Do Not Rely on Your Own Insight

Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.
Proverbs 3:5 AMPC

“Do not rely on your own insight or understanding.” That skewers me like a spit-roasted pig every time I read it. And in light of my current exploration of our work to believe, it’s especially convicting. How much of my unbelief in Jesus Christ stems from an idolatrous belief born of my own insight and understanding? Is my flesh-born faith an obstacle to my Christ-born faith? “Lots” and “yes” are the answers, respectively. But to see is step one to get free, so this isn’t a problem. It’s welcome Light!

Do Not Rely on Your Own Insight – It’s a False Faith

When I rely on my own understanding, I don’t stop to ask God for His. And no good ever comes of that! I’m reminded of a very powerful component of Carole’s testimony. She said that her faith had to die so that she could receive Christ’s faith. I understood exactly what she meant but I had never heard it put so starkly, so viscerally!

To rely on something or someone is not a neutral act. Reliance involves dependence and trust. So when Proverbs admonishes us, “Do not rely on your own insight or understanding,” it’s a serious warning for a very big infraction. Faith goes hand in hand with belief. If I do not believe in someone, I cannot have faith in them. When I rely on my own understanding of God’s character and His ways, my faith will be markedly different from the faith of Jesus Christ. And it is the skewed and perverted faith – MY faith – that has to die. My faith, born of my own insight and understanding, is sourced in the wrong Tree.

Do Not Rely on Your Own Insight or You’ll Miss Out on God’s

Before I was saved, every problem or crisis in my life provoked the following response in me: “Think, Jennifer. Think! What are your options? Find a way through!” I did nothing but rely on my own insight and understanding, and it bears reminding that my life was marked by the dark and twisted fruit of the Tree that sourced my so-called understanding. Even in obvious ruin, I held onto MY faith. I would never, EVER give another human being as many do-overs as I’ve given the Satanic insight and understanding that founds MY faith. Yet even with a solid record of failure and death, only the Cross can break this insidious fidelity.

For years now, I’ve watched God do the impossible and solve the unsolvable. I’ve witnessed a single word from Him do what years of counseling and confronting couldn’t do. When I resurrect my sad, crooked faith from the grave, I miss the miraculous that only accompanies the faith of Christ. If I’m listening to my own frantic thinking, then I’m deaf to the wisdom from Above. I don’t want that! However painful the Cross, I bless it and ask God for more of it. Because I want the faith that moves mountains.

My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power.
1 Corinthians 2:4-5 HCSB