In my last blog I talked about the dangers of compromise in our spiritual lives.  I referenced Solomon in that blog but I think he deserves a closer look than we were able to give him then.

By all accounts, Solomon stunned the world as the King of Israel.  His wealth, his wisdom, his knowledge, and his strategies were legendary even in his own day. He was the son of King David and God had promised David that there would always be one of his descendants on the throne of Israel as long as those descendants followed the commands of God. When Solomon was a young king, he experienced a visitation from God who told him he would grant whatever request he offered.  In a moment of brilliance, Solomon asked for wisdom to rule God’s people.  Because he asked for wisdom rather than wealth, power, or long life, God graciously promised him all those things as well as wisdom.  In a sense, the words of Jesus were fulfilled that if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all the other things needful for life will be given to us.

Solomon began his reign in a stellar fashion.  He secured the kingdom from his enemies, he built the magnificent temple for God that his father David had envisioned, and he built his own palace that amazed all who saw it.  His wisdom was known throughout the Middle East and other kings came or sent envoys just to ask him questions.  God gave him victory in every battle and eventually peace on his borders.

One famous visitor was the Queen of Sheba who said, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the Lordyour God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness” (1 Kings 10:6-9).  She was amazed at everything she saw and, as it should be, his giftedness directed her to give glory to his God.

Solomon surpassed every expectation that anyone could have ever imagined for his reign.  And yet, he died as a failure. The text says, “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women… They were from nations about which the Lordhad told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lordhis God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lordcompletely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.  The Lordbecame angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command” (1 Kings 11:1-10).

The question for us becomes, “How could the wisest man in history who had two personal visitations from the Lord and who knew well the promise that God had made to David about faithful sons, lose his way?”

First of all, Solomon asked for wisdom to rule Israel.  That may not be the same as spiritual wisdom.  We can ask God to give us wisdom for business, creativity for the entertainment industry, a best selling book, a mind for science, and many other things that will advance us in this world, but spiritual wisdom to know how things operate in the heavenly realm can be another thing. One type of wisdom is tied to the affairs of this world while the other is tied to the eternal realm.  The silence and submission that promoted Jesus in heaven, got him crucified on earth.

Secondly, years of amazing success and people bowing before you can cause anyone to forget God…I don’t care who you are. Somewhere in Solomon a seed of self-sufficiency and pride was planted, watered and grew.  The time came when he didn’t fear God or see him as the only true and living God.  Many great spiritual men have fallen because they became “stars” and “celebrities” within the church.  They believed their own press and refused to be accountable to others.  David made some huge mistakes but he still had men and prophets who would speak into his life to warn him and even confront him. Solomon seemed to have no one who could speak to him.

Thirdly, he eventually surrounded himself with unbelieving wives which opened the door to Solomon himself being demonized to the extent that he worshipped the most perverse of the pagan Gods…even those to whom children were sacrificed. The word of God clearly prohibited taking foreign wives and making foreign alliances. And yet, Solomon ignored those laws.  Paul declares the same for us in 2 Corinthians 6 when he commands us not to be yoked together with unbelievers.  Solomon had a weakness for women but excused it and fed it until it consumed him.

We need to be honest with ourselves about our weaknesses and vulnerabilities and we need to build guardrails around ourselves in those areas with prayer, confession, and accountability to some people we trust and respect.  These people must always have our permission to ask questions and give correction when needed.

To excuse, minimize, or justify those weaknesses is an open door to the enemy and if we play the game long enough, we will be deceived.  I am certain Solomon himself fell into that trap. I’m sure he didn’t give into the pleadings of his foreign wives at first.  He most likely tried to evangelize them and point out the greatness of his God for years.  But if we surround ourselves with unbelievers long enough, they will inevitably wear us down and we will be drawn to their way of life…little by little…. but drawn, all the same. One good apple placed in a barrel with rotten apples, will not make them healthy, but the one placed there will become rotten as well. Jesus hung out with sinners as ministry, but surrounded himself with those seeking God the rest of the time.

I’m also confident that Solomon’s wealth and success convinced him that God was all right with his foreign wives and foreign alliances.  That can be the danger of success and we all need to be aware of that danger. God is longsuffering, but his patience should not always be taken as approval.  We need spiritual wisdom to know the difference.

So pray for spiritual wisdom more than wisdom to succeed in this world. Be honest with your vulnerabilities and build guardrails for yourself including some who know what is going on in your life. Watch your relationships with unbelievers and do not open the door for the enemy.  If you find one open, shut it because even Solomon in all his glory finished his life as a failure.

