(We are continuing on the subject of how to attain godly wisdom. Previous segments may be accessed using search by author or article title. Our basic text for this series is Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.")

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" (Prov. 9:10).

In prior portions of this series, we learned that the wisdom of God is available for each and every believer.

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption..." (1 Cor. 1:30).

There are three words you're going to find that run together throughout the Word of God. Those are wisdom, understanding and knowledge. They're closely associated with each other, although they have different meanings.

Once again, knowledge is information. We need to find out the facts of what God says. We need to derive the knowledge from the Word of God in order to succeed.

Then there is understanding. The word means comprehension, to be able to comprehend, to be able to receive and know how something works and why it works.

Finally, there is wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge to its fullest extent or to it fullest extreme.

We've talked of wisdom being a person. The Holy Ghost is the wisdom of God. We know that Jesus himself is the wisdom of God, and we know that the Word of God is the wisdom of God.

The book of James tells us that there are two kinds of wisdom—fleshly, satanic wisdom, and the wisdom of God—and it's easy to find the difference between the two. The wisdom that God produces will bring about happiness, long life, riches, honor, pleasantness, peace, safety, smoothness, good sleep, no fear, defense, make things easier for you, and will produce witty inventions.

Characteristics of fleshy wisdom include: Selfish, soulish, devilish, creating strife and confusion, and producing bad fruit. Unbelief will disguise itself as wisdom. A lot of times people say, let's use some wisdom here; and a lot times what they really mean is let's not believe the Word of God right now. We can't see how it will work.

Vine's Expository Dictionary says that the New Testament word translated wisdom means the true insight into the true nature of things. That's the New Testament meaning for wisdom. If I can give one definition for wisdom, it is this: Operating with skill, skillful. Wisdom skillfully uses knowledge.

The book of Proverbs is about three things: Knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Proverbs 1 tells us that if you're going to get knowledge, you're going to have to walk in the fear of God; if you're going to get wisdom, you're going to have to walk in the fear of God; if you're going to have understanding, then you'll have to walk in the fear of God. You maybe educated, but you are an educated fool if you don't fear God.

Now, wisdom is an anointing. There is an anointing of wisdom that will live big in a believer and will come on a believer.

Jesus walked in an anointing. Jesus walked this earth not as God, although He was God. He was 100 percent God, and he was 100 percent man. But He didn't operate in the earth as God; he operated in the earth as man. It was a man who messed up, and it had to be a man who walked this earth rightly. It was a man who became full of sin unto death, and it had to be a man who paid the price for that.

Now, the Word teaches us that there was an anointing on Jesus—the Spirit of Wisdom. There was a Spirit of Wisdom that resided in Jesus. Jesus functioned on the earth with wisdom from the Holy Ghost. It was the Holy Ghost that came on Him; it was the same Holy Ghost that is on you. The Holy Ghost that comes on you and that is in you is the same Holy Ghost that Jesus walked in wisdom through.

"You mean to say that the wisdom that Jesus walked in is in me?" Yes!

You are a spirit being that possesses a soul, which is the mind, will and emotions; and you live in a body—that's the house that you live in. Your body is the very temple of God. The Holy Ghost and the Spirit of wisdom, the anointing for God's wisdom, is in you now. You have skill on the inside of you, but it isn't your skill we're talking about. You've got God's skill on the inside of you—the ability to utilize the knowledge of God.

What Moves You?
The first lesson in walking in the wisdom of God comes from opening yourself up to the Holy Ghost—not just perceiving and receiving what your ears hear and what your eyes see. Not being moved by what your mama told you. Your mama tells you, you should always have a "slush fund" put aside in case your husband divorces you. He gives you the grocery money, you take 10 percent of that every week and put some away. He may not know the difference, but when he finds out, you are going to have some trouble.

That isn't godly wisdom. That will bring about confusion and every evil work. "Now, son, you never know what will happen to a woman, you better have something on the side." That counsel from your daddy is not godly wisdom. God's counsel tells you that he or she is your partner, you are one together and everything you have belongs to the other. That will produce peace.

When a man doesn't bring his paycheck home, or he doesn't show his wife what he makes, there is no godliness with that, nor is it right. That check ought to come home, she ought to see every dime that you make. Vice versa, nowadays. The wisdom of God is peaceful. The wisdom of God will produce joy, but if there's hiding, dipping, concealing—it's not God's wisdom. It may be wisdom, but it isn't Godly wisdom.

