What We Know vs. What We Do
Most of us have a gap between our heads and our hearts. There is a similar one between our lives and our lips. I immediately think of James’ words in 1:22 to not just be hearers of the word but also doers because otherwise, we deceive ourselves. You’re probably familiar with these words if you have a church background. And if you’ve lived long enough, you’ve probably wrestled with living them out.
From Head to Heart
We know things intellectually but knowing something intellectually is not the same as knowing it in your heart. It is why when we point to Romans 10, we emphasize the believe in your heart part. It is because we know that those are two different things.
My favorite silly example of this is my belief in the Knicks. I believe they can win it all this year (outside of Boston the rest of the East is injured and we stand a puncher’s chance against them). If I believed that, I would bet my life’s savings on an NBA Finals run. I may bleed blue and orange but my confidence does not run that deep. This is believing something intellectually vs. with your whole heart.
In the same way, if we believe the Gospel the way we say we do, are changed by Scripture the way we want to be, and all of the sermons impact us, then we should be instantly changed the moment we take in biblical truth, but that’s not how life works.
I deeply wish, for my own sake, that the conversion between hearing and doing was much higher. Think about it, if it was, who could we be?
In 2020, The Last Dance was released chronicling Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls. While we all marveled at his greatness, something struck me. Jordan loved cigars. He was rarely seen without one when he wasn’t playing. We know the effects that smoking has on our lungs. The greatness we saw in MJ was with diminished lung capacity and poor sleep. He was that dominant with compromised lungs. Who could he have been at full lung capacity and decent sleep?
I wonder the same thing about us. Who could we be if we were able to truly live out all of the information that we take in? In theory, I would be a billionaire who lived a perfectly sinless life to 120 and was a world-class bodybuilder.
This is where we find Romans 7 to be so pertinent. We take in a lot of information about growth and formation in Jesus but it doesn’t always stick. We find ourselves still doing the things that we don’t want to do.
From Lips to Life
All of this is made much harder when we think about our confession of faith. We say to Jesus: we believe in you, we love you, we believe that life should be lived according to your purposes and will, AND we tell others to do the same. The problem is the way we live doesn’t always match our professions of faith
If I may encourage you today, I think that’s somewhat ok. There is a recognition that we will never get it fully right this side of eternity. God has not called us to perfection but he has called us to obedience. He has called us to the continued pursuit of him.
This is the big focus of the book Practicing the Way. We are called to follow Jesus to the very end. We recognize our gaps and by the power of the Spirit within us, we work at getting better. We don’t stay where we are, we fight to grow in the fruit of the Spirit along the way.
The world needs to see this from us. They need to see our imperfections and our struggles. If the picture we paint of Christians is that we are perfect and have it all together, that’s unattractive. Christians or not, we are all intimately aware of how we fall short, of God’s standards and our own. What separates us as believers is how we continue to turn to God after we fall.
Remember that old Donnie McClurkin song, We Fall Down? That’s us. “We fall down but we get up. A Saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up.” I’ll amend this slightly.
We fall down and are lifted up by the mighty hand of Christ.
Part of our witness is proclaiming to the world that we choose to live how we live not by our strength but by the strength of the Lord.
Do No Harm
The worst thing we can say to a struggling Christian is “Just get it together.” When we look at others and ask why they’re still doing this or haven’t gotten over the sin, we are piling on the shame people already feel.
Far too many of us walk with enough guilt and shame. We all have gaps and blindspots. We all have areas of struggle. Many of us live with a profound sense of disappointment within ourselves. And yet we pursue Jesus anyway.
Our hope lies not in getting it all together but in the fact that Romans 8:1 is true. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
May you go today, knowing that the God of all glory sees you, loves you, and is patient with you.
Current reads
A Non-Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers
The Six Pack by Brad Balukjian
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
I promise it won't Always Hurt Like This by Clare Mackintosh
Final word: We all look forward to the day where our rhetoric and actions are well aligned. Dr David Lattimore