WISDOM: THE PRINCIPAL THING

God means for you to have good success. That is His master-plan for you. He is not happy seeing you a failure. Failure is not in God’s nature. He does not have it and does not want it for you. It is a symptom of spiritual death. God wants you a success!

As each blessing of scripture carries a demand to fulfill specific conditions, success has its mode of operation and wisdom is one of the principal things needed for it.

Ecclesiastes 10:5-10 tells us of an evil under the sun, and the evil is, servants riding on horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth.

"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, an error which proceedeth from the ruler: folly is set in great dignity and the rich set in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking like servants upon the earth.... If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put forth more strength, but wisdom is profitable to direct"

The summary of this passage is that the reason why princes have had to start walking on foot while servants ride on horses is folly. He said, "folly is set in great dignity." It is folly. The prince has begun to operate foolishly and folly is a basic prerequisite for removal from the princely office.

God wants you to retain your horseback status. He does not intend that servants take your place. He wills you to be a good success, an eternal excellency, a joy and pride of many generations. But this is only obtainable by forsaking foolishness and walking in wisdom. In verse 10, he said, wisdom is profitable to direct.

Wisdom is the principal tool in maintaining your horseback position. As a king, Saul, Israel’s first monarch, lost his exalted position for lack of wisdom (1 Samuel 13:13).

"And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly; thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which He commanded thee; for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue..."

He lost the prospect of his dignity being established over Israel on an eternal basis simply because he acted foolishly. You cannot operate folly and expect your kingdom to continue. You cannot behave without wisdom and expect to be successful. Success is attained and retained by wisdom. If at any time you fall short of wisdom, there is no other substitute that can work. Wisdom is wisdom. Other things are other things. Wisdom is profitable to direct. It will be an act of folly for me to come to church and begin to single out one deacon after another telling their faults and deficiencies.

There are things that do not require prayers to solve. A mere application of wisdom gets the situation easily under control. Things that have been developed and cultivated vigorously and carefully over the years can be destroyed in a matter of minutes for lack of wisdom.

It becomes very important therefore to be guided and directed by this all important tool for success. You cannot go too far without wisdom. It is so crucial that the Bible says it is the principal thing. Notice that in a school setting, you have a principal course (your major), minors, and electives which are optional. It does not matter how well you perform in the minors and electives, if you fail the major course, you cannot be said to have passed.

So also, in order to have good success, wisdom is of paramount significance. Without it, you cannot make it. It is the foundation upon which the success complex is built. And if this foundation is weak or non-existent, what sort of building would you claim to have? The fact is, you need wisdom more than any other thing. If you must have good success, you must pass the wisdom-test. It is indispensable.

I have seen mighty prayer warriors who have never tasted success. They are not likely to taste it until they acquire this all important ingredient - wisdom. I have heard and seen people who confess the word rigorously but have not got the result they desire. They lack wisdom! The Bible clearly states that wisdom is the principal determinant of success.

In Proverbs 4:5-7, the Bible says,

"Get wisdom, get understanding; forget it not, neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee; love her, and she shall keep thee. WISDOM IS THE PRINCIPAL THING; therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding"

The problem most people have, even ministers of the gospel, is that they have never paid any serious attention to the need to operate in wisdom. They have worked hard in other areas but the principal thing is lacking. That is why they are not possessing. They are not making it.

There are people who have great potential for global business connection, but they are not known beyond their little compounds along their lonely streets. There are men of God with great visions who could have otherwise been moving nations for Jesus confined to little congregations, all for lack of wisdom. They have the ability, but they lack the principal factor of harnessing and managing that ability to produce great results. Wisdom is lacking in their lives, they remain at the base of the ladder.

Consider the Lord Jesus for an example. His whole life and ministry were guarded and guided by the accurate manifestation of wisdom. Even from childhood, wisdom was in manifestation. He grew with, and in wisdom. Luke 2:40 and 52 says,

"And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him... And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man"

Even Jesus needed to be filled with wisdom and had to increase His wisdom level from time to time. If Jesus needed and used it, you then must know that you CANNOT do without it. Each time He taught, they marvelled at His wisdom. He taught with authority because He had what it takes to make it.

The men who have had the greatest positive influence on the world have been men of immense wisdom. Billy Graham is easily one of the greatest men of God in the world today. In fact, he has been described as the John the Baptist of the 20th century and evangelist to the world. If you look closely into his life, his greatest desire is not power or any other thing, but wisdom. He has the greatest individual christian influence on the world today. His driving force has been wisdom.

