Skip to main content

Receiving the Message of Hebrews in Head and Heart

Image
By
In chapter ten of his book The Enemy Within (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 1998), Kris Lundgaard suggests several ways our flesh works to douse the fire of our first love for Jesus. One of his points seems particularly appropriate for those of us at Glory of Christ Fellowship as we commence our journey through the letter to the Hebrews. 

The author of this great sermonic-letter was immensely learned and he writes in such a way as to cause us to think carefully and ponder deeply the person of Jesus Christ. However, it would be a grave error to think that he thinks thinking is an end in itself. Rather, his design in leading us to know more about Jesus is to lead us into a life-changing encounter with Jesus. He writes to wake us from our slumber and stun us into worship and obedience as we come to understand who Jesus is, what he's accomplished for us, and how he means to apply those accomplishments to our lives and churches. 

Therefore, I thought it might be good to pass on the following words from Kris Lundgaard. "'Knowledge puffs up' (1 Corinthians 8:1). When Paul said that to the Corinthians, he wasn't suggesting they stop learning the Word of God. He was condemning knowledge that seems to grow but never moves the heart. 

"A person with a big head and a small heart can learn the doctrines of sin, yet never be convicted of sin. He can learn the teachings of grace and pardon and the great atonement for sin, yet never feel the peace of God that passes understanding. When the flesh gets a person to the point that he can sit under the teaching of the Word, and even delight in it for its intellectual beauty, yet not be changed, he has snuffed out the wick of his first love" (117-18). 

May the Lord give us minds rich with the knowledge of Jesus, and heart aflame with passion for Jesus. May we receive his Word and allow his Spirit to shape our lives by that Word.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Children Say "I'm Bored" By Julie Lowe

By
This Article is written by Julie Lowe and was originally posted on the CCEF blog.  I highlighted the areas of particular interest. I had already prepared a blogpost on dealing with boredom from a Christian worldview and then came across this. There is much overlap between the two, perhaps this one is more concise while my work attempts to explain the connection between the ability to think and the ability to be happy. You can visit the original blogpost in the link provided below.  https://www.ccef.org/resources/blog/children-say-im-bored   We have a common crisis in our home; it is the calamity of boredom. Our children might even consider it a catastrophe. “I’m bored” is repeated so often it would not be an overstatement to say that these words echo continuously throughout our home especially during any break from school. These are children with limited media time but still children with a Wii and Xbox system, a pool outside our door, multiple games, toy...
Post a Comment
Read more