Apply your heart to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge. Proverbs. 23:12
There never has been a day in the history of the church when God’s truth has been so available and even sought after by God’s people, than today. We have at our disposal a plethora of means whereby we can search, learn, read, listen and sit under the clear exposition and teaching of God’s word. Be it from pulpits around the world via the internet, digital reads from our favorite blog sites, regular purchases from our Christian bookstores, Sunday by Sunday at our local church, or like some of us, all the above and more, we still can have a serious problem! The problem is this. It is one thing to appreciate and even love the truth of God’s word, but a totally different thing to apply that truth to our lives. In other words - as someone has said recently, “appreciation is not application.”
I do understand this danger. The danger of being filled with truth and yet that truth from God having little impact on our day-to-day lives. D.L. Moody rightly once said: “The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.”
We live in a day where some believers, (like the world) think that knowledge is power. And sadly some even become prideful of the grasp and ability they have in being able to defend the bible and its doctrines. This knowledge and ability is a good thing, but by itself it only ever dangerously ‘puffs up’ (1Cor. 8:1) it causes pride to grip the believer.
I like how Paul David Tripp puts this: “We must always, always remember that the theology of the Word of God is not an end in itself but a means to an end, and that end is a radically grace-transformed life. [Grace Quotes]
Let us be those who not only appreciate God’s truth but those who equally apply it. We need be those who willingly submit ourselves to Spirit of God, who, through His word changes our thinking, our worldviews, our behaviour, our goals so to be transformed by God’s grace into faithful and obedient servants, for the glory of God.