The Heart of Faith?

Discussion Question # at the end of Chapter 2 in the book, From Here …By Faith

What’s the difference between intellectual belief and faith the way it seems the Bible talks about it?   

Jesus answered a question from a lawyer. The question was.’What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind.’ Matt 22:37

I know many Christians who love the Lord wonderfully with all their mind. I know few who love Him with all their heart and soul.

What’s the difference between intellectual love and love from/with the heart?

Which do you think is better?

Do you think knowing a lot about the Bible and God is valuable?

Do you think knowing God with your heart and should is important?

Think about a time when you knew somebody as a friend or even a spouse. What did you know aobu them? Maybe you knew where they lived or how well they did in school. Maybe you knew their relatives. Was this the most important part of relatioinship? Or, was there something else?

Look at this note, clipped for the book From Here …By Faith

Philip asked Christ to ‘show us the Father…’. As he asked that question he let on that he didn’t really know Christ. For Philip to understand what Christ was saying (that He was going tot he Father) without a need to ask a flippant question, he would have to know and believe Christ in his heart. The heart has the capacity to understand the indescribable, unfathomable love of God that the mind or intellect does not have. Even though he had spent all that time with Jesus, Philip did not know Him in this way, in his heart. By this point in time, after walking with Christ for years, Peter did. James and John did. Probably Luke did, too. The stories of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection seem to indicate that Philip and Thomas weren’t there yet. Thomas even had the audacity to stick his fingers in Christ’s wounds after the resurrection. Thomas and Philip seem to have been satisfied believing in Christ with only their minds. The problem Christ exposed is simple: Intellectual belief will fail you when something greater is required for you to make it through a difficult time.   

Let me encourage you to pursue all the intellectual knowledge of the Lord you can. And the let me encourage you to ask Him how to know Him and love Him with all your heart and soul!

We have works to do and we’re going to need faith to do them!