In the Book of Hosea, God said of His chosen people that there was " . . . no knowledge of God in the land," and because of this His people were " . . . destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:1, 6). Of the results of this same lack of knowledge of God, the Holy Spirit wrote through the prophet Isaiah: "Therefore My people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst." (Isaiah 5:13)
How unfortunate it is that the same thing can be said today of a vast number of Christians who lack a spiritually mature knowledge of Christ. They have an infantile knowledge of Jesus, for they have not grown in their own spirituality once they came up out of that watery grave of baptism. Though Christ lives in them, though a fountain of Living Water bubbles up within their innermost being, they are spiritually famished and dried up with spiritual thirst. Why? Because they have failed to feed the spiritual babe inside themselves the meat it so strongly desires! They have kept their spirit malnourished by only supplying it with milk! Imagine the irony of it all! One becomes a Christian by following the Gospel plan of salvation whereby one is filled with Living Water (John 4:14) and yet one allows oneself to become malnourished and dehydrated and withered spiritually with thirst! What is the solution?
As it was with the Israelites in the wilderness, so it is with us. All we need to enter our Promised Land of Christ in all His fullness is knowledge plus faith. Knowledge comes through a diligent study of God’s word: "Give diligence to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)
The Apostle John’s greatest joy was that his converts "walked in truth" and that they "walked after [the Father’s] commandments" (2 John 4, 6). John parallels walking in the light with walking in the truth (1 John 1:7; 2 John 4), and yet John 3 defines the true light as ultimately the light of the crucified Christ. To live life in self-examination with our sight focused on the cross, seeing through the eyes of faith the One Who was crucified there in our behalf, is the only way to walk in truth. This is the true life. To merely hold certain interpretations of Scripture in intellectual purity is not all there is to "walking in truth" or "walking in the light." Many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day did no less, and yet they were the recipients of His strongest criticism, for their hearts were far removed from the Lord. To walk in truth and light of Jesus is the kind of truth that sets us free (John 8:31-32). Discerning the correctness of sound exposition will not in and of itself bring any freedom. But living a life that we know broadly corresponds to the image of the crucified Jesus will give a freedom unknown in any other sphere of human experience.
May the Lord bless you!
How unfortunate it is that the same thing can be said today of a vast number of Christians who lack a spiritually mature knowledge of Christ. They have an infantile knowledge of Jesus, for they have not grown in their own spirituality once they came up out of that watery grave of baptism. Though Christ lives in them, though a fountain of Living Water bubbles up within their innermost being, they are spiritually famished and dried up with spiritual thirst. Why? Because they have failed to feed the spiritual babe inside themselves the meat it so strongly desires! They have kept their spirit malnourished by only supplying it with milk! Imagine the irony of it all! One becomes a Christian by following the Gospel plan of salvation whereby one is filled with Living Water (John 4:14) and yet one allows oneself to become malnourished and dehydrated and withered spiritually with thirst! What is the solution?
As it was with the Israelites in the wilderness, so it is with us. All we need to enter our Promised Land of Christ in all His fullness is knowledge plus faith. Knowledge comes through a diligent study of God’s word: "Give diligence to present yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)
The Apostle John’s greatest joy was that his converts "walked in truth" and that they "walked after [the Father’s] commandments" (2 John 4, 6). John parallels walking in the light with walking in the truth (1 John 1:7; 2 John 4), and yet John 3 defines the true light as ultimately the light of the crucified Christ. To live life in self-examination with our sight focused on the cross, seeing through the eyes of faith the One Who was crucified there in our behalf, is the only way to walk in truth. This is the true life. To merely hold certain interpretations of Scripture in intellectual purity is not all there is to "walking in truth" or "walking in the light." Many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day did no less, and yet they were the recipients of His strongest criticism, for their hearts were far removed from the Lord. To walk in truth and light of Jesus is the kind of truth that sets us free (John 8:31-32). Discerning the correctness of sound exposition will not in and of itself bring any freedom. But living a life that we know broadly corresponds to the image of the crucified Jesus will give a freedom unknown in any other sphere of human experience.
May the Lord bless you!
No comments:
Post a Comment