(Editor's Note: You may find Part 1 of this excellent series by Bishop Butler by searching for his articles on the "Article Search" page.)

"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions" (Prov. 8:12)

The wisdom of God is where you find out how to become the next Bill Gates. It's from wisdom that you can gain information on how to develop the next Microsoft. God has more knowledge than any man on the earth. The smartest man in the smartest laboratory is no match for the wisdom of God.

In fact, men like George Washington Carver and Ben Franklin were individuals who loved God, knew God, gave credit to God as the one who gave them their inventions. There's that wisdom and the prosperity connection. Wisdom, we just read in the word of God, will help you with witty inventions. That's another reason why we ought to study this subject. We ought to find out all we can on how to walk in this.

Thank God for the wisdom of God. When you turn to Proverbs chapter 4, we read in verse 7, wisdom is the principle thing, therefore, get wisdom and with all thy getting, get understanding. Get wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge to its fullest extent.

Not only do you want to use knowledge to its fullest extent, you also want to understand how things work. You want to comprehend, because then you can duplicate it. You want to get wisdom and understanding. Promotion comes when an individual walks in wisdom.

"Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee" (Prov. 4:8).

Qualities of the Wisdom of God
How do we know the difference between God's wisdom and wisdom of the flesh? The word of God makes it plain. When you face a situation, you compare this list from God's Word, and you'll know whether we're talking about godly wisdom or somebody's idea. In James, chapter 3, it says if you have bitter envying or strife in your heart, this wisdom ascendeth not from above, but is earthly and of the soul, devilish and produces envy, strife, confusion and every evil work.

Then it goes on to say the wisdom that's from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy, good fruits, without partiality or hypocrisy. So how can I know the difference between God's wisdom and the world's wisdom? First of all, the wisdom of God first and foremost is pure. There's no dirty stuff in it.

If you're about to do something, the first thing you need to check - is it pure? Is it right? Because there are many ways to scale a mountain, and there are many different paths you can take to get to where you want to go. You can follow the flesh way, and you can follow Satan's way and you can get to places, but the day will come when you will pay the price for it.

The wisdom of God is first of all pure. It's undefiled. There's no sin in it. What's the second thing about the wisdom of God? It's peaceable. It leads to peace. It leads to resolution. It leads to harmony, rather than strife. When you are flowing in God's wisdom, it's going to produce peace at the end of the day. If there's not peace, then it's not God's wisdom, but yours.

What else is the wisdom that comes from God? It's gentle. Godly wisdom is gentle. The opposite of gentle is rough. When you're operating in Godly wisdom, it's gentle.

How else can I know what is the wisdom of God? Easy to be entreated. In other words, you can walk up to the wisdom of God. You can get involved with a conversation with the wisdom of God. Easy to be entreated means that you can be approached. When you know that it's not Godly wisdom, nobody can talk to you any more. "That's my final word!" The wisdom of God can always be entreated.

Think about what you've done in the last 30 days. You can compare whether or not what you've been doing has been God's wisdom or the wisdom of the flesh.

How else can we tell what's Godly wisdom? Godly wisdom is merciful. It will give people a second chance. God gave you a second chance and a third chance and a twentieth chance and a hundredth chance and a ten thousandth chance. Are you calling Him stupid? Certainly not. He sees redeeming qualities in you, and even in the worst person, there are some qualities in them that are worth saving, if possible.

What else is a quality of the wisdom of God? How do I know if something is God's wisdom or mine? The wisdom of God produces good fruit—not just fruit, good fruit. There's all kinds of fruit that can be produced, but the wisdom of God will produce good fruit. At the end of the day, the bottom line, you can see what it produces. Jesus said, you will know a tree not by how it looks or how it walks, not by how it talks, not by how it dresses; he said you will know a tree by the fruit it bears.

What's on that tree? You want to know if somebody is walking in God's wisdom? Take a look at what is produced in their life. There's a connection between good fruit and wisdom. If you don't see good fruit, you know there's no godly wisdom there, and that means another kind of wisdom is there and that wisdom will always produce strife.

The Bible teaches that you don't judge another person, you don't decide somebody's going to hell because you think so. But the Bible does tell you to judge their fruits. What kind of fruit's produced?

