A Faith That Works When Life Doesn’t: Part 5Sample

Where to Find Real Wisdom

When you confuse being a current thinker with being wise, you deceive yourself.

Staying up-to-date on all the latest news and gossip while being ignorant of the eternal truth of God's Word is unwise. Spending more time watching the news than reading and studying the Good News is a problem. And being able to quote the lyrics of the latest hit song, the most recent sports statistic, or the stock market prices doesn’t make a person as smart as they may think it does.

True wisdom only comes from God's Word, the Bible. 1 Corinthians 3:18 says, “Don't fool yourself. Don't think that you can be wise merely by being up-to-date with the times” (The Message).

You may have the world at your fingertips. After all, so much information is just a click away. But that doesn’t make you wise. There's a lot of wrong information and news that you can't accept without fact-checking first.

Even if you have all of the correct information in the world about a particular situation, that doesn’t mean you’re going to do the right thing.

The only way to be wise is to walk with God. And to walk with God, you need to spend time reading and studying the Bible. There are no shortcuts to wisdom!

Ask God to give you a desire for his wisdom over any worldly wisdom. When you live in light of what he reveals to you in his Word, you won’t need to know everything in the world. You won’t need to be right all the time.

You’ll just want to know more of God and his love because it is the only thing that will satisfy you.

Talk It Over

• What is the difference between being smart and being wise?


• What do you find yourself doing each day: studying God’s Word or scrolling through your phone? What can you do to prioritize studying God’s Word?


• Why do you think it’s important to ask God for wisdom?

This devotional © 2021 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.