Knowing And Doing

"If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them " (John 13. 17).

Between the knowing and the doing there is often a great gulf. Into that abyss the happiness of many slips, and is lost. There is no peace, no real and lasting felicity for a child of God until the gulf is closed. It is not a blessing to know the things that Christ teaches, and then go on living as if they were false or doubtful. It is a trouble, a torment, a secret misery. To know that God is our Father and yet to withhold our love and service from Him; to know that Christ died for us, and yet to deny Him and refuse to follow Him; to know that the things that are seen are temporal, and yet to waste and lose our lives in the pursuit of sensual pleasure, and such small portion of the world as we may hope to gain - surely it is the height of folly. But the right kind of knowing carries in its heart the doing of the truth. And a right kind of doing leads to a fuller and happier knowing. " If any man willeth to do His (God's) will," declared the Lord, " he shall know of the teaching" (John 7.17).

Extracted, per J. BENNISON.

unknown | Mar 1957
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