Our Inheritance of Wisdom & Grace

“I love those who love me; and those who seek me early and diligently will find me. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness (right standing with God). My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold, and my yield is better than choicest silver. I, [Wisdom, continuously] walk in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of justice, that I may cause those who love me to inherit wealth and true riches, and that I may fill their treasuries.” (Proverbs 8:17-21, AMP) 

At the start of the year, I tackled the task of being a sourdough mom. I purchased a dehydrated starter and set about trying to wake it up. After about a week, it was time to tackle actually making bread. There is so much that goes into it, but the best way to understand it is to jump right in, see the finished result, and then keep making tweaks from there until it’s exactly the way it should be. 

One of the tweaks I had to make was to start using warm water when I fed my starter and when I mixed the dough. Warm water will help the fermentation process much better because the temperature agrees better with the bacteria that causes the dough to rise. The warmth encourages more growth. Pair this with putting the dough in a warm place when it’s set aside to rise? Those are two tweaks that make for a more fluffy, delicious loaf of bread.

The process of mastering sourdough is a lot like gaining wisdom. First, you jump in. You start seeking the Lord and making changes in your life based on what you find in God’s Word. If you study something you find convicting, tweak your life to root out the sin and glorify God. The earlier we commit to this process of seeking to understand this walk of faith we’ve dedicated our lives to– the more we love God and pursue Him– the more spiritual fruit is born in us.

Wisdom, herself, emphasizes how searching out God’s wisdom holds enduring riches and yields fruit that is better than gold or silver. Of course, we’re not talking about actual wealth and riches. Solomon doesn’t promise his sons golden apples and grapes of silver. Instead, what we’re considering is the spiritual riches and fruit we enjoy from righteous living and the process of sanctification that we undergo as a result of walking with the Lord. The knowledge we gain by doing so makes our lives richer for knowing it– for knowing Christ.

But this sort of spiritual abundance and extravagance isn’t random. It’s not guesswork or speculation. Solomon likens it to an inheritance. It’s here, in this handful of verses, where we see a distinct convergence of several themes running throughout not only the Book of Proverbs, but the Bible as a whole. Over chapters and chapters, Solomon continually pleads with his sons to listen, to hear truth, and to live righteously. We see a father discipling his son, passing down knowledge and understanding that he gained not only by experience, but also from his own father. For Solomon’s kids, what a rich blessing! Solomon was not only blessed by God for His deep wisdom, but he was also the son of King David, another spiritually grounded and passionate lover of God. From David, Solomon inherited his crown, his kingdom, and most importantly, insightful spiritual riches. 

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:4-7, ESV)

In Galatians, we find Paul talking about the family of God, God being our Father, and us being adopted sons and daughters of the King of kings. In Jewish culture, the process of adoption meant that the embraced child became a legal child not only by law, but by blood as well. And under that law, it was harder for a family to disown the adopted child than it was to cut off any of their natural born children. That adopted child was considered to be as flesh and blood to the family as any of their siblings, and was entitled to an inheritance just as compelling. 

For us, to turn from our sin is to completely depart with the life we knew. It is to cast it off entirely in order to come under the blood of Christ, becoming a son and heir to everything that God the Father has. In His love, God sent His Son to die so that we could be adopted into that inheritance of grace. By it, we receive the Holy Spirit, which empowers us to pursue the riches of His wisdom, which is also part of that heritage. 

Through that grace, we are no longer slaves to our sin, and instead made children of our Abba, Father. 

If we really understand the deep and undeserved merit of those things– if we allowed it to be the basis of all we do and say, of everywhere we go, and how we live our lives– how could we not desire to seek the Lord? How could we not be moved to be in our Father’s presence whenever we can? How could we not want to chase after Him, to endeavor to know all there is to know about Him? 

To seek Him is to find Him. To find Him is to love Him. And to love Him is to root out sin from anywhere we see it in ourselves, applying His wisdom, and making sure and deliberate tweaks to our lives so that God Himself can create more spiritual growth to rise within us. 

Sometimes, those changes are big, causing major overhauls to the way we interact with the world and engage in it– think the clothes we wear, people we allow to have influential roles in our lives, where we go to church, or media we consume. But most of the time, those changes are small, like the temperature of the water I use to bake sourdough– making time for God while we do other things like drive, cook, or exercising, joining a Bible study with others trying to seek God, or finding a new way to reorient ourselves back to God when temptations try to turn our attentions away. 

In the end, drawing closer to the Lord is not something we could ever regret. We are richer for doing it, and we bear spiritual fruit that is not only enjoyed in this lifetime, but is passed down as a spiritual inheritance to those coming after us on this path of righteousness.