Grow Up or Blow Up?
I was reflecting upon John Gerstner’s quote when he said the most important thing in the Christian life is not the thinking; it’s the feeling.
Right feeling of (or about) God is definitely necessary. It is non-optional. But here’s the catch… There is no right feeling without right thinking. And if we “think” rightly about truth but do not “feel” rightly about God, then we are on our way to eternal ruin. Truth must penetrate our hearts.
This gets me to reflect on churches I’ve observed in the past. Regrettably it seems many churches appear to be on the opposite sides of the spectrum. There’re people who show a lot of knowledge of truth, but seem so cold and show not much zeal or passion. It almost appears that for them the intellectual head knowledge is stimulating but does not penetrate their hearts. Then on the other side, there’re those ‘fired up’ people who proclaim, “Don’t gimme theology, just give me Jesus!” They think theology is some old, cold, stuffy things reserved only for the austere few. Though, of course, ironically as soon as we start talking about Jesus, we’re talking theology, right? 
A friend cited me this quip:
The Word without the spirit, we dry up.
The spirit without the Word, we blow up.
The Word and the spirit, we grow up.
I imagine the 18th-century evangelist George Whitefield (who was used of God as one of the main catalysts in the First Great Awakening) must’ve preached with much fire and feeling as he boldly spoke to those tens of thousands of people in open air! People were moved to tears and their lives changed as they were convicted by the Gospel. My pastor said, “If we truly believe in the damnation of hell and the awful reality of what we have been rescued from, how can we evangelize to lost people without tears in our eyes?”
Well, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have both zeal and truth?
We can’t just give off the light without being passionately consumed by the object itself. On the other hand, if we muster all the zeal in the world and have no light, we will not lead any sinner one step nearer to Heaven’s gates.
What a glorious Church it is to have both zeal and truth.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:06 pm | Permalink
Indeed, Jessica. It reminds me of a point I believe Jesus was making when he told the Samaritan woman that we must worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Spirit without truth is just charismaticism. Truth without spirit is pharisaical in a sense. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Both are necessary for acceptable worship. Thanks for the thoughts, Ma’am.
August 5th, 2007 at 11:17 am | Permalink
Hi Jessica,
I also thought that feeling is more important. The right feeling will drive us to the right thinking. Then the right thinking will increase the feeling.
Just as a model. Let’s say a person who fall in love with Apple products (an apple addict). She might not start as techie person, but she will keep learning cool features of the product (& future product). I won’t believe a person could say she is an apple addict, but she don’t know anything about new features in coming Mac OS Leopard. [just give me a Mac OS is never the case]. Of course by growing in knowledge, she will grow in her feeling too. And the similarity didn’t stop there. People who loved Apple will evangelized to her friends and relatives too.
On contrary, many people might be very knowledgeable in M$ product. But a M$ addict (if any) is not comparable to an Apple addict.
~Abel
August 5th, 2007 at 2:19 pm | Permalink
sorry for drifting a bit from main topic.
Only to show ‘feeling’ that lead to ‘worshipping’:
Apple worshipper
And they have their prayer too:
August 6th, 2007 at 9:41 am | Permalink
When you look at churches that are all about “feeling in the Spirit” what you usually find are immature Christians who know very little theology. Also, does it seem to anyone else that alot of the “feeling” type of arguments seem to center on worship style? Or is that just me?
August 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
Unfortunately those churches has reduce the “feeling in the spirit” into ’satisfying my feeling’. Thus those type of worship style. And they gave bad connotation on ‘feeling’ (zeal).
On other side, a Christian with great knowledge but without appropriate zeal is also immature. (pharisaical as per Josh above).
And there was the third type, a Christian with knowledge and zeal (but wrong one). This is an apostate who think (and/or make some people think) he/she fights for Christianity but actually he/she is fighting against the good of it.
August 8th, 2007 at 7:02 am | Permalink
“If we truly believe in the damnation of hell and the awful reality of what we have been rescued from, how can we evangelize to lost people without tears in our eyes?”
I appreciate the disappointment. Christ needs to be beautiful again and again to the Christian. He won’t look that way if the Christian does not continually hear the Law that condemns him of his sins and then the Gospel that forgives him by virtue of Christ’s payment on his behalf.
The Cross of Christ is the source of the fruit of the HS.
LP Cruz
August 12th, 2007 at 12:16 pm | Permalink
Hi Jessica.
Matt. 7:21-23 reads: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Fahter who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
I agree with you that having right feelings about God is not an option. God has not saved a people that are robots. He has called out a people that He loves and instills in their hearts a love for Him.
Also, as you mentioned there is no right feeling w/o right thinking. The verses in Matthew 7 shows that feelings alone will not stand before the righteous, just and holy God. How sad it will be for many to hear those words - Depart from Me on that day.
May we become like the Berean’s where they demonstrated both a zeal for God’s message and a love for His truth. For these were more noble-minded … for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
Blessings.
ba
August 14th, 2007 at 10:13 am | Permalink
Hello Jessica,
Here is a nice quote from Dorthory Sayers you might appreciate:
“Official Christianity, of late years, has been having what is known as a bad press. We are constantly assured that the churches are empty because preachers insist too much upon doctrine—dull dogma as people call it. The fact is the precise opposite. It is the neglect of dogma that makes for dullness. The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama.”
. . . . for the cry today is: “Away with the tedious complexities of dogma—let us have the simple spirit of worship; just worship, no matter of what!” The only drawback to this demand for a generalized and undirected worship is the practical difficulty of arousing any sort of enthusiasm for the worship of nothing in particular.”
Cheers,
Timotheus
http://www.skubalon.net