“Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.”
Proverbs 4:20-22 (NLT) You can’t just hear something and become wiser; you’ve got to remember it. And you can’t just remember it; you’ve got to reinforce it. Because if you don’t remember and reinforce it, you end up having to learn the same lesson over and over. The Bible says this about wisdom in Proverbs 22:17-18: “Listen, and I will teach you what the wise have said. Study their teachings, and you will be glad if you remember them and can quote them” (GNT). Notice the four verbs in that sentence: listen, study, remember, quote. Those are marks of wisdom. People say, “I can’t remember anything!” Oh, yes you can. You remember what’s important to you. You remember what you love. You remember what matters to you. For instance, you might say, “I can’t memorize the Bible.” But you remember baseball or football statistics from the last season. You can quote lyrics to popular songs or every step to a favorite recipe. You remember what’s important to you. The Bible says, “Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body” (Proverbs 4:20-22 NLT). When you develop a passion for God’s Word, the truth becomes important to you. You will remember it, rehearse it, reinforce it, and review it. Then, it can change your life.
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“Spend time with the wise and you will become wise, but the friends of fools will suffer.”
Proverbs 13:20 (NCV) If you want to be wise, invite wise people into your life. You don’t need a lot of friends. You don’t need to be popular. You just need a few good friends who build you up, not tear you down—who are wise, not fools. If you hang around with fools, that’s what you become. But if you spend time with wise people, you’ll grow wiser. It’s like the old saying: “If you want to soar with the eagles, you can’t run with the turkeys.” People grow best in community. You can’t grow to spiritual maturity by yourself. You could become a monk and move to the top of a mountain and spend your life in silence and reading books. You would grow in knowledge, but you wouldn’t grow in wisdom. Why? Because wisdom is all about love. Wisdom shows up primarily in relationships. That’s why a lot of people have academic degrees, but their marriages are falling apart. They’re educated, but they’re not wise. The Bible says in Proverbs 13:20, “Spend time with the wise and you will become wise, but the friends of fools will suffer” (NCV). If a friend stands on the edge of a stage, and he's trying to pull you up while you’re trying to pull him down, which is easier to do? It’s always easier for somebody to pull you down than pull you up. People who pull you down are not your true friends. Real friends pull you up. They encourage you in your pursuit of godly wisdom by offering their own. Do you have anybody in your life who is sharing their wisdom on a regular basis? You need that kind of encouragement in your life if you want to be a wise person. |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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