Head knowledge and heart revelation are two different things. Head knowledge knows about God like someone knows about Lionel Messi. You can know about him, you can read about him but you couldn’t call him up on the phone and converse intimately.
That’s how it is with some people when it comes to God. They know about Him. They sit in church and hear about Him. They may even know all the Bible stories and could quote Scripture… yet they aren’t intimately acquainted with God.
You see, they have head knowledge about God- they believe He is real- but they haven’t entered into a relationship with Him. The pharisees had head knowledge, the devil has head knowledge… but neither have salvation, neither have received eternal life.
Eternal life is not the forgiveness of sin. Eternal life according to Jesus is to know God and to partake in His Holiness now which leads on to the next life.
“And this is eternal life: to know you, the only true God ” John 17:3
You cannot receive salvation from doing service for God anymore than you can be saved from performing certain good works, acts or rituals (we have covered these issues in previous articles in detail)
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8,9).
God has made it very clear in Scripture that you cannot do enough good to save yourself anymore than you can do enough bad to be disqualified or rejected from receiving salvation. If you repent, put your faith in Jesus and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, you’re saved.
God’s grace is a gift and it cannot be earned.
But faith without works is dead. Once you know Jesus truly, your faith produces good works.
If you claim to know Christ, your life should demonstrate that a change has taken place inside. That's where the good works comes in, in the true sense. Now it may take time for what has happened on the inside to work its way to the outside but your desires should still change. God gives us new desires to live a different life from the one we were living before. These new desires may mean that some of the things we used to do we no longer desire to do.
Head knowledge doesn’t bring heart transformation. If a person says they’re born again but there is no change in their life, no evidence that Jesus lives in them, no new desires, we would have to question if they know Christ.
This isn’t a judgmental statement. It’s truth and it matters. It’s a heart check. We see a lot of people who don’t want to end up in hell because the thought of going there scares them.
So, they believe God is real. They believe Jesus was God and died for sin but then they stop there.
They believe He was Who He was and did what He did but they never receive Him. They never receive the salvation He offers. Salvation from the penalty of sin PLUS the power of sin.They never repent and they never make Jesus their Lord. It’s all head knowledge with no heart revelation thus no heart commitment; they don’t enter into covenant with God.
They acknowledge what Jesus has done and in the acknowledging alone they believe that they are saved. That’s not how it works. It isn’t about acknowledging, it’s about surrendering and living like Christ lived.
1 John 2:3-6
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:
6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
A lot of people profess to being Christian without possessing Jesus Christ in their heart. Salvation is receiving by faith His atonement for our sin. And we are surrendering our life to Him, confessing Him as our personal Lord and Savior. We make Him boss. He’s a good boss. Much better than the alternative. It is in the surrendering that people stumble. They want the getting without the giving up.
The sadness of it all is that it is in surrendering ourselves to Him that our lives change for the better and men don't realize it. It is in the surrendering that we find freedom. We aren’t put into bondage by surrendering our life to God. We are brought out of bondage! We are taken out of the dominion of darkness and sin and transferred into the kingdom of God’s Son. We are made sons and daughters of God. It is here alone where we find life worthwhile.
It is here where we find hope. It is here where our destructive behavior is broken. It is here where we find answers. It is here where we find deliverance. It is here where our brokeness is healed. It is here where we can become who we were created to be before sin.
I challenge you to be honest with yourself. That’s all. Honesty is the first step to radical Christianity. Why do you lack faith in God? Is being boss of your own life working for you? How long can you keep it up? And what will you do in the end when you die and it’s too late?
Let's repent and run back to our Father in heaven and love Him and love our neighbors, hence living in holiness and having dominion over sin with the blessed hope of the second coming of our Lord in mind.
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