How to Walk Wisely

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, March 18th. Most people want to do what's best. But how can you know what best is? Let's find out with a step-by-step lesson in how to walk wisely. When I look at the consequences of living a fool's life, that is living foolishly, anybody who lives without God, without Christ, knowing that one day they're going to face Him at the judgment, it is absolutely foolish to think that you can live your life without Him, stand before Him and be accepted by Him. It's foolish to even think that you and I are smarter than God, that we are wiser than God. God's all wise. So when the Scripture says you can't trust your heart, can't trust your feelings, you walk wisely, God will deliver you.

Well, how do we start? How do we learn how to walk wisely? Well, the first requirement for walking wisely is a strong determination to walk in wisdom, a strong determination to walk in wisdom. Now, why do I say that simply with this reason?

And that is it doesn't happen automatically. Just because you are a Christian doesn't mean that you have a strong desire to walk wisely. And if you just decide, well, I'm going to live a Christian life the best I can, that's not sufficient.

Well, isn't the best I can sufficient? No, listen, you have to make a decision. I choose to walk wisely. I choose to walk in the wisdom of God. I choose to walk in a way that I know is right and the right way is the will of God.

And what is the will of God? It is always the wise way. You want to walk wisely? You make a determination. The second step is this, and that is meditation upon God's Word. You say, well, now, don't you mention that about every Sunday? Absolutely. You know what? I need to mention it every single Sunday because of this reason.

Here's what happens. Because we're always confronted with different kinds of decisions in life, and how many times have you said, wow, at the end of a day saying, I didn't expect to have to face that, or I didn't realize I was going to have to answer for this or whatever it might be. So all of us face those things. Now, what about this meditation upon God's Word? You'll recall in Joshua chapter one, turn that for a moment. Joshua chapter one, when Joshua was facing the biggest challenge of his life, he faced many as a result of walking with Moses and being his general many times of combat. Listen to what God said to Joshua right before he gave him the awesome responsibility of taking Moses' place and leading the people of Israel into the Promised Land.

Here's what he said to him. Verse five, no man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I've been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Period. You say, well, that should be enough.

No, now watch this. Here is a loving God knowing the human heart of his servant Joshua. And so here's what he said to him. Be strong and courageous. You shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Don't turn from it to the right or to the left so that you'll have success wherever you go. This book of all shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. Then you'll make your way prosperous.

Then you'll have success. Listen to what he said. Meditate on it. What does that mean? It means that I read it. It means that I don't read it and close the Bible. It means that I read it.

I think about it. I ask some questions. What does this mean to me? What are you saying to me in these verses? What are you trying to say to me?

What is there in my life that you want to point out or you want to deal with? What encouragement is there here? What challenge is there here? What caution is there here?

What conviction is there here? God, what are you saying to me in this passage of Scripture? So that God wants us to meditate to absorb His Word. Because what we're doing is we're putting into our grid biblical truth. We're putting into our grid system principles of Scripture so that when we get those principles etched in our mind and our thinking, then when this kind of thing comes along or something that is not right, something that is unwise, it may not be something that's bad, but it may be something that God doesn't want in your life. Or maybe it's something that He does want when it hits your grid, which is holy, which is righteous, which is godly, which is pure, which is biblical, which is scriptural, which is from God, the wisdom of God. God, what happens?

You and I are able to spot in just a second that doesn't belong in my life. That's not what God wants. That's unwise for me. You cannot walk in wisdom and neglect this book. It's not enough just to come to hear a message from me or from anyone else. That's one thing. But it says you and I begin to meditate upon His Word.

Remember, we said ask questions about it. What does it say about me? What is it saying to me? Is this a word of encouragement? Is this a caution? Is this a warning? Is this a sense of direction? Are you giving me a little idea of something, Lord, that's down the pike a ways?

Are you trying to show me? In other words, if God keeps bringing you back to the same passage over and over again, God is trying to say something very specific to you in that passage. And so if I'm going to learn to walk wisely, I must make it my lifestyle that daily I'm going to be in His Word, whether it's reading a few verses or a whole chapter.

Listen carefully. As I've said this before, I'm all for reading through the Bible all through the year. But if you just read through it and close it, you've missed it. God has something to say. In other words, we don't read the Bible so we can boast of having read it. We'd read the Bible to discover who God is, what He's like and what He's doing in our life, what He wants to do so that we can be men and women who are godly in our lifestyle and wise in our walk. If I'm going to walk wisely, God's Word's got to be a part of my life.

What else I say? I'm going to tell you it's the most important thing, because there's no such thing as walking wisely and neglecting the Word of God. That's the way. Listen, how do the principles stay before me? How do I keep the principles before me?

I keep the principles before me because they keep my eyes in the Word of God. And when you and I are reading it daily, somebody says, well, you know, I just never have understood it very well. You know how to understand it? Start reading it. You start reading it, God will give you understanding. If you say, Lord, I feel so ignorant.

