Day 106, Year 1

God’s Mighty Power and Wisdom

“Behold, God is mighty, but despises no one; He is mighty in strength of understanding.” (Job 36:5 NKJV)

The emphasis of today’s verse is what James 1:5 says—God does not rebuke those who sincerely seek His wisdom. He has great power that humans do not always have, but He does not despise us because of our lack of wisdom or power. Moreover, His wisdom is exceedingly broad. According to the Old Testament and previous devotionals, wisdom could be categorized into four types.

First, God’s wisdom is manifested in the Bible, including truth about Him, the invisible world, spiritual things, and the wisdom of salvation, etc. This is the primary focus of this devotional. From His perspective, there is certain wisdom that possesses eternal value and is worth the most for our pursuit with great care and effort.

Second, the occult mentioned yesterday, which is an evil wisdom that opposes God’s sovereignty. His wisdom can penetrate and mightily destroy even the opposing evil wisdom and practices. Thus, it is not incapable for us to understand all the workings of sorcery by God’s wisdom. Indeed, whether it is sorcery or earthly wealth, their worth is fleeting. It saddens God that many people are concerned only with pursuing these short-lived things. Moreover, all sorcery will eventually become ineffective in God’s timing. He permits sorcery to proliferate temporarily to test human hearts, to see how greedy they are, how much they pursue unrighteous wealth, abuse power with lustful desires on earth, and so on.

Third, all the true understandings and other wisdom aligning with God’s truth. Believers can understand everything that happens in the world with the guidance of His wisdom. There is nothing that His wisdom cannot comprehend. Hence, all understanding of the true things of the world could be classified as this type of wisdom. Nevertheless, the true wisdom of God is centered on the fear of the Lord.

Fourth, pseudo-wisdom or empty, false wisdom. In the past centuries, much false wisdom has emerged and been widespread in the form of novels, movies, and so on. They do not align with God’s truth or the real world, nor are they directly utilized by evil spirits. These empty things are similar to the powerless idols mentioned in the Old Testament, made of gold, silver, wood, etc. Despite being pursued by people, they are meaningless, useless, worthless, and powerless in nature. Anyone who pursues this kind of pseudo-wisdom will become worthless, too.

Reflection questions:

1) What cost are you willing to pay to pursue the godly wisdom of the Bible and the related one?

2) Why do you think some people are still pursuing worthless things or useless wisdom that do not align with God’s truth or the real world?