Loving God with your heart and mind

Sunday 28 Sept

Proverbs 19:2

It is not good to have zeal without knowledge,

nor to be hasty and miss the way.

Good to have zeal but if it without knowledge it is dangerous

They must go hand in hand, they must be married together

Love the Lord with your heart and with your mind

Seek the fire but also the firewood

Zeal

Passion, desire for God, sense of devotion, appetite for God

David- man of zeal

Psalm 42:1-2

Jesus- Zeal for your house consumes me

He had a passion for His father’s house

God wants us to have a passion/ appetite for him- to desire him

Seek the fire of the Spirit to burn in us

How do we cultivate this? SEEK IT, ASK FOR it Luke 11:9-13

Q? How hungry are you for more of the Spirit?

Knowledge

Love the Lord with your mind

Seek the fire but fire needs something to burn

Are you putting good wood in your life?

Invest in what goes in your mind- need Christian minds, think Christianly about the world

How?

1. Watch less TV

2. Read your bible- to meet the author- true bible knowledge rooted in experience

3. Read good Christian books

4. Ask hard questions

5. Think and chew on scripture

Phil 1:9

Grow in love and knowledge/discernment

We need to grow in both- relational side and mental side

We need both

Heart and the mind

Spirit and the Word

Faith and works

Fire and firewood

Proverbs 19:2 gives us a warning- zeal without knowledge is not good

Why? It makes you miss the way, the path God has for you

If you have passion for God but don’t know God’s Word well and God’s ways well

You open yourself up to being deceived

How?

You aren’t able to test things, test it up according to the Word

If you have knowledge of the bible, love God with your mind but don’t have intimate passion for him- leads to legalism and dead religion

Pharisees

Knowing lots of truth but never living it out – becomes toxic waste