7.28.2005

Hiding in the shadows of knowledge

Our knowledge can never, and will never overshawdow our sin. To often we view Christian life as a mental ascension to a few essential truths. This is such an incomplete view of the life we are called to. I know this entry will seem really basic and kind of no-brainer but maybe it is something you and I need to stop and think about.

First of all Christian life does certainly involve some sort of mental ascension. The Lord takes your fallen mind, and your wicked way of thinking and turns it towards Him and his truth. It is His working in your heart and mind that cause this "mental ascension." On the flip side we often will take the knowledge we have obtained concerning Christ and His gospel and become puffed up in our own estimate, and actually hide behind the knowledge as if it is the knowledge itself that saves us. The knowledge of the Lord doesn't save us by any means, it is only His blood on the cross that will save us. If I sat at a train station and said "I know that train is going to Georgia" that knowledge unapplied will by no menas get me to Georgia. I could even go further as to have a knowledge of the entire rail system, and I could know everything about the locomotive, I could be devoted to watching it, and washing it and waving at it and calling it good, yet if I am not on the train no matter how much I know, I go nowhere.

To often we pursue new knowledge without ever putting an application to the knowledge we already have. Even worse is that we often in our hearts will devote all of our energy to the pursuit of scriptural knowledge so as too avoid the application of what we already know. I hear people write on the web about the hypostatic union of something or other, I confess I don't what they are talking about, but too many times these same people who have a vast abyss of knowledge haven't even taken time to talk to their neighbor. We will hide behind intellect or the quest for Godly knowledge as an excuse not to apply what we already know. For instance I have been in a park reading my bible and heard many people walk by, I do not even look up and say hi, let alone share with them what I have read. I hide in that bible so as to avoid obedience to the things I already know. I am not by any means against studying the scriptures to know them to the very core, it is a noble task that we all should engage in. My point is simply that knowledge unapplied is really no knowledge at all.

Lets come out from the shadows of the things we are seeking to understand, and lets not seek any deeper truth until we have applied the truth we already know.

Thats all for tonight

No comments: