Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

Written by: April J. Buchanan

Does your tender heart remain tender under the ever-increasing trials and tribulations of life? Has it found such grace as increases knowledge, strengthens the soul, and, while the heart grows wise, causes it to remain tender? Has knowledge increased alongside love abounding?

Or have the hardships of life and the striving of the soul, having found the exceeding sinfulness of sin and its increasing presence among men, caused the heart once broken for those dead in sin to now regard evangelism as time not well spent in prayer and activity? Has the wickedness of the world, and eyes now beholding sin as wicked and vile as it truly is, caused the heart to grow callous? Is the heart once tender now content to sit back and let God do the saving apart from the appointed means He has ordained, absolving itself of any responsibility to proclaim the Gospel whereby God works in regeneration?

Men well studied and not well lived are a contradiction to the work of grace. For it is grace that increases knowledge, and that not merely intellectual knowledge, but knowledge effectually wrought in the heart, changing the man and increasing his faith in God, whereby his life continues to demonstrate the power of God in him. A man whose life is contrary to increasing knowledge and genuine faith worked out in love is a man who ought to examine himself to see whether he is truly in the faith.

There are many who profess Christ and yet show themselves increasingly boastful and proud in their false doctrines, false beliefs, and false practices. Having their minds fixed in error, they resist the correction of Scripture and remain unwilling to submit their cherished beliefs to the test of God’s Word. Yet knowledge that is merely intellectual is not born of saving faith. True knowledge humbles the heart, exposes pride, and leads men to repentance and faith demonstrated in lives changed and being changed by the truth.

Dear saint, the heart is continually influenced by error. It does not naturally gravitate toward truth. Our bent is toward evil. We must be willing to admit this and put our hearts and minds to the Word, allowing it to straighten our crooked thinking. We must be humbled under its instruction, submitted to its commands, and take heed to its warnings and prohibitions. If we seek only what validates what we already want to believe and what makes us feel good, then we set our hearts on affirming our own errors and our own wickedness.

We do not naturally walk straight. We do not naturally think rightly. We must set our hearts and minds upon the truth, meditate upon it, understand our weaknesses, and discipline ourselves in the way of truth. The more that truth is worked in us, the more our hearts are changed, and the greater the influence of God’s Word becomes in our hearts and minds than the influence of the things we see and hear in the world.

The heart that increases in knowledge is not as ignorant or unstable as it once was. As grace works through knowledge applied to the heart, the saint grows in stability. Though he is more aware of sin’s snares, he is also better equipped to proclaim the Gospel, having gained knowledge that has humbled his heart. He knows the grace that has kept him through every place from which he should never have risen again. His love for God has only increased in the knowledge of who He truly is.

He will neither diminish God’s glory to win the lost nor dismiss anyone as too far gone, for that judgment does not belong to him. His command is to proclaim the Gospel, and he will do so in love for every lost soul. He may be tempted to despair as many reject that external call, but God is faithful, and He will surely save all who come to Him in faith.

If he should draw his last breath never having witnessed one man repent and walk according to that faith, he will guard his heart from despair at the wickedness of men, trusting the God who is sovereign in salvation and glorified in obedience.

Dear saint, we tend to our hearts not by seeking what prompts emotional excitement, but by understanding our weaknesses and looking to Christ and His Word. Set your heart and mind upon His Word. This is not merely a glancing over the text or seeking some comfort from it. It is going into the text so that it may search our hearts and minds, exposing every error and bent within us.

For if we think all our ways are perfect, we are already deceived. Let His Word search me and show me my errors that they may be made straight. Let me never think I have arrived, that I am perfect, that I have no error or bent remaining in me, that all my thoughts are sound and all my ways are right. For when pride takes hold, I shall surely fall.

Dear saint, if we increase in knowledge with hearts that desire truth, we will never exhaust Scripture’s willingness to correct us, straighten us, and lead us forth in righteousness. And when we have been shown that which is straight, sound, and true, let us hold firm convictions according to sound doctrine. It is neither good nor safe to seek a false neutrality that nowhere exists. Where God has spoken, we may stand.

Firm convictions in sound doctrine, where grace abounds, are never apart from genuine love. If grace has its perfect work, it will always show itself in love, and never in opposition to truth. Let both be evident for Christ’s sake.