Knowing isn’t enough.
In the information age, we all seem to be pursuing more and more knowledge. We are inundated with it. We learn everyday, and indeed we should but it seems as though perhaps our lofty pursuit of knowledge has gone a bit awry.
What I mean is this. We keep reading, studying, learning, and yes even forming deep seated opinions, but for what purpose? Why do we want to continuously know more and more? Let me pose a few questions that might drive us to understand the deep purpose of gaining knowledge.
- What are you doing with what you already know?
- Does your knowledge shape your choices?
- Are your behaviors influenced by what you have learned?
- Or is your knowledge more useful for the board game Trivial Pursuit than for making life decisions?
- Does what you know cause you to think more of yourself or to think more of God?
- Are you using and applying everything you have already learned?
The ultimate purpose for knowledge is that we might be made wise and might be changed in our being and doing. If our learning is only for trivial pursuit, the time invested may ultimately be time lost. However, learning that not only informs, but shapes and forms, is learning that is meaningful. Why do we want to learn more, if we are not living according to what we have already learned? Many times we ask God to help us, teach us, show us the way, but the reality is that He has already given us knowledge and wisdom that we often times have neglected or ignored.
Please consider what you already know. Let it speak to who you are and who you could be. Let what God has taught you in all of the classrooms of your life, speak to you about being changed, and becoming all that God intends you to be. Let your pursuit of knowledge reach for the end goals of personal transformation, sacrificial love of others and glory of God. Any other pursuit of knowledge is trivial, meaningless and a distraction from the greater things.
Pastor Michael Johnson 