Being stripped of our glory

It is in our nature to hold on to our world view or to be conformed to the worlds view point. “Worldly wisdom” becomes our refuge for it doesn’t call us to die. It is a scary thing to have our world turned upside down, to be called to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. However, that is what the Gospel does. It takes us into a world that is unknown, a world that strips away our “worldly wisdom”, that strips the very essence of who we think we are. In Christ, our daily walk is one of having our world view, this veil that keeps us from seeing the glory of God, stripped away from us, so that we can see truth and beauty. In this act of presenting our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, we rest in God as our refuge and He boldly takes us into His arms and brings us close to Himself.

If we stubbornly hold on and are unwilling to have our world views crushed and broken, and that on a continual and ongoing basis, we will miss out on the goodness and the joy of the Lord, that are found in the wonders of the Gospel. Therefore, let this false wisdom fall away, let my world be crushed and my heart broken as God calls me into His Holy presence and I am changed and conformed into the image of Christ and brought into a love that will consume me.

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.   – Romans 12:1,2

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. – Psalm 51:17

Thus says the Lord,

“Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.
Where then is a house you could build for Me?
And where is a place that I may rest?
“For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord.
“But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word. – Isaiah 66:1,2

Wisdom is a person

A big step in becoming wise is to realize that the world view that we have held on to far so long is messed up. We must come to realize that we are not wise. It is human nature to fear insignificance, to want to be the one who has it all together, to be the one with wisdom. But the fact is we aren’t wise. And none of us have it together. This happened at the fall when we believed that disobeying God’s command would bring us wisdom and help us to determine “good and evil”. We took the reins and decided we understood the world we lived in.

Are your conversations about your worth? If you are fighting for significance, to be worth something, to be right, to have it all together . . . you have already failed and have become foolish. Wisdom is not found in ourselves. The beginning of wisdom is to fear the LORD. In dying, we find life. We were not made to find our own way, nor to be alone. We were made to be in a loving relationship with God. And in looking to Jesus we know Truth, for truth and wisdom is found in a person.  So let us reject our foolish attempts for glory and self-wisdom and accept what Jesus did for us at the cross, and run into the loving arms of Jesus.

Wisdom is not legalism

Sometimes we call wisdom "legalism" simply because we don't feel good at it and have issues with our identity and don't understand our identity in Christ. Wisdom is freedom.

Responses to cultural family views

In battles within the church on what it means to be a godly family, husband, wife, father, and wife, etc., more often than not you have different cultural views vying and setting blows for supremacy. Issues of the family are close to the heart and our views are developed within the culture we were raised in. Our views are often ingrained in us and it can be hard to separate truth from fiction, culture from scripture.

Many responses (fortunately not all) I read or hear about on family issues are not objective writings  or thoughts exploring the heart of God in these matters. On all sides of the issue, preferences suddenly become commands and wise and objectively good things are foolishly rejected out of fear for legalism. All in an interest to defend our little kingdoms. Both are equally foolish and sinful. We love promoting our culture or kingdoms. We might claim a view is pharisaical and extra-biblical only to fail to realize that our views are just also another cultural response from another end and we are just as pharisaical and extra-biblical, if not more so, then we are claiming the other perspective is. It is not about defending the scripture, it is about defending what I think is true. We are insane. It is easier to defend one’s cultural views, then it is to live in the Gospel and submit to scripture. For the scripture is always challenging us, pointing out our sinfulness, and putting to death our culture views and working to replace them with the Kingdom of God. 

It is rare to see people actually lovingly and honestly listening and trying to understand the other person’s perspective. And there is some good stuff out there on the scriptural view of the family if people would take the time to really listen and get to know what the view is. Often it is just rejected outright because it doesn’t fit our culture. And if it doesn’t fit our culture it must be wrong. It is much easier to create a straw man, then it is to listen. It is easier to attack then it is to love. It is easier to defend ones kingdom and ones views, instead of being open minded and exploring the depths and wonders of the scriptures on these matters.


Being open minded requires death. The scripture is very clear on that matter. In order to understand the depths of God’s wisdom and beauty, we must continually lay our bodies down as living sacrifices and not be conformed to the wisdom of this world. Because we are born in sin and are raised in a culture of sin often the truths we fight for are either only partial truths or not truth at all. We naively fight for the kingdom of this world, because it is the one we have known or have grown to love. It is one that we feel comfortable with. And we have learned to defend or comfort zone well. In Christ, a new Kingdom has come, one that is vastly different from the kingdom of this world or any of the thoughts of men. His ways are not our ways. They don't fit any cultural phenomena that we have known or can conceive. But as we diligently lay our lives down and allow the scriptures to wash over us, we will come to know this Kingdom more and more. We will be gripped by its wonder and beauty and we will realize that we are not called to the wisdom of this world, but to something that shakes and shatters the very foundation of this world and is meant to only leave those things found in Christ. This is also the attractiveness of this Kingdom. There is no greater beauty than Christ. 

