Sunday June 11, 2006 | Greg Boyd
And as Jesus grew up, he increased in wisdom and in favor with God and people.
Jesus is the perfect, sinless human being who models what human existence in God's kingdom should look like. He demonstrates a life of increasing growth and learning in the ways of God. Jesus lived a life where he learned from his life experiences and gained insights into what life is really all about...all to God's glory. As we live like Jesus, we are to have lives where we, too, increase in growing in wisdom.
Jesus is the perfect, sinless human being who models what human existence in God’s kingdom should look like. He demonstrates a life of increasing growth and learning in the ways of God. Jesus lived a life where he learned from his life experiences and gained insights into what life is really all about…all to God’s glory. As we live like Jesus, we are to have lives where we, too, increase in growing in wisdom.
An important biblical principle involved with gaining wisdom is what is called the “fear of the Lord”. There is a sense of dread or scariness that we can feel when we wake up to the overwhelming knowledge, powerfulness, and holiness of God. This is a natural first step in knowing God. However, as we learn more about God and God’s perfectly loving nature (1 John 4), our understandable feeling of dread towards God turns to loving reverence. We understand God as being someone we highly honor and to whom we want to dedicate ourselves totally.
Reverencing (or honoring) God includes listening to what God has to say about life! God is not only the Creator of everything, but God’s “been around the block” for a long time and knows everything about everything. God is WISE! To not desire God’s wisdom on things not only disrespects God, but it also more often than not, invites a great deal of trouble for us. This is just what sin does. Over and over again, it causes us to dishonor God and fall into painful traps that we could possibly avoid. It brings us to a cycle of “stupid” actions where we keep trying to have good things through bad ways of thinking and living. There are many different ways that this “stupidity” works itself out in our lives…but it’s all based on the same thing: living in bad patterns that go against the nature of reality and cause us pain.
God wants to break us out of those bad patterns! God is asking us to get wisdom and understanding out of life. We can do that as we choose to honor God in all areas of our lives. When we ask God to give us insights into various areas of our lives, God can show us our bad patterns and help us break out of being stuck in our dysfunctional ruts. God can use our life experiences to help us learn about what life is really about…and help us make better, God-honoring decisions. Like Jesus, let us live, learn, and grow wise!