I've only been saved a few months or two weeks or two days. And God, this book is such a mystery to me. How in the world am I going to ever understand it?

And I agree. When you open up this book that's been around for all these thousands of years, 66 books that make up the Bible and all these different people, all the things that Jesus said, at first it may be confusing, but here's one thing I know. If you will say, God, I want to understand Your Word with all of my heart, I promise you the Spirit of God who lives on the inside of you will begin to open your mind. And what you'll discover is when you open the Word of God, this book that was a stranger to you for so long has become this awesome treasure, the most important thing in your house today, tomorrow, and any other day is a copy of the Word of God. Meditating upon the Word, if you want to walk in wisdom, absolutely essential.

Number three, very, very important. You want to learn how to walk in wisdom? You must learn to be sensitive.

Now watch this word. You must learn to be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. You don't want to be wise? You don't want to walk wisely?

Forget this point. You want to walk in wisdom? This is very, very important. Now what do I mean by the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Well, I hope you can understand this because I'm not sure that anybody can fully explain this to someone else, but you can learn it.

Now watch this. When God wants to give us a sense of direction, when He wants to clarify the next moves, whatever we're to do, here's what He will oftentimes do. It's what I call a prompting of the Holy Spirit. In a brief moment, all of a sudden, you know which way to turn. You know what to do.

One of the most valuable gifts you and I can have from God is to learn how to identify a prompting of the Holy Spirit. Now how do we learn that? By failing? That's not a very good way. It is exactly the way.

We learn oftentimes by mistakes. And so I can look back in my life and see times when He prompted me, don't do that. I said, well, wrong. Don't go there. Wrong. Don't do this. Wrong. Wait to buy this.

Wrong. When God tells us, when He gives you a prompting of the Spirit, listen, that's the all wise God speaking, by the way. The promptings of the Holy Spirit. If I want to learn how to walk wisely, I must learn that. Number four, not only that, but I also must settle one basic issue in my life. I must believe that God is all wise.

If I don't settle that issue, I'll never walk wise. I must believe that He's all wise. That means that whatever He says, it's true. Whatever He says is right. Whatever He says is good. Whatever He says is best. No matter what, it is always the best thing to do, always the right thing to do. I've got to trust Him. That is, learning to walk wisely, I must learn to trust Him.

Now, the reason for this point is simply this. There are times when it doesn't look like it's the wise thing to do. There are many times when God will point out something to us to do. It doesn't look like the right thing to do. It doesn't look like the wise thing to do. And yet you know something deep down inside that you felt the Spirit of God has prompted you to move in that direction. Humanly speaking, in our human wisdom, it may not look like the right thing to do. The Spirit of the living God will guide you to do the wise thing. The wise thing is not always the most profitable thing at the moment.

But how many times have I heard this story? Well, you know, here's what I did. I knew God wanted me to take a lesser salary in order to take this job.

But now I've been promoted and now I'm making twenty percent more than I would have made if I'd have done what they wanted me to do. Let me tell you something. You can't beat God. There's no way in the world to beat His wisdom. Listen, anybody who just think an all-wise God always knows what's best.

Now why? Because He knows the future as well as you. Listen, He knows the future better than you now know the present or the past. He knows present, past, future all the same, absolute perfectly.

He knows that if you're willing to sacrifice for a few months or a year, He knows if you are willing to humble yourself and not claw for this position, not grab this position, not mistreat somebody else to get it. God will elevate you and exalt you at the proper time. This all-wise God, learn to trust Him. If I don't trust Him, I'm not going to walk wisely because I will be in conflict with His ideas. It takes faith to make a decision today and trust my God when I can't see beyond this very moment to do the right thing.

You're going to learn to walk wisely. You must settle this issue. God is absolutely perfect. He is all-wise. He knows what's best. I'm going to trust Him no matter what. Going to trust Him no matter what. Bottom line of decision-making is I'm going to trust God and leave the consequences to Him. You can't ever go wrong, ever, ever, ever go wrong doing that and making that the bottom line of your decision-making. Obey God and leave the consequences to Him. The next thing that's important if I'm going to learn to walk wisely is I must have courage to do what God tells me to do.

There's some things that He's going to require, but it's not going to be easy. Sometimes when you first hear them, they're going to be fearful. Sometimes you're going to think, oh, God, this couldn't be of you.

Mm-mm, you wouldn't do that. And the longer you talk to them, the more you pray that something inside of you keeps growing all the time. You just know that God's in the process, He's in the process of guiding you and leading you in the right way, but you're fearful. And so oftentimes people refuse to do the will of God because they fear failure. Now what about this all-wise God? What about this all-powerful God who will enable you, strengthen you no matter what? I'm certain that Joshua didn't think he was very wise from a human perspective to send a bunch of fellows marching around a Jericho wall and thinking the thing's going to fall down.

That didn't make any sense at all. And yet God knew what He was going to do. Didn't make much sense to Gideon to get his army down from thousands to three hundred to attack the Philistines, but God knew it was a wise thing to do. And you can think about Moses, he wasn't very smart to approach Pharaoh with a stick in his hand, tell him to let three million people go.

