Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge [a]makes arrogant, but love edifies. 2 If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; 3 but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.
You mean I am puffed up? I just thought I was smart lol. What is the antidote to knowledge? To love God. My two friends said, "don't over think it". Well I am up at 4 am over thinking it. I don't understand but it is comforting for me to understand. That is why I am here wrestling with why I over think things. Why it feels good to me to understand. Why it makes me feel secure to know. It goes back as far as to Adam and Eve who wanted to be their own God. They sought the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
This passage tells me that these people were seeking to be justified by over thinking whether they could eat meat that was offered up to idols. It goes on to say it is not the eating of meat nor the not eating of meat that is permissible. It is to be free to eat as your conscience allows you and to love God. It makes me feel good to understand because in my thinking, the root of it, is to justify myself rather than be justified by God.
God labored and suffered on the cross that I would not only be free, know I am loved but to give me a clear conscience. I want to present the idea that it is a troubled conscience that keeps me digging deeper. It is not an understanding of truth it is the knowledge that says I understand now. It puffs up. It is arrogant. It is a pride of the heart that seeks to understand things beyond truth. We will understand when we see Him face to face but we will never totally or completely understand God. We will search the mind of God throughout eternity. Quite frankly this excites me beyond words. To know more and understand deeper into the thoughts of God. Well I can never fully understand. His ways are not my ways.
I would also like to present the idea that the arrogant is not walking by the Spirit. It is living by the law. It is desiring to be my own God. It is the opposite of faith, of trusting and following God not by sight, or understanding, but because I love Him. It is to be free, to have a clear conscience, to be justified by Christ alone, to be comforted and secure in Him and to know the love of the Father, love Him in return and to have no others Gods before me. It is to have the heart of a child, to trust my Abba Father with an innocent faith that leaps into His arms without understanding but in knowing He loves me.
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