Jill Jarrell Newsome
Move It 18 Inches
I remember someone sharing with me after a spiritual retreat weekend what they had learned. They said they had always known, growing up in an evangelical church, that if they believed that Jesus was their Lord and Savior that they would go to Heaven. He said, but now I believe it and I feel so free. This person was so ecstatic. Someone had told them that weekend that they just had to move that thought 18 inches - from their head to their heart.
This person had “head knowledge” of God and His Word without it going into “heart knowledge.” Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Even though the head and the heart are only eighteen inches apart, most of us spend much of our lives trying to make a connection from what we say we believe in our heads and what we actually believe in our hearts. The Word is taken into our mind first where we learn to understand and believe. When we believe the Word we are reading it moves into our heart. I love how someone said the Word then "mingles with your spirit, to become one with you. This is feeding on the Word."
Proverbs 3: 5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding..." How do we do this? We have to commit to daily prayer, reading the Bible and attending weekly worship. Matthew 4: 4, "Jesus answered, 'It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"
Dr. David Jeremiah said, "The Bible has to saturate our personalities. The Holy Spirit wants to convert the words of Scripture into transformed personalities. Head knowledge without heart knowledge is worse than useless; but when head and heart join forces, it changes our lives forever."
"Not facts in the head but truth in the heart. Can't just read the Bible but we must seek Him. "