There wasn't much power in that except God was in it. Here's what you have to remember. Not only must I trust God, but I must have the courage to do what He says when I don't understand, when I am fearful. You ask me, well, have you ever done some things you're afraid of? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Fearful, yes. But I also knew that it was wiser to fail right in front of people than it was to disobey God. There are no words that bring me more comfort in life when I'm facing any challenge than these. I will be with you.

You know what that means? Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, all wise, unconditional, loving God who's made many promises, every single one of them belongs to His children. And this is the kind of God who will walk with me. What do I have to fear?

Fear not, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest. If I'm going to learn to walk wisely, I must learn to be courageous. Well, how do you learn to be courageous?

Being fearful and learning how to deal with it. You don't learn to be courageous simply reading the Word of God. You learn to be courageous by doing what God tells you to do, experiencing the fear and watching God bring you through that.

What happens? And this is why you don't expect the person who's just been saved to have a lot of courage, a lot of faith and all the rest because it takes time. God builds, listen, He builds knowledge into our minds. He builds strength into our life. He builds our faith. He builds our courage. He builds these things into our very being so that what we are is the result of the way. Listen, what we are is the result of the way we've been responding to God in circumstances all of our life.

You want to learn to walk wisely? You must be courageous. You must be willing to be strong in the Lord. Not strong in our flesh, strong in the Lord.

What does He say? In Ephesians chapter 6, be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. God wants us to have courage because He knows He's going to challenge us to do some things that would naturally, normally cause fear in a person. Then one last thing I'd mention and that's perseverance. If I'm going to learn to walk wisely, I must be willing to persevere. Now why do you say perseverance? For the simple reason, it's one thing to start out on the right path, doing the right thing, walking wisely.

But how long am I going to walk on that path? Until something else comes along and invites me to choose another way. There are many, many voices out there, many, many appeals out there, many things that are attractive, many things that will lure us, many things that would cause us to get off track, many things that would cause us to take detours in life because at that moment they satisfy something within us. That moment they have this awesome appeal. That moment is what we want.

That moment is what we feel like we need. And the truth is to persevere means I am willing to walk wisely when it's easy, sometimes it is. When it's difficult, sometimes it is. When it's stormy, sometimes it is.

When I am rejected, when I am accepted, when I don't feel like it, when I do feel like it. Perseverance says I know it's the right thing to do. I know that's what brings the greatest sense of genuine pleasure and comfort and contentment and happiness and joy and prosperity and good health and strength in life. I know that it's the right way, so I'm going to do that no matter what. God has provided a way for you and me to walk in wisdom.

He's provided these awesome benefits from walking in wisdom. It's the will of God. It's the purpose of God, the plan of God.

That's His plan for your life. And you can walk wisely, but you must determine to do so. And meditate upon His Word, seeking God's will and His way. Lord, what are you saying in your Word? I must meditate upon His Word. I must listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

You must trust Him. You've got to have courage to do it, and you persevere in those difficult trying times. Now, when I think about the benefits of walking wisely, if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, think about this for a moment. Those of us who have, our sins are forgiven. We have the Holy Spirit living on the inside of us. We have been sealed by the Spirit of the living God through death unto absolute eternal redemption, eternal life. Our names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is our Savior and our Lord and our Master. The Holy Spirit is living on the inside of us to guide us in every area of our life. The promises of God of all that we need to provide for us to protect us, His providential care for us every single day, and knowing in our heart that one of these days when He chooses to take us home, we don't have to fear death because we know it's just the door from this life into the life eternal with Him, that we'll stand before Him in the judgment and not be condemned. We'll stand before Him and be approved, not because we were so good, but because His Son's death at Calvary paid our sin debt in full, and that made us acceptable in His sight.

And now we stand in His presence with His approval rewarded by Him and then given our eternal inheritance and our eternal reward in heaven forever and ever and ever. Let me ask you a question. What have you got that can match that? You don't have anything.

You don't have anything that can match that. And that's the offer of Almighty God to every single person who is willing to bow their knees and their hearts before Him and say, Dear God, I have sinned against You. I do believe that Jesus Christ, Your only begotten Son, died in my behalf at Calvary. I am accepting His death as payment for my sins. I am receiving You as my personal Savior.

I accept You now as my Savior, my Lord and my Master. Smartest, wisest thing you can do. And the prompting of the Holy Spirit is saying to somebody right now, That's exactly what I want you to do. So, what will you do? Will you be wise enough to do the most important thing you'll ever do in your life? And that's to settle how you're going to live now and where you're going to spend eternity. Who you're going to live with and who you're going to spend eternity with. Wisest thing you can do.

Settle that issue right now. And all you have to do is to ask Him. To forgive you.

Ask Him. Cleanse your heart. Tell Him that you're receiving Him as your Savior and committing yourself to follow Him. Thank you for listening to How to Walk Wisely. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.