August 26

Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise. — 1 Cor 3:18 BSB

The fruit and effect of divine teaching is to tear apart and uproot all our fleshly wisdom, strength, and righteousness. God doesn’t patch up the old with the new—He doesn’t let our human wisdom, strength, or righteousness coexist with His. These must all be torn to pieces and rooted out completely so that a new wisdom, a new strength, and a new righteousness may rise in their place. But until the Lord teaches us, we will never part with our own righteousness, never give up our own wisdom, never abandon our own strength. These things are so deeply ingrained within us, so much a part of who we are, that we cling to them until God Himself breaks them down and removes them.

When God brings us to a spiritual understanding of our dreadful corruption and wickedness, our own righteousness crumbles away at His touch. As He leads us to see our ignorance and folly, and shows us how we cannot understand anything rightly apart from His teaching, our wisdom fades away. And when He reveals our inability to resist temptation and overcome sin in our own strength, that strength, too, departs, leaving us weak like Samson after his hair was cut.

On the ruins of our own wisdom, righteousness, and strength, God builds up Christ’s wisdom, righteousness, and strength. As Jesus said to Paul, “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” which led Paul to say, “Therefore, I will most gladly boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me” (2 Cor. 12:9). But only as we are blessed with this special teaching from God can we pass a solemn judgment on our own wisdom, strength, and righteousness, and truly seek after the Lord’s.