There is a connection in the Word of God between wisdom and prosperity: "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches" (Ps. 104:24).

He made the earth and he did it through wisdom. All the riches of God were made through the wisdom of God. The ascertaining of the riches of God comes through operating in the wisdom of God.

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.... Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour" (Prov. 3:13,16).

God's wisdom will bring you prosperity, it will bring you riches, and it will bring you honor. Now, I didn't say it would do it overnight. God's way is not a get-rich quick scheme.

Wisdom Can Be Seen
How can you see God's wisdom being manifest? Is the place full of peace? We're going back to the attributes of wisdom: Happiness, pleasantness, smoothness, being able to sleep, no fear, and things getting easier. Wisdom will produce all these things and wisdom can be seen. Jesus said, you will know the tree by the fruit it bears.

If you follow God's principles, you examine the fruit on the tree before you hook your wagon up to some train. You can see wisdom when you see the fruit.

I can tell whether or not a man is a man of God. I can tell by his fruit. Wisdom will produce harmony between him and his wife. God will grant him wisdom on how to minister to his wife.

And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions: there was not any thing hid from the king, which he told her not. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord; there was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.
(1 Kings 10:1-6)

Solomon is the most prosperous man on the planet. Not because he's David's son. He's the most prosperous man on the planet because he came to God and asked God for manifestation of wisdom. There is a connection between wisdom and prosperity.

Now, understand this, if you are in poverty, you are in lack, it's because you are not operating by wisdom. I'm sorry. If you're in poverty, you're in lack and you have not been operating by wisdom. That should tell you something. That should tell you, you'd better stop what you're doing, you'd better stop with human wisdom, and you'd better go to the Word of God and find out what God's wisdom is about.

God's wisdom tells you, the borrower is servant to the lender. So, if you're going to live your life by a credit card—there are a lot of people who live by a credit card, they just pay minimal balance, they load two, three, four cards up—that's easy wisdom, satanic wisdom. To live beyond your means, keeping up with the Jones'. By the time you get to where the Jones' are, they have moved. Learn to live where you are, and act on the plan God gives you and watch yourself go up God's way. There is a wisdom and prosperity connection.

The Starting Point of Wisdom
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever" (Ps. 111:10).

If the starting point of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, we'd better find out what that is. We'd better find out if we're walking in it. We read earlier, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, so knowledge starts here, understanding starts here, and wisdom starts here. Everything starts with the fear of God.

"The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate" (Prov. 8:13).

Wisdom starts with hating evil. I want you to note the term hate. There is a difference between hating evil and tolerating it. When you hate evil, it's repulsive to you. It should repulse you, if you turn on a television set and there're two men making love, two women making love, man and two women making love. Two men and a woman making love. Nobody married to nobody.

We've become desensitized to that. We no longer hate evil, but yet the beginning of wisdom is to hate evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. It should do something to you when you see that. In fact, it should make you go "click." You don't hate evil when you go to the movies, and you know before you get there that you are going to see two hours of porn. They may not call it porn, but you know which movies are porn and which ones are not. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, so that means you can't stand to be around it.

Why in the world would you go there anyway, and watch this thing with two bodies, going to spend the next 60 minutes steaming up the screen? Then you wonder why you have a flesh problem. Not operating in wisdom, not hating evil, will put you in that position. If you continue to fill your eye gate with that, and fill your ear gate with that, you will become desensitized to it, then you will become susceptible to it.

If you don't think that movies and television don't cause people to slide, you are wrong. If you spend all your time watching soap operas—I'm going to tell you what's going to happen: You won't trust your husband You'll assume he is like the men on the screen. So, when your husband walks in the house, you'll look at him—"Where you been? What store did you go to? How long were you there? It only takes five minutes to be in that store. Where you been?"

If you get out the wisdom of God, you start getting over into strife and confusion. "Woman, where have you been? Who have you been with? What's that? Where did you get that? Who bought you that?"

"Honey, you gave me the money."

"I didn't give you that much money. Where did you get the money to buy that?"

You're about to destroy your relationship because you don't hate evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, not to tolerate it, not to stay around it, not to participate in it.


Keith Butler Ministries
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