Practical Wisdom from the Word of God

Hebrews 5:14(NKJV) ¹⁴But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

This week our theme has been maturity. 2012 is a year when we must possess the promises of God that Jesus died to provide us. We must drive out the enemies that are hindering us and we must occupy this land until Jesus returns. To do any of these things requires we grow in maturity until we are fully functional adult believers in Jesus Christ.

In this scripture, we have learned that we must eat the strong meat of the Word of God if we are going to continue to grow and not regress in our walk with God. Babies need milk. Milk goes down easy and is easy to digest. Meat takes more work to eat and it takes a mature body to digest it. Drinking milk is supposed to lead to the ability to eat meat. However, if we never attempt to eat meat we will not get used to it.

The milk of the word are those doctrines and teachings that are fundamental to us. They involve the basics of the Gospel. Jesus death, burial and resurrection, which bought our salvation, would be milk. We must have these milk ideas in our life, but we must also move past using milk alone. The things that would be the strong meat of the word are those scriptures that challenge us. They are the ones that require change in lifestyle and repentance. They are not always easy to take, but if we are going to grow up in Him, we are going to have to chew them up and swallow them. At that point, they can be digested and become flesh in us.

Today I want to look at another aspect of this scripture. Paul says in verse 14 that those who are mature have their senses “exercised to discern good and evil.” What does this mean? We often think that the only thing we can do about our senses, the physical part of our being, is to struggle against them. We must kill them so they do not lead us astray. The supposition being that they will always be a problem and there is nothing we can do about it. However, that is not what the Bible really teaches. Indeed, it does tell us to crucify our flesh, but that does not really mean we have to “kill” our senses. We need them as long as we are in these bodies if we are going to function in the world. What are we really supposed to do with our senses?

Paul gives us insight in this verse. He says that even the senses of mature people are able to discern good and evil. The implication is that a mature Christian should not have to struggle with his senses. When we are truly walking in maturity, even our senses will begin to reject evil. When they see something that is not right, they will turn away. When we sense temptation coming, it is possible to come to a place of maturity where our senses will actually cooperate with our holiness and righteousness instead of fighting against it. How can we get to that point?

This verse talks about having our senses “exercised.” That word translated “exercised” simply means “trained.” If we want our senses to help us and not hinder us, they must be trained. How do we train our senses to automatically discern evil and reject it? Paul tells us quite plainly. We will do it by how we us them.

I have been a musician most of my life. I play guitar and keyboards, including piano. I started with guitar at fourteen years of age. I learned how to play chords and gained a rudimentary understanding of music. Later I took what I knew from playing guitar and applied it to an organ my parents owned. Finally, I started playing piano. By the time I was in my thirties, I was able to play passably well. I wrote songs, played in a band we formed and led worship. However, it came to a point where I was stagnant. I was a musician but I lacked maturity.

I decided to take lessons on both guitar and piano. I learned many things, but one of the things my teachers required on both instruments was that I do exercises. These consisted of playing various repetitive scales and specific note combinations over and over and over again. I hated those exercises. I had written songs. I had performed in front of many people. Here I was stumbling over scales and exercises. It was very boring.

Week after week I would go back, demonstrate how far along I was on the exercise and the teacher would either give me another set of scales and exercises or send me home to practice the same ones over again. It did not seem to apply to what I wanted to do. It did not seem to be increasing my knowledge of music at all.

The teachers were also giving me instruction on music theory. I was learning how the music was supposed to go together. I was learning certain chord and note combination over different keys. I enjoyed this part because it was deepening my understanding of how music worked. However, the exercises and scales did not seem to be anything but boring work.

After some months of playing the scales and exercises, I sat down to practice some of my songs, do a little writing and just enjoy playing my instrument. To my surprise, I found that my fingers would do things they would not do before. I played more smoothly, more quickly and more efficiently. I knew the theory was helping me understand how to put songs together, but I had no idea that those silly exercises were training my hands and fingers to discern the right way to play the notes in my mind.

We are fond of scriptural theory. As an expository teacher of the Bible, that is what I truly enjoy. I like to see how truths fit together. I like to see how the Old and New Testaments relate to one another. I love studying the nature of man, the nature of salvation and how we are connected with God. However, no theoretical knowledge of the Bible we can gain will help us if we do not heed Paul’s exhortation and practice.

I heard a story once about a man who went to a fishing seminar. They taught the history of fishing, and the theory of why fishing works. They taught how to string the fishing line and bait the hook. They spent two days studying fishing and then went home with no fish. Why were they without fish? Because they studied fishing but never fished.

We have all kinds of seminars about spiritual truths. We may go to Bible studies or even attend Bible school. I recommend all those things, however there must come a time when we do not just study about faith, but we actually walk in faith. Our study of prayer must translate into actual praying. Knowing the principles of praise and worship cannot take the place of actually praising and worshiping. We need to practice!

Sometimes training our senses is hard. Sometime it is boring. However, it is always productive even when we do not feel like it is. Paul says the mature Christian has his senses trained “by reason of use” to discern good and evil. We need to practice using our senses to do good things. We need to practice turning them away from evil things. Sometimes it may seem trivial. There may be something that is not “that bad”, but we need to make our senses turn away.

We need to make our senses praise and worship God. We need to make our senses pray. We need to make our senses study and read the Word of God. It may feel like we are not getting anything out of it, but do not be deceived. The more we use our senses to do the right thing the more they will be trained to do the right things. One day an evil thing that used to be a temptation will pop up and you will be surprised to find that your senses reject the evil thing on their own with little or no conscious effort on your part.

This is a major component of maturity. It is something that I think we need to major on to a much greater degree. Take some time to examine how you are using your senses and then get them on a training regimen today. Begin doing some exercises and practice. In the end, you may find that doing so will produce more maturity than all the theory you have ever learned.