Wisdom and Devotion

Wisdom and Devotion

We receive wisdom from God by being devoted to God. All our needs are met by pressing in toward the center. Devotion to God increases one’s inner vision, illuminates what one has already received, and establishes one’s mind in it. Devotion to God means surrender of one’s self, surrender into death, losing one’s life in order to find life. The cross and death is the strait gate into God’s glory in Christ Jesus.

Godly devotion causes our experiences to pass our inner eye—our life at the present moment as it progresses—as a row of truth-images, with each step of our experiences being confirmed by God’s Word. New things in God’s Word will always be illuminated as the life of Christ continues to grow in us, for Jesus says that the Scriptures testify of Him. John 5:39. Therefore we discover a new area illuminated throughout the entire Bible for each step of faith or step in our experience that we take. The person who lives in a state of constant devotion, will live in a constantly increasing light over God’s Word, which he will then discover is one with God’s life and his experiences that flow from it. Our spiritual area of experiences increases only to the same degree as we forsake ourselves and are devoted to God.

The area of experience of many believers is very limited because of a lack of—or little— devotion. The person who increases his knowledge without devotion will go beyond his real area of experience or his personal spiritual worth into a false spiritual life of self-love as the driving force; he ends up on plains on which his spirit is infused with things that have only been borrowed. Those who lack this inner devotion, with the consequent development of a godly life and increase of experiences, usually devote themselves to external doctrines as a substitute for the lack of an inner life. The spirit of a man must have something to which he can devote himself. Instead of turning inward to find nourishment, he will turn outward. If we want to find that inner life-wisdom, it will be at the expense of our own flesh; however, this price is too high for many people. Therefore they seek their knowledge in a manner in which the flesh does not come into contact with the nails of the cross. Those who choose the inner ways of Calvary will discover an inner joy of life over this added wisdom; those who seek outwardly will discover a human feeling of well-being over other people’s exalted thoughts by storing them in their memory. Since these truths are received solely on a human level, they will have the effect of only increasing the self-life, because knowledge puffs up. 1 Cor. 8:1. Therefore we find that such people become rich by their learning, and usually they also like to be known as being learned. They have their opinions and ideas about life, but they do not possess a growing life that gives birth to true and certain wisdom. Therefore their words are uncertain and without the clear instruction of the Spirit, in spite of their self-assurance. On the other hand, those who have received their wisdom from life itself always speak with certainty, and therefore they have authority; they are lowly in their own eyes and poor in their spirit by always being in a humble and receiving relationship to the Spirit of God. The humble have wisdom. The reason for a lack of wisdom is a lack of humility.

The limitations of our consciousness in God can be expanded only through a deeper devotion. Thus our insight into God is expanded and our store of experiences is enlarged. These stores become the object of intensive contemplation in the spirit in order to allow them to be put into practice in daily life.

Someone who absorbs teachings in his spirit without a corresponding devotion to God possesses this teaching only in his memory without a corresponding spiritual development in God. This is how he becomes rich in knowledge which has not been harvested in his personal school of life. These doctrines will take away the remainder of their devotion within their personal limitations or worth! The teaching is too much in comparison to their life; but now they want to be devoted outside of their personal limitations or from the periphery of the borrowed teachings which they imagine are their own. Nevertheless, they must, if they want to advance, return to their own state, and in that state humble themselves before God. This costs a soul dearly who is burdened with knowledge. Yet this is the way. It is particularly difficult for leaders to go down on this stairway of humiliation. Therefore they are most often dried out, for the background of life is lacking in their words. Because of a lack of the anointing of the Spirit, their words are often rhapsodic and dream-like—especially wishful—figures of speech which often rise to the level of religious, unreal enthusiasm, which has nothing to do with the reality of life. On the other hand, pure words are like stones that have been quarried from a firm rock, for such a person speaks on the basis of life itself. All other words are like floating clouds.

The fact is that God has also appointed teachers in the church. Their teaching is to explain the ways in Christ (1 Cor. 2:17) so that one can gain a wider perspective over a larger area, which can be conquered only by devotion and faith. Otherwise it becomes just a dry doctrine.

Those who possess these borrowed doctrines are often at variance with souls who are truly devoted to God, just as they also argue among themselves about their many shrewd inventions. On the other hand, souls who are devoted to God, who are walking in Jesus’ steps—on the way of the cross—are of one mind and speak the same thing, seeing that they have been taught by the same Spirit of wisdom; all they aspire to is the truth according to godliness. Tit. 1:1. The first are often obsessed with arguments about all kinds of doctrines, often arguing among themselves about their ideas that puff them up thoroughly. Paul says that they are vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds. Col. 2:18. This is truly a poor reason for being puffed up, for the person who sows wind and uncertain speech always harvests emptiness in his spirit, yet he will advance in the flesh.

Through devotion we gain life and the wisdom that flows from it, which is never insecure or uncertain because it is one with the godly life that is growing forth. This wisdom is just as rock solid as life, for both of them are rooted in that eternal Rock of truth from which they are growing forth in, for the soul, an inseparable oneness. Therefore such a soul can also lead his thoughts back until they are gathered in this great oneness from which all things proceed. For him there is no disharmony between the inner, fundamental truth and the thoughts about simple things that flow from it. Wisdom conveys God’s glories to us, which gradually arise in our consciousness as living truths whose inner horizons point even deeper into God and whose outer contours join in oneness to one’s previous experiences that were done in God.