We are told to grow in grace and knowledge (2 Pet. 3:18) This refers to growing in likeness and learning. To meditate night and day means consistent learning. Comes through reading and thinking. Knowledge is like interest: it compounds. It multiplies. It grows. So we must read and think in order to grow and learn. The end result that we are aiming at is, of course, – likeness to our Lord Jesus Christ. So, tolle lege!
The Aim
In 1 Timothy 1:5 Paul tells Timothy that the aim of their charge was 3 things.
1. Pure Heart
2. Good Conscience
3. Sincere Faith
Those words – pure, good and sincere are essential. Calls for constant perusal of our spiritual condition, and should we not have these, then there caan be no love. And no love will guarantee false teaching and wrong thinking. So aim right, right!
Persevering Faith
Those to whom the Lord has granted faith he enables to persevere by that faith. This means we can never fall away from our salvation, but we will press on to the end. We are thus preserved and kept by and for the Lord. He who began this great salvation will bring it to completion.
Perverted Faith
A. W. Tozer makes this excellent point: “Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its trust not in the living God, but in dying men.”
(The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 42)
Who Are You?
“So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.”
(John 8:25)
I love Martin Luther’s comments on this passage. “They…desire to know who he is, and not to regard what he says, while He desires them to first listen, and then they will know who he is. So listen and allow the Word to make a beginning; then the knowing will nicely follow. If, however, you do not listen, then you will never know anything. For it is decreed: God will not be seen, known or comprehended except through his Word alone. We are to read his Word, to think and speak about it, and to study it. It is certain that he himself is speaking with us in it.” (What Luther Says; An Anthology)
Now you know who he is! Right!
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