Paul wrote to the Ephesians that disciples in Christ should receive a Spirit of wisdom. God doesn’t want us to not be knowledgeable. He wants to be our Teacher. This daily devotional looks at what the Spirit of wisdom is.
Nuggets
- God uses the Holy Spirit to impart His wisdom.
- God will reveal Himself to us — giving us understanding for what we can read in the Bible and understanding for things God Himself will reveal to us.
- Knowledge comes before wisdom and holiness.
- Our growth particularly comes when He supplies wisdom through experiences.
Devotions in the The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians series
The end of Chapter 1 in Ephesians is a prayer. God must be to whom we pray and the focus of our prayers. We need to approach Him asking for His gifts, knowing He will give them to us.
One of the things for which we are to ask is the provision of wisdom. “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking” (Jas. 1: 5 NLT). Even though we are disciples, we still need wisdom from above. (Isn’t that what disciples means — being students?)
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Wisdom is an enlightened acceptance of God’s principles, gained through knowledge, discernment, and good sense, that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
- Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
- God’s goodness is His holy, pure, and righteous behavior.
- God’s holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- God’s purity stems from the fact that He cannot sin.
- God’s righteousness is the result of His being pure.
Knowledge is the intellectual comprehension of a fact or gaining familiarity with something by experiencing it.
Spiritual Perception
"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him" (Eph. 1: 17 CSB)
God uses the Holy Spirit to impart His wisdom.
Most of all God wants us to have spiritual knowledge. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (Jn. 16: 13 ESV emphasis added).
God uses His Holy Spirit to grow our faith. The Holy Spirit will teach us what God has instructed Him to say.
The promptings of the Holy Spirit influence us to to seek God and learn more of Him. The promptings urge us to learn more deeply of Him.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
In verse 13 of Ephesians 1, it says, “In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed” (CSB).
Ephesus was a port city. It was also on several trade routes. Goods passed through the city, probably daily. In order to show who owned the goods being shipped, a seal was placed on it.
There are several verses that talk about being sealed by God. One of those verses says, “And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4: 30 CSB).
God is the one who seals us. A second verse says, “But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has commissioned us; he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee as a down payment” (II Cor. 1: 21-22 CSB).
Knowing God
God will reveal Himself to us — giving us understanding for what we can read in the Bible and understanding for things God Himself will reveal to us.
The Holy Spirit provides us with spiritual knowledge so that we may know God. When God opens the eyes of our hearts, we see Him more clearly. He reveals Himself to us in our core, which is where He lives in us.
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As we learn more of Him each day, we are better equipped to live our lives as disciples of Jesus. It becomes easier to imitate Him.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Not Holiness
Knowledge comes before wisdom and holiness.
We have to have knowledge to learn of Jesus and what He has done for us. Remember, knowledge is comprehension.
Wisdom is using that knowledge to make a choice. In this instance, the choice is whether we are going to accept Jesus as Savior and Redeemer or not.
- Only then do we begin navigating the Sanctification Road, which brings us to holiness. Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
We are to strive to be holy like God? “But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy'” (I Pet. 1: 15-16 NLT).
We can only get to the holiness by having heart knowledge of Jesus and using our wisdom to daily choose to follow Him.
Revelation
Our growth particularly comes when He supplies wisdom through experiences.
The verse said, “… would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Eph. 1: 17 CSV). A revelation is communicating a previously unknown truth.
Revelation is more how the wisdom is being presented to us. God can speak to us through His Word, through others, and through our experiences.
I don’t know if you are like me. I have to learn by doing. Sometimes, that means I have to learn by making mistakes.
It is during those times that we begin to feel that we aren’t worthy enough to earn the salvation. We aren’t worthy enough to earn the salvation. Luckily, God doesn’t have that as a criteria.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Whatever way God chooses to use, He is revealing Himself to us. He wants us to know Him — the Sovereign God, Creator, Ruler and Judge.
Making the Connections
If you look at the rest of the chapter, in some versions it is all in the same sentence actually started in verse 15. Let’s look at a version that breaks it up a little more.
“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Eph. 1: 15-23 ESV).
Yep, still a classic Paul run-on sentence. It makes us want to just shake the boy and remind him the value of a period.
Paul talks about hope and inheritance (along with a lot of other things). We talked about inheritance in a past devotion.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Think of all the hope that wisdom brings. When we know God and what He is expecting of us, we can tap into the joy that comes from God. Our whole outlook gets better, and we can hope for a brighter tomorrow.
How Do We Apply This?
Bottom line is we just have to get to know God better. If we haven’t surrendered our life to Him, we need to do so now.
If we have, we have to learn more of God. To do that we need to be hearing His Word, reading it, studying it, meditating on it, and memorizing it. All through that, we need to be in prayer, asking God to provide the knowledge of Himself.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Yes, I have said it before, and I will say it again now and in the future. We have to dive into His Word. That is where He will make Himself known to us.
If we will read something and then think about it, God will reveal Himself to us. He will make the connection to other verses for us. He will drop it all in our minds, where we can process it so we can understand Him.
Understanding is good. Wisdom is even better. Be a seeker of wisdom.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Lord, we do feel so unworthy at times. Luckily, You don’t depend on our accomplishments to get us into heaven. Help us to grow in grace and knowledge of You (II Pet. 3: 18). May we keep our focus on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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