Some of the newest brain research that has caught my attention lately is simply revealing the reasons behind what God has told us to do for millennia. All of us who have raised children experienced a moment of frustration when we told our kids, “Because I said so!” We uttered that final word when our kids kept asking us why. Sometimes our response was a rebuke to their little rebellious hearts, but that other times we said it because we thought they wouldn’t understand our reasoning, even if we told them. Perhaps, this is a time that God has chosen to reveal some of the “whys” behind his commands. The “why” and the “how” of the brain are calling us away from cultural norms in a culture that has forsaken God and, often, plain old common sense.   Let me share some of Caroline Leaf’s thoughts on our culture of busy-ness. I think it may help us.

In her book, How to Switch on Your Brain, she says, “One of the plagues of modern existence is multitasking, which leads to the further plagues of “hurry sickness” and obsessive time management. The truth about multitasking is that it is a persistent myth. What we really do is shift our attention rapidly from task to task, resulting in two bad things: (1) We don’t devote as much focused attention as we should to a specific activity, task, or piece of information, and (2) we sacrifice the quality of our attention. I call this milkshake-multitasking.

This poor focusing of attention and lack of quality in our thought lives is the complete opposite of how the brain is designed to function and causes a level of brain damage. Every rapid, incomplete, and poor quality shift of thought is like making a milkshake with your brain cells and neurochemicals. This milkshake-multitasking, which is the truth behind multitasking, creates patterns of flightiness and lack of concentration that are unfortunately often erroneously labeled ADD and ADHD and that are too often unnecessarily medicated, adding fuel to the fire. And it’s a rapid downhill slide from there if we don’t get back to our God-design of deep, intellectual attention.

What does deep, focused, intellectual attention look like versus milkshake-multitasking? The answer is modeled in Proverbs 4:20-23. ‘Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover these words live; really live; body and soul, they are bursting with health. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts’ (The Message).”

Leaf goes on to talk about parts of the brain that decline, which are centers of the brain for health, peace and happiness, if we do spend focused time thinking about deep things – God, life, values, and spend time in prayer as well as healthy introspection. To fail to take bring all thoughts into captivity in Jesus keeps us from achieving the physical, mental, and emotional health for which God has designed us. We are made in God’s image and God is a deep thinker. We need to be as well. When we live on sound bites and spend hours each day scrolling through Facebook or Twitter, we not only become shallow people but unhealthy people – literally.

I remember a line from a book I once read by a Christian author. I don’t remember the book or the author but I remember the line. He said something to the effect that the world does not need more talented people, more gifted people, or more driven people. The world needs deeper people. I agree with him and I believe the same thing can be said of the kingdom of God.

To quote Leaf one more time, she says, “We are told by so-called social media experts that information needs to be in bite-size amounts and in a constant stream of new information before the previous information has even been digested. This is not stimulation; it is bombardment…It is all about balance. Our brain responds with healthy patterns, circuits, and neurochemicals when we think deeply, but not when we skim only the surface of multiple pieces of information…According to the Archives of General Psychiatry, simultaneous exposure to electronic media during the teenage years – such as playing a computer game while watching television – appears to be associated with increased depression and anxiety in young adulthood, especially among men.” She goes on to quote a number of other studies connecting multitasking, fragmented thinking, and a life of sound bites with numerous health and psychiatric issues.

Our Father tells us to be still and know that he is God. Scripture calls us to meditate on his word day and night. He tells us to store up his word up in our hearts (memorize) and to talk about his word when we are on the road. He tells us to choose what we think about and think about godly things on a continual, focused basis. In other words, we need to buck the cultural trend of more is better and believe the biblical injunction that deeper is better. The world says to go faster. God says to go slower. The world says look for more stimulation. God says look for him.

If you, like me, tend to find yourself with less and less quiet time in your life and if you, like me, tend to get hijacked by the busy-ness around us, we need to fight back and we need to keep our children from succumbing to a world of sound bites and information addiction. It goes against out design, our health – both emotional and physical, and against the Word of God. Very often, a believer in Christ must be counter-cultural to be obedient. God has told us for thousands of years what to do to be healthy, peaceful and productive. Now he is showing us why.

Life without a real sense of purpose is miserable. When I was in my twenties I had already begun to feel the angst of not knowing what my life should be about. Career and love were big on the agenda of a twenty year old but I had no compelling reason to choose one career path over another and my quest for love wasn’t working out. Work wasn’t fulfilling because I was just working to pay the bills and not making enough to chase recreational pursuits or travel the world. Besides, God had wired me in such a way that “meaning” was a central issue in my life and I wasn’t finding real meaning in anything. As a result, I started fighting depression at a time when life should have seemed full of possibilities.

