Mrs. PIE

Know-it-all Syndrome

• Shelley Jeffcoat • Season 4 • Episode 146

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Today's message explores the danger of becoming a spiritual "know-it-all," particularly for those serving as intercessors. Solomon warns in Ecclesiastes that pursuing wisdom brings vexation and increasing knowledge brings sorrow—a paradox where the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know.

• Being coachable is essential regardless of spiritual position or experience
• God may send correction through unexpected people, even those junior to us
• Taking intentional breaks from noise and social media creates space to hear God clearly
• True humility means receiving correction gracefully, even from surprising sources
• The Holy Spirit's guidance is indispensable—we cannot intercede effectively in our own strength
• Spend dedicated time with the Holy Spirit before starting each day
• Intercessory prayer should be done without seeking recognition or praise
• The more wisdom we gain, the more responsibility we carry for how we use it

Remember to make time away from distractions to hear what's on God's heart. Let Him work on your heart first before you attempt to stand in the gap for others.


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Speaker 1:

Hey y'all. So this is Saturday Faith Fuel. I might go a teensy bit longer than I normally do today, but I won't take too much of your time and today I'm going to call this Know it All. That's going to be my title. Know it All, all right. So let me fix my little. You know I work on a phone camera, y'all.

Speaker 1:

There's no huge production going on here, but I hope everyone's doing really well. I'm going to come out of Ecclesiastics. I hope everyone's doing really well. I'm going to come out of Ecclesiastics, Ecclesiastes 1, and this is verse 12 through 18. So please go back and read in full. If I don't get through all of it, and if you're on TikTok, I'm going to have the full video on the Mrs Pai YouTube channel. So this is also the ESV version.

Speaker 1:

Ecclesiastes 1, chapter 1, verse 12 through 18. I, the preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I've seen everything that is done under the sun and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be undone. I said in my heart I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge and I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after the wind, and what the preacher here is saying is that he spent an incredible amount of time seeking knowledge, chasing knowledge and the folly and the madness that comes with that right, and perceiving that this is also like striving after when something that you can't actually catch. You know you can't keep up doing something that's constantly moving and changing. Verse 18, it says for in much wisdom is much vexation and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. And much wisdom is much vexation because as you continue to learn, the more wisdom you get, the more you realize you don't know. Part of wisdom is realizing what you don't know. You realize we really don't know, and he who increases knowledge, which is not the same as wisdom, increases sorrow. So the reason I'm calling this Know it All is because I want to give a quick shout out to especially those who are considered intercessors and we, those who have been called to stand in the gap, not just for our families, but maybe you're an intercessor for your community, for your government, your family, whatever that looks like.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that we do this season is you have to be able to, you have to be pulled away from the situation that you're in. I had to take just a small mental, emotional and spiritual break. It was only a few days, but I needed to shut down the noise, so I came off social media. I wanted to do a little bit more meditating, but I needed the Lord to speak to me differently, because you can't hear what's on God's heart if you're caught up in everything and all the things happening around you. And I was starting to absorb and I know I asked the Lord to give me wisdom and knowledge but even that, as I was soaking in some of the things that he was showing me and I was allowing myself to hear because y'all, I took the time away I started to be reminded of three things I'm going to share with you today.

Speaker 1:

All right, so again, the vanity of wisdom and that that know-it-all thing that we all have. The first thing is that we have to be coachable. We need to be coachable. You can't get to a point in your walk with the Lord whether you are in the fivefold I don't give myself no titles and I don't need any okay, whether you're in the fivefold or you're serving the Lord in the church in some way, maybe you're in a choir, maybe you're the church mother You've been there 50 years, I really don't care. Okay, you need to be coachable. We can't acquire so much wisdom and knowledge that we are no longer coachable. Meaning when the Lord reveals stuff to you, wisdom again when it talks about for in much wisdom is much vexation. When you really start to understand, the more you know, the less you actually know. Um, it's like striving after the wind.

