There was this famous archaeologist who
was looking for an ancient site deep in the desert and got lost along the way.
If you have ever been out in the desert deep, everything can look pretty much
the same, and without a compass, you can easily get turned around going up and
down among the dunes. The good doctor, having no compass, knew that the sun rose in the East and
set in the West. Knowing that his base camp was due west, he used that common knowledge
and followed the setting sun back to basecamp.
He explained that until that situation
of being lost in the desert, the knowledge of sunrise and sunset was merely an
intellectual thing. But on that particular day, he experienced the truth of the
sun setting in the west in a dramatic and practical way that literally saved
his life. The plain truth of the sun setting in the west did not change; it
changed him! Hmm, doesn’t the Word of life do that for us, yes?
We know that the sun doesn’t rise or set
at all; it is simply the effect of the earth spinning on its axis making the
sun appear as if it is rising in the East and setting in the West. Whether we
know it or not or experience it or not doesn’t make the truth any truer. It is the understanding of the truth in an experiential way that makes it a fuller
truth to us, but it still remains the truth regardless. Simply put, we have to
allow the truth to change us, not attempt to change the truth to fit our narrative;
that’s devilish. Had the good professor done the latter, well, one thing is for
sure; I would not be relaying this story to you, yes?
What we gain by experiencing truth in the laboratory of life is insight, a richer, deeper understanding of
it. As in the case of this professor of archaeology, it literally saved his
life. He didn’t improve upon the truth; the truth improved upon him! A simple
truth of the sun “setting” in the West became more than informational but
transformational to this man. Informational is academic knowledge;
transformational is knowledge applied. We call that wisdom, applying the truth.
Ever hear someone say, application of knowledge is power? That was a powerful
thing that happened to this professor of archaeology. Wisdom always leaves you
better off than foolishness, yes?
In biblical truth, we have the
revelation of God to man. The prime directive is to love God with the totality
of our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. These two imperatives are
interlinked; the priority is loving God and the other follows (cf. Mk
12:30-31). Upon spiritual regeneration, these are the foundational blocks by
which everything flows. We through the power of the Holy Spirit begin the
transformational process of becoming more like His Son by applying the academics
(Eph 4:13; 2 Pet 3:18; Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 3:18). Wisdom is the application of God’s
Word.
In this revelation, there are objective
propositional truths that allow us to become more like Christ through prayer,
praise, the study of His Word, and obedience to His commands; it is called
spiritual growth. Chastisement is also a school teacher, too! It assists in
flattening the learning curve through the consequences of disobeying God.
God wants for us to know His truth
intellectually and interact with it by faith where the rubber hits the road: a
head to heart transference, a transformation from old nature to new nature, a
migration from our way of thinking to His way of thinking (cf. Rom 12:2). It is
directional in nature, not suppositional (Jos 1:7), knowing the difference
between what is light and darkness (Psa 119:105, 130) and in moving toward the
light, not away from it (Psa 43:3).
For that to happen there must be an
intellectual and intimate knowledge of the Word (Jos 1:8, 9) for it is our
“Bible” in life, our moral and ethical compass to maintain the course of
godliness in a godless world fraught with false gods and false disciples. The
world is nothing more than a spiritual desert that is dark and lifeless
(without Christ). We do not need to be so foolish by going out into the worldly
desert of life without a compass and a map of the terrain (Prov 3:5-6), as our good professor; the Bible
serves as both. We need spiritual navigational help to glorify the Lord, and
the spiritual latitudes and longitudes are only found in the Word of God.
Now, I can remember in my college and
seminary experiences that we received a deluge of biblical data. There was no
way we could move beyond the intellectual in any kind of practical way and
process all of that information, but there will come a time when we are called
to act upon it in faith. So, it is with all Christians.
We may not see the need for something we
picked up in a class or church setting or in private devotions or the
exchanging of truth in fellowship with another child of God right away, and then out of
the clear blue sometime later, the Holy Spirit brings it to the forefront of our thinking to
make a faith choice. This is why it is so vital we learn as much of the Word as
possible for crisis management in the future to allow the Holy Spirit to bring
it to our attention. It is inadvisable to wait until the pressurized moment of
a crisis to initiate an inquiry on the direction we are to take. Using 1 Cor 10:13
as if some lame excuse for lack of preparation in crisis is nothing more than
tempting the Lord!
The Holy Spirit cannot call to mind what
is not in our heart tank (cf. Psa 119:11). We simply cannot afford to wait
until a crisis point and expect to respond in a biblical manner; we won’t! How
can we glorify God in all that we do unless we know that all that we do is
sanctioned by God? It would require knowing the Word in order to glorify God in
our lives, yes?
And we can’t respond to what we don’t
know! We can’t turn right when the Word says go left without knowledge of the
Word. Good intentions unsupported by Scripture turn into a spiritual injury. Biblical success is knowing and doing God’s
Word (Jos 1:8, 9). Biblical failure on the part of a believer is refusing to
know and to obey God’s Word.
This is not a passive thing about
learning about the truth of God’s Word. It is in the implementation of what we
know with help from the Holy Spirit. We must be aggressive in learning the Word
for the express purpose of putting it to work in life’s experiences. We are to
learn the Word, love the Word, and live the Word. We are to be a Word-driven
people, not self-driven people admired by the world!
How critical is experiencing the truth
in maturing in the faith? Let me give a worse-case scenario for illustrative
purposes. Imagine that you know all about salvation intellectually, but for
years you never personally experienced salvation. Then one day you died
suddenly, going out into eternity without having the Holy Spirit within your
heart (cf. Rom 8:9; Jude 1:19)! You know where you are spending an eternity,
yes?
There is no way we can live out the
truth apart from experiencing it. How many untold blessings are we losing in
life by failing to experience what we already know or to never experience the
blessings of what we could have had had we known and acted upon it? The irony
of ironies is that God wants to bless us more than we want to be blessed by
Him! Eternal rewards are based on an eternal standard, the will of God.
Let me give you two verses to reflect
upon this standard:
(Eccl 3:14) I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can
be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should
fear before Him.
(1Cor 15:58) Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in
the Lord.
Everything that we do
in the will of God will last forever; everything that we do outside the will of
God will not survive the BEMA. The demarcation could not be any clearer. We
either live according to God’s will in harmony with Scripture that has lasting
results, or we live according to the will of the world aligned and allied to a
secular philosophy that will not last.
Wise we are in knowing and doing all things for the glory of God! Being Word-driven is not a Sunday drive, folks; it is a way of life and being allowed to be blessed by it! Ah, the truth of Romans 12:2,
And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. <><