I think the world is full of people who don’t sense any purpose to their lives beyond the day-to-day essentials of life and maintaining the duties of marriage. Even materialism is an effort to find some meaning in a life that has no sense of value or purpose beyond the temporary rush of the new purchase. People drift from relationship to relationship, job to job, and fad to fad trying to find something beyond themselves to give their lives a greater sense of significance.

My sense of purpose finally came through a relationship with Jesus. The realization that God had established a destiny for me was intriguing but still vague in my early years as a believer. It was later when I began to delve into studies on my temperament and spiritual gifts that I started making the connections. Psalm 139 was especially helpful to me. David declared, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps.139:13-16).

As I studied the Psalm, I recognized that God had a very intentional hand in my creation. At the point of conception, he seemed to have shaped me according to his purpose. In fact, he had apparently laid out a plan for my life before I was ever born. I have a choice as to whether or not I cooperate with his plan, but a sense of destiny was forming in me. The question still remained, however, as to how I could discover that destiny so that I could cooperate with God in my life’s plan.

The Apostle Paul added another very significant layer to discovering my purpose in his letter to the Ephesians. He wrote, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.2:10). The idea of being God’s workmanship echoed Psalm 139 as he had a hand in developing who I was and what I would be doing. That thought then connected with “good works” which God had prepared in advance for me to do. My destiny did not just lie in being saved and going to heaven one day but in the realization that God has intentionally created me with specific purposes in mind.

If God had laid out good works he wanted me to accomplish, then he would have surely designed and equipped me to accomplish those works with some measure of excellence. My temperament and my abilities would both contribute to my capacity to do what God had called me to do. The additional layer of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit distributes then became a final clue. A number of temperament profiles exist today to help you understand your “wiring” and with those profiles you can discover a list of career paths toward which those temperaments gravitate. Add to that an awareness of spiritual gifts and you can begin to sense the kinds of life focus you have been designed for. One of the notions that we need to jettison is that careers in the market place are unspiritual while only church related ministries are spiritual. God wants to plant his people in every corner of society in order to reach people who are not attending anyone’s church and to spread the influence of kingdom values in those pockets of culture. Spiritual fruit must be sown outside the church walls and he has designed most of us to do that.

Other general indicators of “your call” are simple.  Has God placed a desire in your heart to do something or to operate in some spiritual gift? Do you find certain things that you do uniquely fulfilling even when it doesn’t place you in the spotlight or massage your ego? Have people told you that you made a difference in their life in a way that drew them closer to Jesus or allowed them to experience God’s grace? Do some things seem easy and intuitive for you while other things just don’t “compute?” Sometimes we keep trying to shore up the areas in which we are weak rather than pursuing and developing the areas in which we can flourish because God created us for those things. Sometimes we are trying to fulfill someone else’s call on our life and pursue those things in order to please a parent or another influential person in our life when God has not created us for those things as well. Frustration and an unfulfilling life is the outcome of that.

When I was in high school and early college, the question was always, “What do you want to do with your life?” Honestly, I didn’t have enough wisdom or life experience to even answer that question. The better question would have been. “What do you think God has created you to do?” You can not always know exactly what God is calling you to do because he will open doors for specific opportunities as you go, but you can discover the direction of your life that he has ordained for you by becoming aware of your temperament (wiring), your gifts, your desires, and those things that intuitively makes sense to you.

I believe we live in a world that has no sense of eternal destiny or purpose but is swimming in a sea of uncertainty trying to find personal significance. Purpose is everything. It makes us part of something bigger than ourselves. It attaches us to others who have a passion for the same purpose. It makes even the small things that contribute to your purpose significant. The ultimate questions for every individual is whether or not they matter and whether or not what they do matters. Purpose answers that and a knowledge that God has established your purpose with eternal dimensions is even more significant.

Helping your children discover who God has made them to be and how to walk that out would be one of the greatest gifts you could ever give them. Discovering that for yourself would be a tremendous gift for you as well. I hope you are clear on the call God has placed on your life or will begin to search for it if you have not yet discovered those things he has crafted you for and established for you even before the creation of the world. Blessings in Him.

And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:11

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Ephesians 6:11

The two scriptures above and others clearly state that Satan schemes against God’s people. According to Strong, the Greek word translated as schemes means, “machinations or (in military terms) attacks against which one must be armed. The nature of the attacks (the plural suggests that they are constantly repeated or are of incalculable variety) constitutes their great danger, against which the armor of God is the only defense. They are distinguished not so much by technique or strategy as by refinement and insidiousness.”

