If you know these things,

blessed are you if you do them.

(John 13:17)

It has been well said…

The Longest 18 inches in the world, is the distance between our head and our heart.

Jesus tells us very clearly, that the blessing that He has for us is not just in knowing truth…but doing it.  They key…is the doing.  The danger is that so many times we are satisfied with knowledge alone. 

I will never forget the moment that God really exposed this fallacy in my life.  My pastor had just returned from a trip to China and was able to meet with several underground pastors there.   As he was sharing, he said something like this. “The problem with so many of you is that you are convinced the problem is a lack of information.  You feel that there are just so many things that you don’t understand and you feel that is keeping you from being usable by God.”  When he said this, it was so appropriate, because that is exactly how I felt.  I felt that there were just so many things that I did not understand, so many deep waters in Christianity that still left me puzzled.  I felt so ignorant and lacking and was longing to grow in knowledge.  (by the way, many years later…I only feel more ignorant)

My pastor went on to say “The problem we have is not with knowledge, but with application.”  He spoke of the underground pastors he met in China and told us candidly that most of us in the room had an 80% greater understanding of Biblical truth and knowledge than any that he met there.  As that sifted across the room, he continued by pointing out that the reality is that what made those underground pastors so amazing, is that they were 80% more intent on living what they understood than we were.

As he shared this account and thought, the Holy Spirit pressed it deeply before me.  I realized how very true it was.  I was longing and seeking to know more.  Yet, the reality was that there was so much that I already knew…that I was not doing.  And the reality was that most of my effort was just to gain more knowledge…not more application.  

From that day to this, I have only become more convinced that what was and is true with me…is true with many.  We so easily get sidetracked seeking to grow in knowledge…but not really attempting to grow in application of that knowledge.   Being satisfied with knowing truth, but not with doing truth.

God speaks to this powerfully in the book of James.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

 (James 1:22–24)

If we hear and understand a Biblical truth, but we don’t put it into practice, it is like looking into a mirror and seeing something amiss with our appearance.  In the mirror we see something on our face, or hair crazy out of order.   Yet, then we walk away from the mirror and are satisfied that we saw the problem…but doing nothing about it.  Can you see how silly such a thing would be?  Yet so much more, those of us who are satisfied with knowing truth…but doing nothing about putting it in practice.

The longest 18 inches in the world is the distance between our head and our heart….

If you know these things,

blessed are you if you do them.

(John 13:17)

Jim