Have You Exercised Today?
by Grant Gaines
If you turn to the maps in the back of your Bible, you will find the Dead Sea smack-dab in the middle of the major Biblical stories. The Dead Sea is called the “Dead” Sea because, well, it is dead – nothing lives in it.
You see, the Dead Sea is fed by the Sea of Galilee via the Jordan River, but after receiving the water, it has no other body of water to pass it along to. Therefore, when the sun and heat evaporates the water, the excess salt is left in the Dead Sea. As this cycle has repeated itself over thousands of years, the Dead Sea is left with an overinflated salt-to-water ratio, thus killing any plant or creature that tries to make a home in the Dead Sea.
Do you ever feel like a “Dead Sea Christian”? Always growing in Biblical knowledge but never exercising that knowledge? This is where we find the dangerous intersection between head and heart knowledge.
Head knowledge is the process of learning more and more about God and the Bible. It’s listening to sermons, memorizing John 3:16, and knowing where to turn to in your Bible when you feel worried or stressed. Head knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, we are commanded in 2 Peter 3:18 (NIV, italics mine) to, “…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ….” But head knowledge is incomplete if it is not accompanied with heart knowledge.
Heart knowledge is applying the head knowledge you have through your actions. Heart knowledge knows that Jesus told us to go and make disciples in Matthew 28:19-20 and actually goes and makes disciples. Heart knowledge understands that, “Loving God means keeping His commandments…” (1 John 5:3, NLT), so heart knowledge loves God by actively caring out His commandments.
If you go back to the Dead Sea illustration (the Sea of Galilee flows into the Jordan River which flows into the Dead Sea), head knowledge by itself is like the Dead Sea because knowledge without action is of no value to us or glory to God. But when you add heart knowledge to the equation, suddenly your head knowledge becomes more like the Sea of Galilee which flows out into the Jordan River, bringing life to an entire region.
The reason head knowledge by itself is so dangerous is because it has the tendency to make us prideful. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, agrees with this statement by writing, “…Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” in 1 Corinthians 8:1 (NIV). You see, when you have a great wealth of knowledge on a subject but have no way to actually apply that knowledge, all you’re left with is a swollen or “puffed up” ego.
Did you know that even Jesus ran into plenty of people who had this “Dead Sea”, prideful head knowledge? These people were the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the Bible-know-it-alls of their day. In fact, the minimum requirement to become a Pharisee was to have the first five books of the Old Testament memorized! And that was just the minimum requirement! I assume that not too many of us could become Pharisees today!
But rather than using this knowledge of God’s Word to become better, more intimate followers of Him, they became arrogant in their vast wealth of knowledge. This is why Jesus describes the Pharisees as, “…whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27, NIV). That’s certainly not how I want the Creator of the heavens and earth to describe me!
And Jesus isn’t the only character in the Bible to give a harsh word against being a “Dead Sea Christian”. James describes such a person by saying, “Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like” (James 1:23-24, NIV).
Paul says that those who have a head knowledge but don’t translate it to a heart knowledge, or those who, “[have] the appearance of godliness, but [deny] its power…” (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV) are not the ones who please God at all. In fact, Paul says, “For merely listening to [God’s Word] doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying [His Word] that makes us right in His sight” (Romans 2:13, NLT, italics mine).
Now I’m going to make an assumption here. I’m guessing that as one of your New Year’s resolutions, many of you wrote down that you want to exercise more. But let me warn you not to focus too much on physical exercise, which 1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV) says is only, “…of some value…” while, “…godliness has value for all things…” that you overlook the spiritual exercise you need so you can avoid becoming a “Dead Sea Christian”.
Instead, prayerfully consider joining me in exercising our faith by following the command of 1 John 3:18 (NIV) which tells us, “…let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
