Wisdom From
Above
(James 3:17
Series: Wisdom the Principal Thing
Part 3
ü The Wisdom
from Above is first…..
1. Pure
Keep yourself
pure
The wisdom from above is clean, innocent, modest, perfect, chaste, undefiled, and pure.
Staying pure is a choice. No one but yourself will keep you pure. The Holy Spirit will empower you and help to stay pure. When we aren’t repentance is the best route to take.
This kind of wisdom thinks
on what is true, honorable and right. (Phil
4:8-9
Godly wisdom focuses on what is true, honorable and right! It’s a wonderful prescription for health.
Paul charged Timothy
to keep himself pure. (I Timothy
5:21-22
How many times have you been invited to participate in the sins of others? How are you compromising your life in Christ as a result of it?
There are sins before
Christ and there are sins in Christ that we must guard our hearts
against. (Hebrews 12:15 Ampl)
“…in order that no root
of resentment (rancor, bitterness, or hatred) shoots forth and causes trouble
and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it-“
Resentment, rancor, bitterness and hatred can contaminate. We must guard our hearts from this in the church and remain pure!
“Keep your heart with
all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Prov 4:23
NKJT)
We are to keep
ourselves pure as Christ is pure! (I
“And all who believe
this will keep themselves pure, just as Christ is pure”.
ü The Wisdom
from Above is ….
2. Peace loving
The NKJT puts it this way… “Bit the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable…”
Be peaceable. Be peace loving. It means to be courteous and considerate.
(Amplified)
Many people today are rude, disrespectful, discourteous and ill-mannered. But God’s people should be different!
Some people are just mean spirited but others are simply hurried and stressed which causes them to fall short of being patient, courteous, considerate and polite toward others.
To be peace loving is to be helpful, useful, beneficial, constructive, valuable and productive.
Are you helpful? Do you offer help? Are you making yourself useful? (Operating in your calling and gifting in the family of God)
Do you offer constructive criticism to help make things better?
Do you humbly offer creative, insightful suggestions to make things better rather than sit back and criticize and set yourself up as a judge?
Peace loving fruit is
not cheap it is produced through the discipline of the Lord. (Hebrews 12:11 Ampl)
“…but afterwards it
yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained
by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness-…”
That’s why it is
essential to not despise the chastening of the Lord. (Prov 3:11,12
When we ignore (act like we didn’t hear it) the discipline of the Lord it hinders the work of God in us. When we cooperate and obey He produces peaceable fruit of righteousness through His discipline!
God opens up
our ears to discipline. (Job 36:5-10,
Emphasis on verse 10)
.Now is a good a time as any to open up our spiritual ears to the Lord. We must listen carefully and decide to cooperate with Him to that he cause us to become peace loving!
ü The Wisdom
from Above is first pure, peace loving and ….
3. Gentle
Are you gentle in your thoughts, words and actions?
This wisdom from above is appropriate, mild and patient. To be gentle is to be patient.
Practice patience and gentleness!
Paul admonished Titus
to instruct people under his care to be gentle and to walk in humility. (Titus 3:1-2 NKJT)
“Remind them to be
subject to rulers and authorities, to obey to be ready for every good work, to
speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing humility to all
men.”
We must every effort to avoid, evade, dodge and sidestep being contentious, argumentative without reason and learn to be forbearing…yielding, gentle, and conciliatory, showing unqualified courtesy toward others.
Gentleness is a fruit
of the Spirit! (Galatians 5:22 NKJT)
Jesus is gentle. (2Corinthians 10:1
“Now, I Paul, plead
with you. I plead with the gentleness and kindness that Christ himself
would use….”
.Recently somebody was sharing with me all these bad things that certain people were saying about Debbie and I.
I was tempted to engage, react and allow it to have power over me but instead I chose the high road. It gave me great reason to practice gentleness, kindness and humility. It afforded me ample opportunity to become prayerful and cautious about my thoughts, words and actions!
In Closing
The Lord willing I’ll be finishing up the second half of part three in the series Wisdom the Principal Thing upon my return.
Again, this message can be accessed and heard on our website through the most current available pod cast. As always, I pray that this message will be both inspirational and also useful to you in a very practical way in your life!