church, so I invited them to my house, and they began ganging up on me and accusing me of things I was not doing. And this (today’s) passage was what they quoted to me, and they were trying to convince me that my desire to serve the Lord in ministry stemmed from selfish ambition, so that I “could be seen by others.” And so they wanted me to pray about this, and I did, but that was not my motivation at all. I wanted to serve the Lord because I love the Lord and I want to follow him in obedience.
To make a long story even shorter, what it eventually came down to is that they were judging me by themselves. For they admitted that their motivation for volunteering for ministry was to be seen by others, and since I was volunteering for ministry, they assumed that must be my motivation, too. So they were comparing me to themselves and they were deciding that I must be like them, and so they cast false judgments on me on that basis. But I wasn’t like them. In this case my motivations were from a pure heart.
So, why did the Lord have me talk about this story today? I believe it was to caution us against judging others’ character and motives by our own, or by our own traditions or religious philosophies or thinking with regard to what the “wisdom from above” should look like. For so many people, at least here in America, are adopting the culture and values of the world, and they are listening to people who are speaking in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, and they are casting judgments based on the flesh and not on godly wisdom.
So, if we really want to understand what it means to walk in the wisdom of God and not with earthly wisdom, then we need to be in close walks of faith and in obedience to our Lord so that we know the will of God. And we need to guard against adopting worldly philosophy and cultural traditions and fleshly ways of thinking and of judging and of discerning. And when we judge, it needs to be by God’s standards, and by his word, and not according to our own flesh, and not according to worldly thinking.
So, bottom line here is that the teachings of the Scriptures are to be defined by God and not by human flesh. So wisdom and good conduct are to be defined by the word of God and not by the wisdom of man. And it is the Lord who searches the hearts and who knows our true motivation for why we do what we do. But wisdom is willing to hear people out, and to take what they say to the Lord in prayer, and is willing to do self-examination and to admit error. But then we are not to be false to the truth, but we must speak truth.
And if we claim, “Not guilty” as charged, that is not necessarily a sign of pride, and it is not necessarily a profession of absolute perfection, either. It just means that we have taken what they said to the Lord in prayer, and we have allowed the Lord to examine our hearts and to show us if our motivations are wrong, and if our wisdom is of the flesh and not of the Spirit. And it is to speak the truth that we know, in love, and ask for some understanding and recognition that we are not all the same as each other.
And that is exercising this wisdom that is from above, and it is putting it into practice in our day to day situations which we will encounter, and it is to humble ourselves, and to be willing to admit wrong where we are wrong. For that is wisdom that is gentle and open to reason and is impartial and sincere, too. For we should be open to correction if needed. But we also need to be honest and not false to the truth. But we should speak the truth in love, and love those who mistreat us, who accuse us falsely.
Reach Out to Jesus
By Ralph Carmichael
Is your burden heavy as you bear it all alone?
Does the road you travel harbor danger yet unknown?
Are you growing weary in the struggle of it all?
Jesus will help you when on His name you call.
Is the life you're living filled with sorrow and despair?
Does the future press you with its worry and its care?
Are you tired and friendless, have you almost lost your way?
Jesus will help you, just come to Him today.
He is always there, hearing every prayer, faithful and true,
Walking by our side, in His love we hide all the day thru.
When you get discouraged, just remember what to do.
Reach out to Jesus, He's reaching out to you.
Login to view embedded media
Caution: This link may contain ads
www.catholicnewsagency.com
