Applying

Learning is very important for any person and in our country we put a lot of stock in it, in other words, without it you will probably not get too far in life as far as being successful is concerned.  There are many schools that you can attend and many books that you can read on most every topic that you can think of.  If you are a believer you can listen to as many sermons that you want 24 hours a day, go to church 3 or 4 times a week, and attend Sunday school classes, seminars and other meetings.  You can read your Bible constantly and even memorize scriptures so that you can quote large portions of the Bible.  

You can have all kinds of wisdom and knowledge but there is another ingredient you need and that is the ability and willingness to apply what you have learned to the circumstances and situations you find yourself in. You can have all the wisdom and knowledge in the world but it means nothing without you putting it into practice.  There are people that spend time counseling others without applying what they know to their own lives.  Prisons are full of very smart, intelligent men and women that could have been very successful if they put the things they knew into practice, but they didn’t apply what they knew and in the end they lived to regret it.  This is a lesson for all of us, bar none.

Think about Judas Iscariot, if you are a believer you probably know his story.  He walked with Jesus, he saw most the miracles and heard Jesus preach and teach on many occasions, even performed some miracles, but in the end he betrayed Jesus.  We could say he started out well but finished a disgrace.  Even with all the wisdom and knowledge he had, he failed to apply it to his life.

How many preachers have you heard of that failed miserably because they failed to apply what they knew?  This has been a real problem with worldly leaders and church leaders also.  Probably the greatest example in the Word for this problem would be King Solomon.  He was blessed with more wisdom, outside of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, than any other person that I have heard of.  There were influential people that went to him to hear him speak and were amazed at the wisdom that he possessed.  

One of these was the queen of Sheba.  After hearing of his great wisdom and knowledge, she wanted to see for herself if what she had heard was true and she was overwhelmed at the wisdom that King Solomon had.  She said this in 2 Chronicles 9:5-8, “She exclaimed to the king, “Everything I heard in my country about your achievements and wisdom is true!  I didn’t believe what was said until I arrived here and saw it with my own eyes.  In fact, I had not heard the half of your great wisdom!  It is far beyond what I was told.  How happy your people must be!  What a privilege for your officials to stand here day after day, listening to your wisdom!  Praise the Lord your God, who delights in you and has placed you on the throne as king to rule for him.  Because God loves Israel and desires this kingdom to last forever, he has made you king over them so you can rule with justice and righteousness.”

You would think that King Solomon would be immune to bad choices, but even with all his wisdom and knowledge he made many bad decisions and choices.  Solomon failed to apply his own advice and at the end of his life he failed miserably.  Read this about his failure found in 1 Kings 11:1-9, “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women.  Besides Pharaoh’s daughter, he married women from Moab, Ammon, Edom, Sidon, and from among the Hittites.  The Lord had clearly instructed the people of Israel, ‘You must not marry them, because they will turn your hearts to their gods.’  Yet Solomon insisted on loving them anyway.  He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines.  And in fact, they did turn his heart away from the Lord.

In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, as his father, David, had been.  Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.  In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; he refused to follow the Lord completely, as his father, David, had done.

On the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, he even built a pagan shrine for Chemosh, the detestable god of Moab, and another for Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.  Solomon built such shrines for all his foreign wives to use for burning incense and sacrificing to their gods.

The Lord was very angry with Solomon, for his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.”

King Solomon started out full of wisdom and knowledge but it wasn’t enough, he failed to continually apply them to his life which brought about his downfall.  What about you, are you applying the wisdom and knowledge you have or are you following in King Solomon’s shoes?  Something to think about, have a great day and may God bless you and yours!!