If you're going to hire somebody, you take a look at their background to see what kind of fruit is produced, whether or not it's good fruit; because many times, what a person has been will predict what they will be. That's not always so, because people can get in the Word of God and change, thank God. But if that's the case, give it time to see what happens now that they've changed.

What else is godly wisdom? Godly wisdom is not partial. No partiality; it treats everybody the same. Godly wisdom doesn't have the "in group" and the "out group." It doesn't have cliques. There's no godly wisdom in cliques. Once you become a group that nobody else can get in, you know you're in pride and Satan's working in that. Do you know that God's group, his family is always open? He's always open for more people to get in, and so should be the group you run with.

What else does godly wisdom have? No hypocrisy. With Godly wisdom, what you see is what you get. The word hypocrite means one that hides behind a mask. It's taken from Greek theater where they'd have a guy come out to describe a mood, and he'd have almost a body-sized mask. So he's around that stage and it would be a smile mask. The guy behind the mask could be thinking, "I wish I wasn't out here on this stage today."

But the mask says smile. That's what the crowd sees. That's what hypocrisy is - an outward show, but something different inward. Godly wisdom is transparent - what you see is what you get.

Fleshly Wisdom
There's a whole lot of convoluted stuff hiding in the corners and behind doors, behind the bushes - you just can't seem to lay your hands on what the deal is. No, this isn't God's wisdom, and you'd better back up. What did He say here in James about the wisdom that is not from above? Fleshly or Satanic wisdom.

First of all, fleshly or Satanic wisdom is selfish. It only thinks of what can I get out of this, and what's it going to do for me. God is the wisest of all and God never thinks that way. God is always thinking, "Yes, I'm going to get more sons because of what I've done, but it's going to bless my sons.

Fleshly or Satanic wisdom is soulish. In other words, it's just of the emotions. How many of you know, your emotions can change with the blowing of the wind? Emotions can change just like that. A person can walk in the door all smiley, and somebody can bump them, and that same person can turn into a warrior, like that.

Wisdom is not following your emotions. Your emotions will get you in trouble. You don't make decisions when you're all emotional. In fact, when you're all emotional, that's the best time to keep your mouth shut before you say something that you know wasn't God's wisdom and will produce the results you don't want.

Hear me married folk—the best thing to do when you get all upset, that's not the time to talk. You do whatever you need to do—If you need to get in the car and drive around, go do that before you say something. Don't let them get you to say something you'll regret.

Feelings are not true and they are fleeting. You can have this emotion right now, but that's got nothing to do with what your real heart is. You can love somebody, but at the moment your feeling is you don't love them. Wisdom, godly wisdom, is never by your emotions. You know you are not in God's wisdom when you let your emotions rule the day. Don't go there. Shut your mouth. Put a sock in your mouth. Drink some water, do something. You can open your mouth one time and pay for it for ten years. People will remind you - "When did I say that?" "1979, you said that!"

Satan operates by subterfuge, deception, and lies. You've met lots of folks that people think are smart, but they got to the top by all the things I just mentioned. They lied, they slept their way to the top, they cut somebody's throat to do it, they schemed. When you have to scheme to get somewhere, you know you are not in God's wisdom. You are now operating in Satan's way. Godly wisdom is always straightforward.

Godly wisdom will produce honor, riches, long life, witty inventions, and great things for you; but Satanic wisdom will only produce strife and every evil work. Strife ends peoples' lives prematurely.

How else do you know when something is Satanic wisdom? Satanic wisdom creates strife. If your answer to a problem causes everybody to start fighting, it wasn't the wisdom of God. You got in a hurry, decided you had to have an answer now, and you created your own answer then put God's tag on it.

God has been accused of more stuff. If the Lord did all the things people said that He did, I wouldn't serve Him. Fleshly Satanic wisdom creates strife. What else does it create? Confusion. When Satanic wisdom is at work, everybody's confused. Confusion is going on all over the place. When the manifestation of the wisdom of God comes into a matter, it's clear—this is what we do. It will produce.

This is how you know whether or not you're hearing God or not. Satanic wisdom creates confusion. A lot of confusion going on in your relationships right now, a lot of confusion in your house, with you? You're not in God's wisdom.

(Editor's Note: In Part 3 of "Godly Wisdom Just For You," Bishop Butler will teach us how to get into God's wisdom.  Check "Author Archives" for other parts of this article.)
Keith Butler Ministries
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