Wisdom’s source

For most of my life, I wanted to know everything I could know. For some of it, I thought that I did. But God (two lovely words) showed me where true wisdom lies. It is not in learning information but in the Person of Jesus Christ. When I met Jesus, He gave me access to all the knowledge and wisdom that I would ever need.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:22–25)

This is not to put down the pursuit of knowledge such as insight into the processes of the human body or the way of animals and plants. Science explores the mysteries of earth and sea and air, but I must remember that the Creator who spoke all of it into existence already knows everything there is to know.

As humanity explores every ray of light, every drop of dew, every pebble of the brook, every fragment of rock, every blade of grass and discovers the order revealed in every natural process — the motion of earth and sun and stars, the flow of tides, the rush of wind, the layers of the rainbow, the change of seasons, spring growth, blossoms, and fruit-bearing, many have yet to discover that these are the works of God, the daily miracles of God. In all of them wisdom is seen, wisdom as profound as it is perfect.

We examine relationships between drops and the ocean, a beam and the sun, a moment and a million ages, but has anyone seen the greater connection to each fragment of creation with the greater One who lovingly created it? Wisdom surely goes beyond what has been made to the One who made it. All wisdom is truly in Him. 

Jesus is in it all!

Last night at a wedding reception I had a brief discussion with a science teacher. We talked about creation, evolution, and how do Christians know that the Bible account is correct in the face of contrary evidence and many, many unanswered questions.

I don’t know the answers never mind most of the questions, nor do I know the arguments pro and con for creation vs. evolution. I do know that once I believed in evolution, but when Jesus revealed Himself to me as God in human flesh and came into my life, my thinking started to change.

Some of these changes required me to make choices, but much of it just happened. I was trusting God because Jesus who lives in me trusts God. I also believed that He created all things just as He said. Now as I look back, that belief is rooted in the One who lives in me and changed my life. The odd part is that I know it is true, not because of a scientific weighing of all the evidence (even though creation scientists can make a strong defense), but because I know Jesus is true and does not lie. He says God created all things by the word of His mouth and I believe Him.

Someone wrote a letter to the editor of our daily newspaper saying he’d decided that there was no evidence to prove Jesus even existed. In other words, the book that describes His life, a book that is better documented that any other book, ancient or otherwise, has no credibility, and the account about Jesus by the historian Josephus is not reliable. How does a Christian answer that? Could I say anything that would convince any skeptic of the reality of my Savior?

Probably not. I might tell him of my own experience with Jesus. I was busy doing my own thing when something (now I know it was Someone) convicted me that I am a sinner. Jesus said that would happen, that the Holy Spirit would do it. I know I didn’t. I’m far too proud to come up with such a radical diagnosis of my own condition. I might dump it on other people, but not on myself.

The Holy Spirit also drew me to the Cross, to the power of God, to the one who died for me. I would not have gone there myself. Now, knowing the grace of God, something in me still resists conviction, confession, and the great love of a God who personally atoned for my sins. I just don’t like admitting I have any, that I need outside help. This activity in my life is my subjective answer to anyone who thinks Jesus Christ is not real. If He were not, I would still be either making excuses or continually blowing my own horn.

Today I read Romans 11:36. It says, “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”

When I first believed, I could not see the total involvement of Jesus Christ in everything, but He is showing me that He is behind and involved in all things. Nothing happens to me apart from His choice and determination for my life, and all that goes on in this world is the same. He is Sovereign God, directing a resisting a sinful world to the outcome that will bring Him eternal glory. Anyone who tries to push Him away simply has no clue what they are up against.

My commentary says (and I couldn’t say it better), “God is the first Cause, the effective Cause, and the final Cause of everything. His deep ways are beyond man’s discovering, beyond man’s knowing, beyond man’s counseling and beyond man’s giving. ‘All things’ come from Him and by means of Him and are for Him and His glory. Therefore, To Him be the glory forever! Amen. God is the only proper One to magnify. The all-sovereign God deserves the praise of all His creatures.”

Does God grieve over evolutionists or skeptics or atheists? Maybe. Some Scripture indicates that He laughs at the attempts of those who try to cast Him off as if He is nothing (Psalm 2). Other passages say He wants all to come to the saving knowledge of His Son (1 Timothy 2).

Regardless of the noises made by those who doubt or mock Him, He calls me to trust Him in every way and with every part of my life. He calls me to praise Him too, and to remember His Word and His promises. He has never failed me, another good thing to remember, and part of my personal testimony to His reality.

An unbelieving world does not see the glory of the Lord. The Bible says that one day they will. Jesus will be revealed in order that “every knee should bow . . . that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.”

In seeing Him, they will know what Christians know. The revelation of Jesus makes it clear that “Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things,” and because of that, we also gladly proclaim “to whom be glory forever. Amen.”