Doctrine and Devotion

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"Doctrine and Devotion"

  Doctrine cannot be overemphasized in the life of born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We cannot become Christians apart from accurate Biblical presentation of the Savior to our hearts and minds.  Nor can we faithfully walk with God as Christians apart from emphasizing the propositional truths of Scripture.

  "Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine… Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine" (I Timothy 4:13:16).

   Such emphasis notwithstanding, it remains true that doctrine alone does not comprise the entirety of our response to God.  Personal knowledge of God and loving devotion must also characterize our walk with Him.  We must worship our Lord "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24).  Dual tracks of the living Word Christ and the written Word the Bible lie before us.  If we emphasize doctrine to the exclusion of devotion, our experience will become merely a servile discipline that ultimately leads to personal frustration and judgmentalism of others.  Conversely, if we seek to know our Lord apart from Biblical doctrine, deception and delusion inevitably lie before us as we end up following "another Jesus… another Spirit… another Gospel" (II Corinthians 11:4).

   For doctrine to be rightly accessed, assimilated, and applied, we must walk in prayerful communion with our Heavenly Father.  He has no interest in granting to us knowledge for mere academic understanding.  Nor should we have interest in becoming merely mental repositories of blessed truths meant to lead us into living, loving fellowship with God.  Surely we must know the Scriptures as well as possible, seeking to fill our hearts and minds with Truth.  "With all thy getting, get understanding" (Proverbs 4:7).  Such knowledge, however, bears sanctifying significance only as it leads us to know our Lord in the bright illumination of His Person and loving involvement in our lives.  The blessed facts of God lead us to gaze by faith into the glorious face of God.  Yes, doctrine must lead to devotion, which then leads us back to doctrine as we realize that Biblical truth rightly received always leads to loving and personal response to God.

"Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Me."

(John 5:39)

Weekly Memory Verse

  "Call unto Me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."

(Jeremiah 33:3)