Wisdom From a Listening Heart

In 1 Kings 3:9 you read of Solomon’s request for wisdom. God had spoken to him and said, “…ask me for what I will give you.” Solomon’s prayer in 3:6 – 9 is a study of prayer. Before his request, Solomon reviews with God all that God had done leading up to putting him on the throne of his father, David.

When he finally got to his request, he asked for a leb shomeah, a listening heart, for the purpose of leading God’s people with bayin, with discernment between good and evil. Discernment between good and evil is the meaning of the little word bayin. Do you remember the name of the Tree in the midst of the Garden along side of the Tree of Life? See Genesis 2:9 for help.

But Solomon did not ask for bayin, he asked for a listening heart so that he could govern with bayin, with discernment between good and evil. He asked for a listening heart tuned to receive God’s word. God’s word produces the fruit of bayin, for the purpose of seeing clearly good from evil, in order to know and do God's good, pleasing, and perfect will, in worshiping the Father in spirit and truth.

The root of the word bayin means to cut and separate. This is something that only God can do and has been doing from the very beginning. In creation God did a lot of separation. He separated light from darkness, He separated the waters above from the waters below and He separated the land from the sea, by gathering. When God delivered the nation of Israel from Pharaoh and his army, He separated, cut, the Red Sea, and Israel walked through the sea on dry land!

Only God can separate good from evil, and He does it with His word; bayin is the result. There is a declaration in Psalm 119:104, which states, “Through your precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.” The word bayin is translated “understanding.” But can you see from this verse where bayin comes from and the purpose for it?

Today, ask God for a listening heart tuned to His word. Memorize Psalm 119:104 and pray it throughout the day. Spend time in the Father's presence listening to Him from His word. Let Him know that according to His word, through faith in Christ, you will also be given bayin, understanding between good and evil, in order to choose the good, the pleasing, the perfect, and to hate the evil false ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Tomorrow, more on the blessings of bayin.

God's Word and Sakal Wisdom

One of the main words in the Old Testament for wisdom is sakal. The source of sakal is the heart of God expressed with the word of God. When the living and creative word of God is trusted from your life in Christ, it grows and produces fruit. Behaving wisely (sakal) is the fruit of God’s word.

But the world, the flesh, and the devil are also speaking today, loudly. In Genesis 4:7, God spoke to Cain to change the direction he was headed, and said, “…sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” The sin that God was speaking about was the sin that was in Cain’s heart to kill Abel, his brother. It was in his heart ready to spring into action and come out. Since Cain rejected God’s word (as seen by his actions in 4:8), that sin was simply waiting for the right occasion, which came in 4:8.

Jesus spoke of this in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7) where He taught that the source of our actions is our hearts and minds; conceived in the heart, developed in the mind, birthed and carried out with the body. Jesus taught that we needed a new heart. Through faith in Jesus Christ you receive a new heart, a new life, His life, fully pleasing to the Father.

But you still have your same old sinful mind, will, emotions, and body. And like Cain, sin is crouching at the door, ready for an occasion to come out, and its desire is for you. Romans 6 – 8 outlines how to overcome the power of sin and its relentless knocking at the door to come out.

When you receive Jesus Christ you are saved (past tense, completed action) from the penalty of your sins (plural, as in all of them). By the Holy Spirit living in you, you are now being saved (present tense, ongoing action) from the power of sin (singular, as in the lie of sin). And one day, Hallelujah, you will be saved (future tense, completed action) from the presence of sin, which is the resurrection body being guarded in heaven for you, 1 Peter 1:3 – 5.

Choosing to listen to the Holy Spirit, Who lives in you, with you, through you, as you, before the Father and the watching world around you, rather than to the lie of the world, the flesh, and the devil, will create in you the right response to whatever is going on around you.

You have no choice over what happens to you, but you do have a choice as to what happens in you. When you choose to trust what God has said, He creates sakal, which is the right response to whatever is happening to you at the time. The right response is an expression of the heart of God, the life of Jesus, and brings pleasing glory to the Father.

This is what worshiping the Father in spirit and truth looks like in everyday living! And it comes from the new heart, through faith and servant thoughts, and spiritual discipline over the body. As the body catches on, and it will, a new habit is formed, just as the old ones were with sin. The old dies and the new reigns with Christ! Hallelujah!

Today, listen to what God has said, trust what God has said, your servant thoughts are eager to serve you to carry out sakal, so that you will behave wisely in every situation of the day.

Tomorrow, a different Hebrew word for wisdom, bayin!

Sakal; Knowing and Doing God's Will, God's Way

The Hebrew word sakal is used in the Old Testament to describe hearing and doing God’s will from God’s word for every occasion in life. In most places it is translated “behave wisely.”

Romans 12:2 states that God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect. And so, to hear and do God’s will from God’s word will enable you to present your life as a good, pleasing, and perfect offering and fragrance to the Father; to worship the Father in spirit and truth.

But how can you know for sure what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God? That, my friend, is the question, but the greater problem is that it’s the wrong question.

You see, God desires you to know Him, to seek Him, more than anything else there is; more than something about Him, like His will. There are only two kinds of knowing; knowing about something or someone, and knowing something or someone. The two kinds knowing are very different.

When you know about something, you handle the information, you manage it for when you need to use it. But knowing someone is a relationship. You don’t manage (manipulate) a relationship. You don’t use a person in a relationship. Of course, we know that people do, but this is not the way God created us to relate with Him or others. It is certainly not the way He desires to relate with you.