Strong’s definition is much longer than that but, in summary, it tells us that Satan attacks us repeatedly with strategies designed to move us away from God and into vulnerable positions where he can have greater access to us. These strategies are not typically frontal assaults but are more often insidious and very calculated moves that are subtle enough that we might not notice what is going on. It’s not that Satan never uses frontal assaults but when he does we usually recognize those for what they are and begin to pray against the attack and ask others to join us. The more insidious attacks are subtle and move us inch by inch away from the Lord until we find ourselves further away from God and deeper in enemy territory that we thought was possible.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10 that we are to take every thought captive to Jesus Christ. The reason for that extreme position is that Satan attacks us through our thoughts and it is in subtle moments that we begin to doubt God or to compromise with the culture around us. Satan simply plants seeds of doubt and compromise and then waters them over weeks and months and even years.

In the midst of a crisis, the question guided by faith is always, “How is God working in this crisis to deliver me.” Faith is convinced that God is already moving and is simply interested in detecting his strategy. The enemy changes that questions to, “Will God deliver me from this crisis?” which introduces the possibility that he won’t. That possibility then raises other questions of whether God cares or loves me or whether he even has power to protect me. When we start going there, we are in trouble.

The most effective lies are attached to truth. The fact that part of what was said is obviously true lends credibility to the part you weren’t so sure about. The lies that the enemy tells are usually progressive in nature and test our character and motives from different angles. The wilderness temptation of Jesus is an illustration.

In Luke 4, we are told that after his baptism, Jesus was led into the wilderness for forty days of fasting and prayer. At the end of that time, when Jesus was hungry, tired, and vulnerable Satan came to tempt him. He began with a challenge. “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” Satan appealed to pride, hunger, and self-sufficiency in this one little challenge. So…you think you are the Son of God? Prove it. That appealed to pride. Secondly, he focused on a legitimate need (food) but suggested that Jesus use his power and authority for his own benefit and without the direction of the Father. Satan will always point us to legitimate needs but ask us to meet those needs in ways that exclude God from the process or that violate his standards. Adam and Eve went after wisdom – a good thing – but used a tree as the source rather than God. Self-sufficiency rather than God-sufficiency is always where Satan is pointing us. He doesn’t point us to things that are impossible without God but things we can do in our own strength. Jesus was fully able to turn the rock into bread but submitted to God’s provision and timing rather than his own.

The second temptation was similar. Satan knew that Jesus had come into the world to re-establish the kingdom of God and to reign as king. Knowing the God-given goal of Jesus, he offered him a shortcut that would avoid the dirty business of the cross. In so many words, Satan said, “If you worship me, I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. You can have a crown without a cross. After all, isn’t that what you came for?” Isn’t that what the world constantly offers – short cuts to success, weight loss without self-discipline, sex without the commitments of marriage, etc. God is in the business of building character along the way and preparing his people to wear a crown. Satan always whispers that the wait is too long and the cost is unfair. Short cuts at any level usually get us into deep trouble. Satan always promotes “the end justifies the means” thinking.

The third temptation included a scripture quote. In essence he told Jesus, “God has promised in his word that he will protect you, so jump off the tower and make him prove his love and faithfulness.” Satan’s great strategy against those who love God and his word is to highlight one Bible truth as if it is the only truth. For instance, John tells us that God is love. Some church leaders have recently reasoned that since God is love, he would never send anyone to hell. They ignore the balancing truth that God is also holy and just. Others have found the scriptures that emphasize God’s love and acceptance of those he loves. Therefore, they reason that he accepts us just the way we are. That reasoning leads to the idea that he not only accepts us but our lifestyles. There is some truth in that. God accepts us as we are but does not accept the sin in our lives and so he gets busy calling us to repentance and freeing us from our bondage to sin. An unbalanced view of scripture leaves us in bondage to sins and moves the church toward a dangerous compromise with the culture.

Each of the three temptations contained truth. Jesus was the Son of God and he had a legitimate need that he could meet on his own. All the kingdoms of the world did belong to Satan and he could give them to whomever he chose. God had promised to protect his Son from harm through the protection of angels. But Jesus countered with the balance of truth and refused to fall into the devil’s trap.

In Paul’s statement to the Corinthian church mentioning the schemes of Satan, he suggested that our unwillingness to forgive is one of his primary schemes. Satan is always quick to provide a justification for refusing to forgive. They don’t deserve it. They haven’t really repented. They haven’t asked for forgiveness. Justice requires that they pay for what they did. You name it. He will probably attach some fragment of biblical truth to each of those justifications but the truth is that God has commanded us to forgive in spite of any of those reasons. To refuse to forgive, gives Satan open access to us and our families through the open door of disobedience and unrepented sin.

