⁷Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

No greater foolishness plagues the fallen human mind than assuming to be wise apart from any external, objective source of wisdom. We are incapable of being wise in and of ourselves; our self-centeredness fools us into thinking we are something that we are not. Christians are not immune to this malady, and that’s why the apostle Paul addressed this in his prescription for committed Christian living. We need a complete and ongoing mental transformation:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:1–2)

Notice how this is worded; we are not commanded to transform ourselves, but to “be transformed.” There’s an enormous difference. We are to do something passively, to put ourselves in a position for God to change how we think. This comes by focusing on being humbly self-aware. Paul continues:

For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. (Rom. 12:3)

God empowers our efforts of sober self-reflection to bring real and lasting change. Notice the connection to faith, which corresponds to Proverbs’ emphasis on the fear of the Lord. This is serious business and requires hard-core trust in the Lord. The apostle pulls no punches as he circles back later in the chapter: “… do not be haughty in mind …” (Rom. 12:16, also Rom. 11:25). Our redemption doesn’t make us less susceptible to self-delusion, but as believers we have an objective resource to anchor our thinking, namely God whose posture toward us is always gracious. We gain wisdom only to the degree that we seek to be wise in God’s eyes, not our own. Therefore, the command not to be wise in our own eyes is empowered and effective when we live by God’s Word, by His instructions for life. So, by God’s grace (in giving us the Scriptures) we can dismantle the delusion of our own wisdom by trusting in and living by His wisdom.

When the instructions of God in Scripture seem counterintuitive to what we think is wise, we must learn to question our thinking rather than ignore God’s. We don’t negate things like common sense and “street smarts,” but we subject them to God’s divine truth. This increasingly enables us to cut through the fog of our tendency toward self-delusion. Over time, His wisdom gradually supplants our earthly wisdom and becomes ours.

If we are deluded in how we think about wisdom, then what hope do we have of ever being wise? God’s grace is the answer. His Word is the anchor, the objective reference point for wisdom. But it comes back to the heart issue: we need to fear the Lord, for He is the source of all that is wisdom. And we need to continually reject morally corrupt thinking, which is evil in God’s eyes.

Lord, continually show me Your wisdom, so that I can center my thinking, my outlook, and my actions in Your truth.