Thursday, July 10, 2014

"For the Sake of Love"



    The Apostle Paul wrote that knowledge, accumulated for its own sake, "puffeth up" (I Corinthians 8:1).  That is, it inflates with self-gratifying air rather than Christ-exalting spiritual substance.  

    By this, Paul did not mean to encourage the closing or stilling of our minds to truth, but rather to ensure that we establish the proper motive for seeking to know and to understand.  Love alone provides this reason, the love of God, love for God, and love for others as the holy result of mutual devotion between the Lord and ourselves.

    "Though I… understand all mysteries and all knowledge… and have not charity (love), I am nothing" (I Corinthians 13:2).

    God calls born again believers in the Lord Jesus to think.  We do not have to be brilliant or even smart.  We must, however, consistently engage our minds in order to love, trust, and obey our Lord, and then to communicate Him to others.  "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37).  We do so as a matter of heart first, and then of mind.  God Himself ponders and meditates accordingly - "The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations" (Psalm 33:1; emphasis added).  We think, we seek knowledge, and we gain understanding for the sake of love.  This is substance, that is, the reality of the Lord Jesus and His truth whereby active minds flow from active hearts, His heart and our own.

"I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy works, I muse on the work of Thy hands."
(Psalm 143:5)

Weekly Memory Verse
    When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
(Psalm 8:3-4)

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