This article was written by my daughter-in-law Nancy for The Hammer Magazine.
Christianity is intensely practical. We must live it out in our relationships with people and our response to God. We must not be merely hearers and talkers but doers (James 1:22).
Often it seems that the eager new Christian is anxious to make his Christianity practical by allowing God to revamp the old attitudes and behaviors, but later he begins to get complacent and looks for something “more.” It is as though the old, simple truths that changed his life aren’t good enough anymore. We look for something more complicated, something “deeper.” We fail to apply what we knew at the beginning.
A child learns to walk by putting one foot in front of the other. As adults, we are still applying the same principle. We still put one foot in front of the other. We didn’t have to learn more complicated methods of getting where we wanted to go. It is the same with Christianity. As we mature, we must continue to apply the same truths that we began with, not look for new “revelation” for our “special” problems. We must not let pride tell us that we need something new, something more complex. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 1:6-7).
Not only must we keep applying the same truths, we probably have not fully applied them in our lives yet anyway! Mark Twain said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand!” Why should we expect God to give us more knowledge when we have not applied what He has already shown us?
Christianity is intensely practical. We must live it out in our relationships with people and our response to God. We must not be merely hearers and talkers but doers (James 1:22).
Often it seems that the eager new Christian is anxious to make his Christianity practical by allowing God to revamp the old attitudes and behaviors, but later he begins to get complacent and looks for something “more.” It is as though the old, simple truths that changed his life aren’t good enough anymore. We look for something more complicated, something “deeper.” We fail to apply what we knew at the beginning.
A child learns to walk by putting one foot in front of the other. As adults, we are still applying the same principle. We still put one foot in front of the other. We didn’t have to learn more complicated methods of getting where we wanted to go. It is the same with Christianity. As we mature, we must continue to apply the same truths that we began with, not look for new “revelation” for our “special” problems. We must not let pride tell us that we need something new, something more complex. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 1:6-7).
Not only must we keep applying the same truths, we probably have not fully applied them in our lives yet anyway! Mark Twain said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand!” Why should we expect God to give us more knowledge when we have not applied what He has already shown us?
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