Have you ever had someone give you encouragement from God’s Word and you replied, “I know.”? And you really did know, but it did not seem to help. There seems to be a split between what you know and how you are feeling and/or acting. In his book, Dying Thoughts, Richard Baxter, a Puritan pastor, and theologian, put it this way—“Since we fell from God, the communion between our senses and understanding, and also between our understanding and our will and affections, is violated, and we are divided in ourselves by this schism in our faculties. All men may easily know that there is an almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and perfectly holy and good God,…who deserves our whole trust, love, and obedience; but how little this knowledge is perceived in men’s heart’s or lives.” Paul describes this “schism” like this—“I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom. 7:23- 24 ESV)
What can we do about it? David prays, “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.” (Ps. 86:11 ESV) Richard Baxter writes, “I must learn as a student and a beggar. ‘When I have thought and thought a thousand times, I must beg thy blessings, Lord, upon my thoughts. The eye of my understanding will be useless to me, without thy illuminating beams. O shine the soul of thy servant into a clearer knowledge of thyself and kingdom, and love him into more divine and heavenly love, and he will then willingly come to thee!’”