If we want to understand what the scriptures say about family issues, we must leave our cultural perspectives on the altar. Stop holding on to and defending your culture perspective, even in areas where we are right. In defending them our hunger for God is diminished. Our cultural perspectives don’t fit in the Kingdom of God. Even when they our correct, they are way too small, we must still die to ourselves. Allow the scriptures to do their work, to wash over us. We will spend a lifetime grasping the depths, height, and width of God’s perspective on these matters. And these heights and depths, and widths are ok to explore. And they ought to be explored. Because of the Gospel, we don’t need to be afraid to explore these things.

We lose a lot of joy because we are unwilling to die to our own ways. The wisdom and desires we so desperately and foolishly hold on to and grip, will not bring the freedom of letting go and falling into the arms of God.

God's wisdom may seem to be foolishness to this world, but the wisdom of this world is a blind foolishness that hasn't ever seen the world, glory, or beauty.

Wisdom and Knowledge

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When Adam fell, he chose to find his wisdom in something other than God, discerning good and evil for himself, cutting off his dependency on every word that comes from the mouth of God. In Jesus, our Word, God has called us to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, that we might have our minds renewed in dependency on our God.

 We must approach life in humbleness, realizing that the sin of man is making their own assumptions. We must not trusting in our ability to discern good and evil or in our own wisdom, but live lives looking to and fearing the One who searches our hearts and souls and allowing the scriptures to come into us as a double edged sword. He alone is our source of discernment, knowledge, and wisdom.

The evil of our own agenda

It does not profit a man to come to the scriptures to prove his own agenda, theology, or way of life. This is evil, and we should never take this approach. No, the scripture is our authority, not the other way around. We must come with the purpose to submit to the scripture. We must fight hard to die to ourselves, to allow the scripture to kill who we are, and then fill us with who Jesus is. The scripture is a double edge sword calling us to lay down our lives as living sacrifices, so that we might come to know the heart and mind of God.

Open Minded

I am learning that you have to believe in the scriptures in order to be open minded. There is no other way. God's ways are far above our own and any other standard for thinking falls short and is narrow in its expanse and ability to understand the world. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" And "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"


This will not sit well with a lot of people, even Christians, but the scriptures make us wise in all things in life. And it is a solid ground that can be trusted in. It puts you in a secure place, where you are free to be open minded. 

Knowing God's patients with us in making us wise

With wisdom comes humility and patience, because the wise fear the Lord and understand His grace.

The Creation, The Flood . . . is that possible

"The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep."

In the span of about of 40 days, the earth was covered by waters, then for more days the earth water prevailed over the earth, and then the water receeded and dry land appeared once again. All this, both the Flood and the ending of the Flood, occurred in about the span of a year. This is a major geological feat in a very short period of time, and its suddenness shows the vastness of the event. We get a small glimpse of it in the Bible, "on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights." We don't know all the details or all that happened geologically during the Flood and the Bible doesn't go into great detail, but we can know that it happened, and that it was a significant event.

We live in a day and age where something like this would be considered an impossibility. However, the Flood is a biblical certainty. It did happen. And there is no reason to doubt it. And it happened in the time allotted by the Bible, whether we can explain it or not.

Genesis 1 and 2 describes creation. The Bible also says, "For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day". This, too, would be considered impossible, but it is a biblical certainty.

When we put human philosophy above the words of the Bible, the Bible looses, because it doesn't make sense to us, not if we look at it with human wisdom. But the scripture says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." and again it says, "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God."

These accounts were written through the Holy Spirit, not through someone who was looking back at an event that they were not apart of. The scripture says that Moses talked with God face to face. He got these accounts from an eye witness of the events, God himself. An eyewitness who is faithful and true. And these accounts in Genesis or accounts we can rely on. So is our wisdom wiser than God's? Are His ways so much higher than ours, that we choose to trust Him at His word?

If we continue to look at these events with a worldly philosophy, we will continue to be foolish, we will not be able to understand science fully. But perhaps if we start looking at these accounts as given by someone who is faithful and true, perhaps, we will grow in our understanding of our world and what we see. Perhaps we will see the wisdom in it after all. And perhaps we will have a better understanding of science.