Through wisdom a house is built. If you know the process of building you will know that it is not a thing you do haphazardly. It requires diligent planning and patience. It needs careful, progressive structuring. It takes wisdom to do that!

Wisdom, simply put, is the ability to compute knowledge to lay hold on your desire. Wisdom helps you to know how to walk with God to bring your desire to pass. If you must rise to the top, you must know this and hold onto it.

If you are in business and you don’t apply wisdom, you will not only run at a loss, you will fold up. If your capital is N500.00 and because you are of faith and power, you decide to deal in building materials, you will notice that you are not walking in wisdom. N500:00 cannot keep you in building materials business. In fact, nobody will know you are selling anything. They will not notice your materials. It will just look like you have gone to the market to buy them and waiting for a taxi to transport them home. You can pray all night and all day on that, but unless you bring in some wisdom, you cannot make it.

You need to be able to apply yourself at every given time, based on what you have, to believing God and managing yourself wisely for increase. You may have a vision for building materials but you cannot start out on that now. Start where you are, small as it may be. Then you can go on to greater heights as you improve on your capital.

Much the same way, if you are in business and your total output is N1,000.00, it will be unwise of you to rent a shop of N1,500.00. If you do this, you will go bankrupt. Your prayer and fasting will not change it. It only requires a simple application of wisdom. Wisdom is profitable to direct.

Wisdom is the principal thing. God is going to use this weapon to show His glory to the devil these last days. God is going to use the Church, full grown in wisdom to manifest Himself to the devil (Ephesians 3:10).

Ecclesiastes 10:10, says,

"If the iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge, then must he put forth more strength, but wisdom is profitable to direct"

Take this illustration. James and Peter are two wonderful friends. They were employed by Federal Forestry Department to fell trees. Upon agreement, it was decided that each person would be paid N3.00 per tree felled. They were given same brand of blunt cutlasses and left to go into action.

James said, "Beloved Peter, I am off to the town to sharpen my cutlass." But Peter, being "full of faith," said, "I will finish all the work before you arrive, because to him that believeth all things are possible" (even felling trees with a blunt cutlass!)

James went to town to sharpen his cutlass out of the money he would be paid. On his arrival, brother Peter was still on the first tree. Now James finds it easy to fell trees because he has "whet" the edge of the cutlass. At the end of the day, brother Peter with all his strength and faith, felled 3 trees, while James succeeded with 10 trees. Peter would have N9:00 while James would have N30:00. Assuming that he spent N1.00 on taxi and another for sharpening his cutlass, he is still left with N28.00 while brother Peter has N9.00 only.

Look at it: they both had the same assignment, perhaps the same skill, interest, and cutlass. The difference is that James was wise about it and his wisdom paid off. It made the difference. When James went sharpening his cutlass, Peter was busy working hard. He was not lazy about it. He worked very hard but got very little out of it.

If you do not apply wisdom in all you do, you will work yourself out with only very little to show for it. "Whet the edge" of the iron so that you will not need to put more strength. That is wisdom.

A lot of people are hasty. They cannot wait. They want immediate success. They want it to be automatic. But you see, you have to begin somewhere. At the beginning, when a farmer sows his corn, it first comes up as an ordinary weed. But that is not the end. It is corn, irrespective of its look. Eventually, it grows into the full corn with the fruits beautifully displayed.

Then you ask me, "Pastor David, how can I get this wisdom?" You can get it through three major ways. You get wisdom at salvation because Jesus has been made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30). You can get it by asking for it (James 1:5). And you can get it through the laying on of hands.

If you sense a lack of wisdom in your life, lay hold on it. Ask God. He gives wisdom freely and generously too. He gave Solomon when he asked for it. Jesus had an abundance of it.

The Bible says Jesus is the wisdom and power of God. He is wisdom personified; and He is in you, if you are born again. The very wisdom of God dwells in you! The much of that wisdom you manifest depends on what attention you pay to the word of faith you exercise to manifest it. You have wisdom in you. Harness it and use it to make a success in life.

It does not matter how much time, money and energy you have invested doing the wrong thing. Wisdom demands that when you notice your fault or mistake, do not hesitate to switch over for good. That is wisdom and every other thing is folly. Learn to be absolutely right in whatever cause you are involved in. Do not manage it. Be sure you are on the right key. Then you will notice that you are ready for it and nothing can stop you.

Get this wisdom the accurate computation of spiritual facts to arrive at your success. Everything has a way of doing it. The all purpose way is WISDOM. It is the principal thing.