The point is that the schemes of Satan are usually subtle efforts to skew our thinking, to sow compromise and doubt, and to draw us away from God’s truth even through the misuse of scripture. Our first defense is the Holy Spirit who has promised to lead us into all truth. We should ask him on a regular basis to do so and to reveal to us any areas in which we are beginning to lean toward a lie. We should also examine our actions on a regular basis to see if our actions are lining up with the word and the character of God. Misplaced actions are clear evidence of misplaced thinking. Since Satan often works in subtle, inch-by-inch ways we need to notice when we are moving our boundaries a little to fit in with cultural values rather than keeping scripture as the standard. We need to notice when sin no longer offends and almost becomes normative in our thinking so that we would be surprised to find that God is offended by what we entertain on a regular basis.

When all hell breaks loose in our life, we know who it is and start arming ourselves and gathering other warriors. The fight can still be fierce and we may still be wounded. But, perhaps, the greater threats are the little, barely noticeable things like one drop of arsenic in your coffee each day – hardly noticeable until the accumulation is life threatening. Watch the little things…the insidious schemes and you will also be ready for the frontal assaults. Blessings.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.  And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:12-16

In the second chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, he spends a great deal of times underlining our essential need for the Holy Spirit. He begins the chapter recounting the decision he made after his disappointing stint in Athens (see Acts 17). While in Athens, Paul had rolled out his most eloquent arguments and debated with the philosophers on Mars Hill with little response. I’m certain that he spent a number of hours in soul searching and asking the Spirit why his strategy had so little effect. When he came to Corinth he had settled on an entirely different approach. “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom, as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God…my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:1-5).

In his two letters to the church at Corinth, he speaks of power at least 25 times. He always relates power to the Holy Spirit as did Jesus, who had instructed the first disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from the Holy Spirit.

There are numerous ways in which the Spirit enables us to serve God. In this text, Paul emphasizes our ability to comprehend God and his ways. First of all, he says, the Spirit gives us understanding. Paul had a miserable experience trying to reason with the “wise men” of Athens. Ultimately, what he was telling them made no sense to their intellectual leanings. Paul begins the section I quoted at the beginning of this blog by telling us that God gave us his Spirit so that we could understand the things God has given us. Spiritual understanding is critical to faith and without the Spirit, there is no spiritual understanding.

For those of us who believe, we often marvel that some of the brightest minds of our time consider the complexities of the universe and still walk away as atheists. Paul, who was a brilliant scholar himself, said, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). The word translated as “discerned” here means to make an appraisal, a judgment, or a right evaluation of something. In other words, without the Spirit of God in us, we cannot evaluate or judge truth accurately. So…don’t be surprised that university professors ridicule our faith.

It is not that spiritual things are not logical; it is just that spiritual logic is not the same as natural logic. When I was first studying to be a minister in a fellowship that did not accept the present- day ministry of the Holy Spirit, I was surrounded by very bright men who studied the scriptures daily. However, in an attempt to understand difficult passages, they applied Aristotelian logic to the scriptures. Their conclusions were inevitably legalistic. Think about it. They applied reasoning processes developed by pagan philosophers and applied them to truths of the Spirit and, I believe, consistently came away with false conclusions. If you don’t have the Spirit or don’t listen to the Spirit you cannot understand spiritual things. Spiritual logic turns natural logic on its head – the first shall be last, the least shall be greatest, the save your life you must lose it, and so on. To the man without the Spirit, those things sound naïve and foolish. To us they are cornerstone truths in the kingdom of God.

As Paul considered that truth, he put away his eloquent outlines that appealed to man’s wisdom and, instead, preached a simple gospel followed by demonstrations of the Spirit’s power. One of the great values of power in evangelism is that the power of the Spirit upsets the natural man’s paradigm – his way of understanding the world. When the rational or scientific man encounters the power of God in prophecy, healing, deliverance, raising the dead, walking on water, etc. his mindset cannot explain adequately what has happened and he experiences a paradigm shift – an openness to knew possibilities. Paul experienced that shift on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians while he was still known as Saul of Tarsus.

Even as Christians, I believe we have missed part of the implications of what Paul has told us in this text. The amazing truth he gives us is that we have the mind of Christ – the mind through which the universe was created. Too often, we limit spiritual understanding to theology rather than all understanding that comes from the mind of Christ. What if we believed that the cure to cancer was available to us because we are tapped into the mind of Christ who understands perfectly everything from the forces that created the universe to sub-atomic physics as well as the cellular structure and genetics of the human body? God cares about our health as well as our salvation. He cares about the suffering of men in this world as well as the world to come. Jesus said that his Spirit would lead us into all truth. We should be teaching ourselves and our children to ask God for spiritually creative pathways for music, art, literature, media, and architecture along with heavenly solutions to disease, world hunger, poverty, energy, and pollution. By restricting God’s truth to theology only, we have, in all likelihood, robbed the world of uncounted blessings.

