A Fly In The Ointment

You can identify fools just by the way they walk down the street! (Ecclesiastes 10: 3 NLT)

         Solomon tells us that like a dead fly in a bottle of perfume, a little foolishness spoils great wisdom and honor.  The world perpetuates the idea that when you become a Christian you turn off your ability to reason just like you check your hat at a fine restaurant.  But some of this mentality may be self-inflicted because some Christians still act like fools.

Closing The Mind But Opening The Mouth

         The Book of Proverbs tells us that, Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions (Proverbs 18:2 NLT).  The fool loves knowledge to show off because as Matthew Henry has said, “he loves the sound of his own voice,” Dr. David Jeremiah has said that the fool “closes his mind while opening the mouth.”  Humility is the pivotal piece here.  Humility understands that wisdom is never gained just to promote our own agenda.  Self-effort never makes us humble.  If we should gain a measure of humility and wisdom due to our own merit, we ultimately will end up being proud of our humility.  The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalms 14:1 NASB).  We can seek wisdom and miss God, but we can never miss wisdom if we seek God first.

A Picture or a Mirror?

         Kris Langham of Through The Word as a “young and prideful” Christian started reading through the Book of Proverbs.  It was so obvious to him how foolish people were.  He said it was almost “laughable” how stupid people acted sometimes.  But it was not long before he started to see that God was not just giving him a picture of a fool, but a mirror image of one.  A fool is always blind to his flaws as deception is a by-product of conceit. If you think you are humble you are probably not. If pride is operative in our lives we will end up with a dead fly in our ointment.  And people recognize this smell even when you are just walking down the street.

Ken Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: https://sites.google.com/site/kenbarnesbooksite/

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