Speaker 1:

You need to be the kind of person, even on your job or maybe in your marriage or with your own children. A lot of you guys get really upset when your children try to coach you through something, because you think you're the grown-up and you keep the kids can't talk to me. You got to come out of that mindset, because God will use even your children the same way he used a donkey to talk to people. Right, he will use even your children. But if you're not, if you're so, uh, you're so wise and you're so full of knowledge that you refuse to hear when he's sending a word to you. You're gonna miss it, right? We all talk about how we want, um, bigger and better things, right, I want, I want my day to be better and better. I want my life to be better and better, to be blessed.

Speaker 1:

But you have to be coachable y'all, and he will send the right folks to coach you. It's not always, um, the people you think right. It's not always like your bestie and your girlfriends. He might coach you through someone you don't like on the job. He might coach you through someone you do like on the job. He might coach you through the way that something happened while you're at the market. He's teaching you how to respond to that situation. So you need to be coachable. You can't be so wise and full of knowledge and it again, don't matter whether you're a pastor, minister, passes, whatever the titles people have now, you have to be coachable, all right.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is we got to be humble. You need to be humble. You can't be a know-it-all. You need to be humble so as, as you start to ask again intercessors, as you start to ask the lord to give you more wisdom and more knowledge. Why do you ask him for I ask the holy spirit to give me wisdom so that I know how the right decisions to make, the right responses. Um, I also ask him to give me knowledge. I need to. I need to know what, what this, what this thing looks like. I need the ins and the outs. I know the decisions that I need to make, but I'm humble when I'm asking him and, as he's giving that to me, if he's giving that to me through people, y'all.

Speaker 1:

I had this situation happen on my day job this week where I was so disappointed because someone else had done something that I was just like, oh, she's tripping right. But I was so disturbed by it that someone who worked for me, she pinged me, she reached out to me and she was like I just want to put on your heart to not harden your heart against this person, right, because I have a quick cutoff spirit. Y'all have that. I have a very low tolerance for foolishness or people. I just do. It's not a good thing. I'm not saying you should, but I was coachable in that moment for someone who's junior to me and humble enough to take the coaching. That came with that, okay, and it blessed me. So what it did actually is help me to pull back and say, okay, lord, my response is still to love this person, right, walking differently, yes, but not turn my heart, my heart, against them. Now imagine if I didn't imagine, if I wasn't open to that correction. Imagine if, imagine again, we're asking the Lord to use us as intercessors and you know, lord, we want to stand in the gap. He's going to work on you first. He's not going to send you out if you're dealing with these, if you can't be coached. He's not going to put you if you can't be humble, to go pray and stand in the gap for his people, like no, right. So you got to be coachable, like I said. You got to be coachable, like I said, you got to be humble. Humble when he sends that, sends that help.

Speaker 1:

The third thing is and I think we all agree, you cannot do this by yourself. I can't stress this enough it is the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. The Holy Spirit guides me. He guides me, leads me, teaches me, reveals things to me. It is all the power of the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 1:

I've never been in that trend where you know. People come on and say I don't know who this is for. No, I know who this is for. Okay, I know who it's for. I never speak unless I need to say something. I'm very conservative with my words. I'm even more so conservative now because there's a lot of noise, especially on social media.

Speaker 1:

But I want you to know that you need to as an intercessor, you need to spend time so the Holy Spirit can speak to you. He's going to correct you first me, first, right? So I want you to, yes, enjoy church and do all the things, but you've got to carve out time to hear from the Holy Spirit. Before I start my day, holy Spirit and I have conversations about how excited I am for the day and how grateful I am and all the things, and I look for him working through my life. We are the light. So wherever I go, I'm carrying his spirit with me, right, and I want to show up, whether I'm an intercessor or not. I'm just dropping the word intercessor because there was a couple of folks who asked me to speak a little bit more about this office. Don't even worry about the office.

Speaker 1:

The Holy Spirit is in you. He's the one leading, guiding you and preparing you, but you have to be coachable, you need to be humble and again, for in much wisdom is much vexation and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. So the more you know, the more you know. You're charged a little bit differently what to do with the information. If God puts someone on your heart for you to pray for them, you them in. You may grab a nice journal. You put their names in. Uh, you pray for that person, but you don't need to go back and tell that person look what I did. You don't need to do that. That's vanity. We can't be know-it-alls right. I hope this bless you. Um, I love you. Jesus loves you more. Uh, and have an amazing Saturday ahead. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.