The Holy Spirit is a game changer that opens us up to the very mind and heart of God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things. His presence and power sets us apart from all people on earth. While some churches discourage any pursuit of the Holy Spirit and his power, we should be pursuing Him and all that He has with all of our hearts. It is the Spirit who gives us understanding and then empowers us to activate that understanding with the same power that raised Jesus from the grave. What a gift and what a privilege for those who believe in the Risen Lord. Make the most of his Spirit living in you today! Ask Him for answers to everything.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. (Eph.1:17-20).

I’m often drawn back to this passage in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. Ephesus was a prominent Greek/Roman city known most for the Temple of Diana (Artemis to the Greeks), which was one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. It was over 60 feet tall and larger than a football field. For those raised in Ephesus, pagan worship and, especially, the worship of Diana would have been as natural as breathing air. The religion would also have been given credibility by the massive and impressive temple, the thousands of pilgrims who came to it each year, the temple priesthood, and all the religious industry surrounding the temple. In the face of that presence, Paul preached a crucified carpenter who claimed to be the Son of God and the Jewish Messiah.

How do you overcome the imprint of that pagan religion left on the hearts and minds of those who were raised in the city of Diana? Paul understood that the natural senses and the natural mind would always be drawn back to the material and familiar. Because of that, his constant prayer was for the Spirit of God to give the followers of Jesus wisdom and revelation. The wisdom he prayed for was not accessible through Greek philosophy or Roman universities. Those sources could provide a worldly wisdom but God offers a spiritual wisdom – a wisdom from above. James speaks of God’s wisdom when he says, “Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (Ja.3:15-17).

Worldly wisdom is everywhere. It is on display right now in the presidential race – slander, lies, dirty tricks, etc. – all strategies to win at any cost so that later you can “do good.” Wisdom from above gives us an understanding of how God operates and how things operate in the spiritual realm. That wisdom gives us an eternal view on which to base our decisions and engages the spiritual realm in what we do. That wisdom can only come from the Spirit of God.

Secondly, Paul prayed for revelation, which includes wisdom but also includes spiritual truth that the world does not possess or comprehend. Paul continued his prayer asking that God would enlighten the eyes of the hearts of the believers at Ephesus that they might know the hope, the riches of their inheritance, and the power of the kingdom of God.

When the heart knows something from God, it has come by revelation rather than intellectual instruction. God seems more concerned about our hearts than our minds. In numerous places he talks about giving us new hearts, replacing a heart of stone with a heart of flesh, or writing his laws on our hearts. If we get something in our hearts then our minds will quickly follow. However, we can hold some truth in our mind that our hearts will never receive without revelation. God writes his truth on our hearts by a revelation of his Spirit. It enables us to understand the depths of God’s word, to hear his voice, or to see visions or hints of spiritual realities through the eyes of our hearts. All believers come equipped with “eyes of the heart” to see spiritual realities but, apparently, God has to open our eyes to those things.

Elisha’s encounter with the armies of Aram is an example. “When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike these people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked” (2 Kings 6:15-18).

Elisha had both wisdom and revelation and by the eyes of his heart could see into the spiritual realm. He understood how God worked (wisdom) and he knew the truth that God was with him and always made him a majority in any battle. By faith he saw into the spiritual realm to confirm what God was doing so he had no fear. His servant lacked all of that so was terrified until God opened the eyes of his heart. At that moment he knew the power being exercised on his behalf.

None of that come to believers automatically. It comes by the work of the Holy Spirit activated by prayer. Since Paul expressed that prayer consistently, it might be a good idea for us to do the same – for ourselves and for others. Undoubtedly, God is pleased to give us those things but there seems to be accumulating deposits or Paul would have prayed only once. Make it a part of your daily prayer. You can’t get too much and heaven has plenty. It will make all the difference. Blessings in Him…and may you be filled with his wisdom, revelation, and enlightenment today.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Eph.1:17-19

Ephesians is one of those New Testament letters that holds such a wealth of insight and encouragement that never runs dry for the one who keeps asking God to show him or her more. The few verses quoted above are significant keys to gaining all that God has for us so I thought we might reflect on them this morning.

Paul had a special relationship with the church at Ephesus (see Acts 19-20) and was clearly proud of how they had grown in their faith and love. He told them that he always gave thanks for them in his prayers and then said that he kept asking God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that they might know him (God) better. From Genesis to Revelation the goal of God has been to accurately reveal himself to his people because to know him is to love him. And yet the failure of many has been to form opinions about God, who he is, and how he works with no real personal revelation of him.

Paul is clear that we can’t know God without wisdom and revelation that comes from the Holy Spirit. Man’s attempt to know God and explain him without this revelation has been catastrophic. It has led to all kinds of false worship that includes the worship of demons. It has led to a worldwide religion that claims that the heart of God is set on slaughtering all those who do not submit immediately. It has led to all kinds of beliefs that God is cruel, uncaring, and detached from the real struggles of mankind. We could go on but each of these distorted views of God comes from those who don’t know him well on a personal level and who don’t understand his purposes.

