The book of Acts, chapter 17, tells of Paul’s visit the city of Athens. Paul saw that the people of Athens were some of the smartest people at the time, but the city was full of idols. Makes you wonder how that was so? How could a smart people be so wrong about something that is so contrary to knowledge of the truth?
The Athenians searched for knowledge for the sake of knowledge. They wanted to know what you did not know. Acts 17:21 says, “For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”
In wanting the world to know how smart they were, the Athenians actually showed the world how dumb they were. Paul even says because of all their knowledge, the people were so religious that they allowed for the worship of any god – even to the UNKNOWN GOD. Acts 17:23. They didn’t want to leave anything out.
Theirs is a case where the knowledge of God made the people ignorant of God. The people of Athens were so smart that they were too smart to change their ways. They used knowledge of God and other things to make themselves stand apart from normal things. They were too smart for their own ways.
God warns us against becoming too smart for ourselves. In James 1:23-24 we are told, “For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”
The Word of God is not given to us to make us smart. It is not given to us to make us intelligent. The Word of God is given to us to reflect what it sees in us. So, James encourages us not just to hear what God says, like the Athenians, but to do what God says because what we hear God say changes us.
So, what does the knowledge of God’s Word say about you? Take your Bible and set it before you. But now, imagine instead of you reading the Bible to learn more about God, open the Bible and allow God to read your life. Let Him tell you what He finds there that is not what He says in His word.
Let the Word look into your life and tell you what it finds. This is the best type of knowledge. Life changing knowledge. The knowledge that works in you to transform you into the thing looking at you.
So, as you look into the Bible and read God’s Word, understand that the Word is as anxious to look into your life and read back to you. Just as you would read a book to child, let the Word of God read the book of your life back to you so that you will not go away and forget who you really are.
Knowledge is what you get reading what you do not know. God wants us to be knowledgeable. But growth and development in Him are what you get when you allow knowledge to read your life and to lead you to change.
The Lord wants to write a book about what He finds in your life. He wants to help you grow and to develop into a deep mature believer who is filled with insights that only come when you allow yourself to be read daily by the Word and changed daily by the Spirit.
So, I encourage you to never stop reading the Word. But start allowing the Word to read the book that is your life.
In Matthew 5, Jesus taught the people about the attitudes that we should have that would make us blessed. We ought to have those attitudes of being. And likewise, we ought to let Him continually come to us and teach us telling us about what He finds in us.
If knowledge of the Word of God is found in you, it will say to others, “I am fast at work transforming this person from knowing about Me to becoming more like Me.”
When you allow the Word to read your life, it will be impossible for you to walk away from that mirror and forget what that knowledge is saying about you as it works in you.
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