We've spent our whole lives learning to live our lives the way we want, our parents want, or our culture wants. In order to be a child of God we should be prepared to spend as much time learning to live how God wants.
The true necessity for deep spiritual knowledge has been perplexing me lately. Although following Christ is certainly based upon one's faith that lies in Him and the pursuance of a loving relationship with the Trinity, the role of deep knowledge of scriptures and biblical truths has been weighing on my heart lately. I believe that a desire to know God's scriptures and truths to a further extent is often proof of a growing love for Him and His ways, but not always.
Turning one's pursuit of knowledge into a Christian competition is certainly counterproductive, as competition is largely rooted in pride and a tightly held pride can not be part of a loving relationship with God, which is the point of Christianity and our ultimate calling in life:
The true necessity for deep spiritual knowledge has been perplexing me lately. Although following Christ is certainly based upon one's faith that lies in Him and the pursuance of a loving relationship with the Trinity, the role of deep knowledge of scriptures and biblical truths has been weighing on my heart lately. I believe that a desire to know God's scriptures and truths to a further extent is often proof of a growing love for Him and His ways, but not always.
Turning one's pursuit of knowledge into a Christian competition is certainly counterproductive, as competition is largely rooted in pride and a tightly held pride can not be part of a loving relationship with God, which is the point of Christianity and our ultimate calling in life:
And he (Jesus) said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 22:37-39
When the Son of God, fully divine, and therefore of the same divinity as the Creator of this beautifully complex world says something like: "This is the first and greatest commandment", we must sit up and listen. However, learning what it means to love the Lord with everything we have, as this passage clearly states, is a lifelong process. Recently I've been struggling with how someone like myself, one wanting to understand everything around him, can truly love the Lord his God with his mind without sacrificing the love of his heart.
Can I keep my humility while also pursuing deep theological knowledge of God? Is it even necessary?
First, the words of Paul come to mind. In 1 Corinthian 3:1-4, Paul scolds the Corinthians for remaining infants in their faith. A Christian remaining an infant in their knowledge of the Christian teachings for an extended period of time is just as ludicrous as a 15 year-old insisting on remaining in preschool where they are comfortable playing with blocks.
First, the words of Paul come to mind. In 1 Corinthian 3:1-4, Paul scolds the Corinthians for remaining infants in their faith. A Christian remaining an infant in their knowledge of the Christian teachings for an extended period of time is just as ludicrous as a 15 year-old insisting on remaining in preschool where they are comfortable playing with blocks.
Likewise, having a deep understanding, as deep as fallible human understanding can go, of the Trinity and its ways is necessary for many to stand firm in the faith among the vast number of temptations the world is able to throw at us. In this analogy, the Christian is a tree and her level of understanding is her roots. Without any roots the tree is going to be non-existent and therefore not a Christian at all. All Christians must have roots of some sort. The width of the root system is symbolic of all the different types of biblical truths: the love of God, Jesus' atoning death, the role the Spirit plays in our lives, etc. The deeper our knowledge of any of these truths, the deeper our roots.
Ideally, a Christian would have a constantly growing, broad, balanced root system. One can not stand on one single extremely deep root, and one will not stand in the face of adversity if the roots are broad but shallow. Both a shallow root system and a root system boasting only a single deep root will be uprooted by the first wind.
God did not create us to be satisfied with either of these root systems, and if we are then it is a sign that we are not truly in love with the magnificent Creator and therefore not a Child of God at all.
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