Paul says that to know him better requires revelation from the Spirit. The flesh always sees God as restrictive and demanding in the same way that children often view their parents that way even though the restrictions and the rules are in the best interest of the child. Children always long for a permissive parent who always lets the child do as he or she pleases without restriction or discipline. Many adults want a permissive God.   Only through the Spirit do we begin to understand the goodness of God’s commands and even his discipline. By revelation we begin to see the activities of God and by wisdom we begin to see their goodness. By revelation we begin to see the heart of God and by wisdom we begin to understand his heart. Left to our own intellect we will miss the mark of knowing an understanding him.

Paul prayed for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that the Ephesians might know God better. There are two general words in the Greek for “know.” One is gnosis and the other is epignosis. Paul uses the second one here because it denotes experiential knowledge rather than academic knowledge. Without wisdom and revelation our knowledge of God is merely theoretical. With wisdom and revelation we begin to experience God personally and know him in truth not just in theory.

Paul mentioned that he kept on praying for those things on behalf of the church. The implication is that we need to keep on asking for wisdom and revelation from the Spirit if we want to know God in a deeper and more accurate way. Most revelation and wisdom are progressive. God gives us a bit at a time as we can assimilate it so one download doesn’t do it. Sometimes believers get a basic understanding of God but their understanding levels out there and never grows. That is like a child’s view of his or her parents never changing as he or she grows older. The greatest treasure God offers is himself and to truly know him is the greatest prize. We need to keep asking for God to show us more of himself and he is clearly pleased to do so.

The second thing Paul prayed for was that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened so that they could fully comprehend several things. Again, this enlightenment is the work of the Holy Spirit who reveals the things of God to the deepest part of our thinking and feeling – the heart. Paul prayed that the believers at Ephesus would come to know the hope to which they were called, the riches of their inheritance and the power of God available to those who believe.

Hope keeps us going in dark places because hope expects the light to shine at any moment. Hope prompts us to grab hold of the promises of God with expectancy for our future. The riches that we have in Christ are everything that Jesus has purchased for us with his blood. The more we understand what is available to us the more we can access those “riches” for life on planet earth and for the expansion of the kingdom of God. Those riches may include some material wealth but that would be toward the bottom of the list. More importantly those riches include love, joy, peace, purpose, belonging, wisdom, spiritual gifts, eternal life and so forth. There are many ultra-rich people who would give it all up to possess those things because those things are what they thought wealth and power would get them. In their disappointment they simply keep chasing more wealth and power hoping that more will eventually get them what we all have freely in Christ.

Thirdly, Paul wanted the church and us to grasp how much power rests in the hands of the Lord who is more than willing to exercise it on our behalf. There is no need to feel afraid, powerless, helpless, and insecure for our Father has unlimited power and resources to release on our behalf. We are not victims nor orphans but sons and daughters of the Most High God. Knowing that truth in your heart lets you sleep at night no matter what.

Getting hold of those truths and planting them deep in your heart is the key that unlocks the peace and provision of heaven but it comes through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation…so ask for it and keep asking because there is no end to what God has for us in himself.

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?     Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? (1 Cor.6:2-5).

This section of scripture from Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth is set in the context of believers having differences with one another and taking each other to public courts in order to settle their disputes. Paul expresses his frustration with the church and his frustration rests on the church’s misunderstanding of who they are in Christ. Paul might say that citizens of heaven have no business dragging each other to earthly courts.

Paul reveals the standing of the church in relation to the rest of creation and the church is each believer individually as well as corporately. You are the church. But notice what Paul says about the church: the saints (that is you) will judge both the world and angels. Believers have the Spirit of God living in them and as a result should have more wisdom, integrity,  and incite than citizens of this world and even more than angels.

In so many words, Paul is saying, “Why do you go to the world for answers when the world should be coming to you? Why do you seek wisdom from the world when all wisdom and knowledge are available to you through the Spirit? Why do you submit to the judgments of the world when you will sit in judgment on that same world someday? Why do you go to people whose understanding is darkened when you are the light of the world? Why do you submit to the judgments of those who are ruled by Satan when you are ruled by the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth?” Good questions.

Paul is not saying that we should not submit to the laws and authority of the land as long as they do not conflict with God’s laws. He is saying that God’s people should possess more wisdom that the people of the world because his presence lives within each of us and that we should judge matters by different standards than world judges them.

