Paul, writing to the Ephesian Christians, wrote: "Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:17)
Christ has commanded us to love one another as He loved us, and God's Word has already told us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
Mat 22:37 Jesus said to him, 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
Mat 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
To love God supremely means to put Him first in everything. How do we know if we are putting the Living God first? We can know in two important ways at least. One way is when our consciences tell us that we are listening to God's Word (the Bible), believing and obeying it. There is a lot in that statement. As well as that, we need to have the witness of the Holy Spirit within that we are understanding and applying God's Word correctly in our situation. This is necessary for us because people have been known to misunderstand God's Word in many different ways. If we do not have the Holy Spirit's witness that we are abiding in Christ and doing God's will, we should really wait before God and ask Him to search our hearts so that that can change.
Paul commands us here DO NOT BE UNWISE. For the Christian, lack of wisdom comes when we disobey God's voice, God's Word or God's principles. We are commanded NOT to be unwise, and I would say the only way we can seriously aim at keeping this commandment is to make it our business to know God's Word, to know God's principles, and also to know what is the voice of God to us in our hearts. The way God speaks to our hearts may vary from person to person, but we need to know how God speaks to us, or we will be unwise.
The oppposite of "being unwise" in Ephesians 5:17 is "understand what the will of the Lord is". The way we "understand what the will of the Lord i
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