In a personal relationship with the Father, through faith in the Son, the Holy Spirit imparts Himself to you so that you can know Him, love Him, desire Him, enjoy Him in life! God does this by speaking into your life, from the inside out, where He lives in you, with you, through you, as you! This is worshiping the Father in spirit and truth.

Sakal, behaving wisely, is His life, from His word, which He has spoken in you. It is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God, which is the result of knowing Him in a good, pleasing, and perfect relationship.

And sakal, the will of God and the desire and power to do it, is given, only in a personal relationship with the Father, through faith in the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. Apart from Him you can do nothing, or worse, you will try to do something in your power, under your control, to know about His will. This was what Adam and Eve were tempted to do, which they did. We are all very aware of and all to familiar with that outcome.

Sakal is desiring and having God in control and loving it that way! Hallelujah!

Today, seek the Lord with all your heart. Don’t worry about doing His will. God is the only One who can do His will. Desire to know Him, in His word, for it is only in that relationship that His desires will become yours.

Tomorrow, more on sakal.

Worshiping With Sakal; Wisdom

Hebrew has many different words that are translated as “wisdom.” The first one mentioned in the Bible is the word sakal. It is first seen in Genesis 3:6 as something that Eve was led to believe the Tree would give her, “…and a tree desirable to make one wise.” The word sakal, means to have the ability to process information so that a right decision can be reached and the right action taken. It includes not only the right understanding and right choice, but also the right action. For that reason it is one of the most comprehensive words for wisdom.

The meaning of understanding and action is seen in its use in Deuteronomy 29:9, “Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.”  In that verse the word “prosper” is the Hebrew word sakal. Prosperity in the Bible is not the accumulation of a lot of stuff, but rather having sakal, keeping God’s word and doing it!

In Joshua 1:7 – 8 this word is translated as having “good success.” The command that God gave Joshua was to be careful to do all that was written in the Law that had been given to Moses, and to meditate on it. The result would be sakal; he would have good success. Another word for sakal would be obedience, because in the Old Testament, obedience meant hearing and doing God’s word.

In 1 Samuel 17 you read the story of when David killed Goliath. In chapter 18 they started singing songs about David (he became a rock star, literally, overnight) and at the same time, King Saul started throwing spears at him. In that chapter, three times, it says that David “behaved wisely,” which is our word sakal. Two of the most telling uses are found in Isaiah 52:13 and Jeremiah 23:5. In both of those passages, God’s chosen Messiah, the son of David, is described as having sakal. In fact, this is the first thing that God says about the Christ, His Servant.

In one of David’s worship songs, Psalm 14:2, sakal is defined. “The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” In the English Standard Version, the word sakal, is translated “understand.” The point is that this is who God is looking for. He is searching for those who seek after Him! And those who are searching for Him are those who have sakal! This is what it means to worship the Father in spirit and truth. These are the ones the Father is seeking to worship Him, according to John 4:23 – 24.

The Father is searching for those who will bring to Him the fruit of obedience from the Vine (John 15:1 – 8) in faithful and sacrificial worship. Today, as you abide in the Vine, look up these references and uses of the word sakal, memorize one of them for the day, asking God to give you the gift of sakal so that you can worship with it, today.

Tomorrow we will see how God’s Spirit living in you and with you empowers you with sakal to see the right choice and then to do it! Hallelujah!!!

Worship and the Wisdom of God

The phrase the fear of the Lord is used throughout the Bible to describe worshiping God. To fear the Lord does not mean to be afraid of Him, but rather to have great respect and honor for Him. It is to know God as God, as the One who is greater than anything in the natural universe, because He created all there is, according to His word. It is also to know that His power is eternal. It understands, from His word, that God is holy. You fear the Lord as a response to the revelation of God, of Himself in Christ, according to His Word.

Proverbs 9:10 states, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…” The word beginning means the first thing or the entrance. The first step in receiving and entering into the wisdom of God is to learn to worship Him, to fear the Lord, to know Him from His Self-disclosure, according to His word. As you trust what God has said concerning Himself, you fear, or respect/honor Him as God. This is the beginning of wisdom, which is essential in worshiping the Father in spirit and truth. Wisdom pleases the Father. It is what we worship Him with!

The Hebrew language has several words for wisdom, each with a particular aspect and meaning. The first time the word is used in the Bible is in Genesis 3:6. In that verse it states that Eve “…saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise…” The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was her counterpart in the Garden (more on that later), and its fruit was not to be eaten. The consequence would be death, according to God’s word.

Satan had already planted his two-fold lie that they would not really die if they ate of the fruit of the Tree and that God knew that if they did eat their eyes would be opened, like God, and they would know good and evil. She decided to follow the lie, according to Satan’s word, rather than the truth, according to God’s word, in order to get wisdom. She was deceived into believing that eating the fruit would be the beginning of wisdom, rather than fearing the Lord. Adam and Eve decided to get wisdom on their own rather than receive it according to God’s word, as the fruit of worship.

The Apostle John defines loving the things of the world in 1 John 2:16 as “…the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life…” He warns in that passage of having the love of the world rather than the love of the Father. This statement directly corresponds to Genesis 3:6. It interprets it with the comparison of the pride of life to the desire for the tree to make one wise, which gets at the heart of true worship, trusting and loving the Father in spirit and truth.

Today, respond to the invitation of the Father from His word to fear Him in awe and wonder because of His goodness, His greatness, His wisdom and love.

Tomorrow we will study the Hebrew word that is used in Genesis 3:6, sakal, and how it relates to worship.