What I see too often is the church bowing down to the world as if the world is smarter and has more wisdom than God’s people or his Spirit. I don’t mean “bowing down” in the literal sense but let’s think about a few things. There are two big trends in American churches that have taken center stage in the last 30 years in church conferences. One is marketing (How do we get the message out?) and the other is leadership development (How do we raise up and train leaders?). Both of those are essential questions but the church, by and large, has not gathered and prayed for wisdom and revelation for those matters but has looked to corporate America for answers. I assure you that corporate America does not operate on spiritual principles and yet we go to the powers of the world and ask them for wisdom to know how to operate a spiritual kingdom when the powers of the world should be coming to us. Isaiah paints that picture of God’s people when he says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.   Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isa.60:1-3).

For years, as a pastoral counselor,  I sought out the best training I could find for counseling and marriage and family therapy. I read the books, I attended graduate classes, and I went to conferences. Sometimes I went to secular workshops with big-name speakers but more often I went to Christian counseling conferences where I heard essentially the same strategies as I heard in secular schools because that’s where the men were trained who eventually trained  Christian counselors in Christian colleges. Not only that, but because the world determines the standards and ethics for being licensed as a counselor or a therapist, the world also determines the content of the training. In none of my graduate classes or at Christian conferences was I taught the spiritual dimensions of counseling or the use of divine weapons because we have let the world determine what is best.

The result was that my strategies fell short because I was offering nothing more that the world was offering except for a prayer. God has more. God does more. God works, even in counseling sessions, in the realm of the supernatural and so should we. I also have a concern that when we import strategies from the world for counseling, leadership, or marketing we are also importing worldly values and perspectives imbedded in those strategies. We should test the spirits in these matters as well as in theological teachings.

I think we need to be cautious about importing the world’s values  but more than that, my concern is with our low view of ourselves and the church that goes to the very world we will judge to find judgments and strategies for the kingdom of God. As a result, the culture tends to shape us rather than us shaping the culture. Let’s be sure that whatever we read, whatever we listen to, whatever teaches us has the touch of God on it before we decide to employ that strategy in the church, our families, or our lives. Hopefully… some food for thought today. Be blessed in Him.

Wisdom is a huge commodity in the Kingdom of Heaven. Biblically, wisdom is the “capacity to understand and to act in concert with that understanding.” It also involves insight. Our culture doesn’t value wisdom very much. It values power, money, fame, influence, talents, and education. A person may have all of those things and yet lack wisdom. Check out the sports headlines – men who have most of the above accessories in their life are about to lose it all for lack of wisdom and judgment.

Even experience does not always bring wisdom. How many of us have dealt with people who have faced the same situations or temptations over and over and have always made the same bad decision in response to the situation. No wisdom. In addition, there are two kinds of wisdom – worldly wisdom that knows how to manipulate people and the system (street smarts) and heavenly wisdom which understands how things operate in the spiritual realm.

Here’s what James had to say about that. “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.      For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (Ja.3:13-17).

Notice the wisdom that comes from heaven flows from the Spirit and resonates with our spirit. Worldly wisdom flows from demonic realms and resonates with our natural man or our flesh. They are truly opposed to one another and from the world’s perspective heavenly wisdom seems utterly foolish.

I remember having a conversation on a college campus years ago with a young Iranian Muslim. He was likeable, charismatic and full of leadership. I thought how amazing he would be for the kingdom of God. We were talking about Jesus and his teachings and when we read the passages about turning the other cheek, loving your enemies and forgiving those who had wronged you I really expected this young man to be impressed with the moral high ground of the Lord’s teaching. Instead he laughed out loud and ridiculed the teaching as naïve and foolish. He said, when someone strikes you one the cheek, you must hit him so hard that he would never dare touch you again. The wisdom of the world and heavenly wisdom are not shades apart but poles apart.

The reason is that heavenly wisdom leaves us in the hands of God. We feel weak, vulnerable, and foolish at times. In our fear of being hurt again or taken advantage of we default to the flesh and judge that our situation is unique and worthy of an exception so that we don’t have to follow the teachings of Christ in our particular case. We then sow to the flesh and blame God when our conditions or relationships don’t improve.

We must make up our minds to live from the spiritual realm and understand our situations and our responses to those situations from the will of God always – not just when it suits us to do so. Heavenly wisdom drives us to God and keeps us dependent on him. Worldly wisdom strives for control and self-sufficiency. Most marriages fail because the spouses continue to operate out of worldly wisdom rather than submitting to heavenly wisdom.

The real danger I see is believers trying to operate out of both as if some situations require worldly wisdom while others require heavenly or a hybrid of the two. There is no hybrid. One is from above. The other is from the devil. Do you remember that worldly wisdom that counseled Adam and Eve to take and eat? How did that work out for us? Be blessed today and be wise. And ask God for more and more of his wisdom. He is eager to share.