What's up, everybody? Chester AARP Church devotional podcast. Clint Davis, your host. Thanks so much for being with us. We're in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter one. And this is what the author of Proverbs, Solomon, wrote to his son, David. Excuse me. Solomon wrote to his son. He is the son of David. Excuse me. To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction and wise dealing in righteousness, justice and equity, to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth, let the wise hear an increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. The first couple of podcasts from the Book of Proverbs have dealt with the purpose of the Book of Proverbs. And if you read through the first four verses, we'll note that there are three or four times that the word to is used. They are speaking of a verb in the infinitive sense. And so to know wisdom and understanding, to understand words of insight, to receive instruction and wise dealing, to give prudence to the simple, a discretion to the youth. Here's the thing, we talked about the first two podcasts about wisdom and instruction and accountability and the purpose for which God gives us all these things with reference to the book of Proverbs to help us as we learn to apply rightly the truths of God's word. We talked about how it is a moral reality to us that there is just basic instruction, there is intellectual instruction, there's moral instruction, and how do we apply that to the world in which we live. That's the essence of wisdom. It's the right application of the truth of God to our daily lives. And we talked about instruction in the Old Testament sense and the ancient Hebrew sense comes with accountability. You will learn and you are held accountable. The purpose of Proverbs in Life is that we are held accountable by the ups and downs of our lives, by the decisions and the choices that we make with reference to the wisdom that we apply, and that's what makes wisdom so important. Today we're going to move into this idea of discretion and discernment. He talks about to receive instruction and wise dealing and then he goes on and talks about insight and righteousness, justice and equity. And then he talks about prudence and discretion. The idea of insight is the idea of discernment. It's the ability to notice the distinctions. and shades of difference where others only see one blur or a blur of some sort. So think about it this way, right? Someone who's really skilled musical talent has an ear that is discerning. And so whereas I will hear an instrument played, I will hear a song that is sung and I'll say, well, that's beautiful, but it's just the song itself. I don't have a very discerning palate, don't have a very discerning ear when it comes to musical selections. However, someone like Roy in our church has a more discerning ear. He can begin to listen and tell you whether somebody was on pitch, whether it was just right, whether it was off a touch, whether what note it was. He can work through that because he has a discerning ear with reference to that musical selection. Well, that's what discernment means and in the context of the Bible, with reference to wisdom that we receive from the book of Proverbs but of the rest of the scriptures in the application of the truth of God to our daily lives. Insight and discernment refers to the skill of daily life and being able to recognize multiple options and possible courses of actions when other people can only recognize or determine one or two. So you're looking at something, some circumstance, some challenge, some issue in your life and you're reading the scriptures and you're seeking the Holy Spirit to apply the truths of the Lord into your life and you're walking through the instruction and the wisdom and discernment and you're understanding that and you can look at a scenario and you can begin to look at the different facets of that scenario. You can consider What are the different options that you can take and what are the different options that you have for courses of action or insight and thought with reference to how you can bring glory to God in that particular situation? So to use a very practical illustration, I used the illustration of a car last time. But a practical illustration, my dad is a master plumber. I've been doing plumbing for years and years and years. And there are situations in my own home where I've had to call my dad and say, hey, look, here's my situation. Help me figure out how to get around this. Because I can only imagine one or two options as to how I'm going to actually accomplish something. And when I try those two options and they don't work, I don't have any other options. I don't have any other insight with reference to how to fix that particular problem. So I call my dad up and he's like, hey, have you tried this? Have you tried that? Have you tried this? Have you tried this? Because of experience and wisdom and life that he's learned over time and skill that he's developed, he's been able to look and find different ways to accomplish that particular issue. He's discerning in that sense. When we think about the scriptures, when it comes to the application of God's word in our daily lives, that's what discernment means. It means that we're looking into different motives, different characters, different reasons for which people do different things. It means considering people at a multifaceted level, not just putting them into the binary categories of good and bad. But considering who they are and why they're doing what they're doing and looking with compassion upon them and trying to figure out why they're taking the actions they're taking and how that impacts you and how you can address those particular issues and how you can move forward in that particular situation, it's discernment that comes from the will of God and from the Word of God and being able to grow and understanding how to apply it. You know, think about those Old Testament passages and those beautiful stories of the Old Testament and you read through those stories and they're real stories and you read through those stories and they're all meant to point you to Jesus. They're all meant to show you who Jesus is. They're also meant in some ways to show you what not to do. And they're meant to show you what to do. And you can look at those stories and you can grow in your understanding and you can grow in your understanding of how humans have interacted throughout time. And you can begin to imagine situations and scenarios that are outside what you typically experience. And you can begin to put yourself in other people's positions and other people's shoes because you're reading those stories and you're imagining where they are. Now the Bible is real, but I learned this as a kid when my English teacher in the eighth grade would challenge us to read fiction works because she said that reading fiction works helped us begin to imagine a world outside of our own and begin to put ourselves in those positions and we would grow in our ability to imagine how other people feel, begin to see how other people react in different situations, because those stories help us do that. And I think that's so true, especially with the scriptures. But one of the things that the Bible is here to do for us in the application of wisdom in our lives is to help us imagine a scenario that's different and help us begin to look and discern in different ways and different capacities outside of the norm to be able to look at things from a different perspective and be able to take the right course of action because God has empowered us to do that through the ministry of His Spirit and His Word. You guys take care. God bless you. I will catch you next time.