In the title (right above) I am not talking about the book of revelation, so much as I am referring to revelation that helps us mature in our faith. Paul says in Philippians 3:16: “Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.” Or in the NLT, “but we must hold on to the progress we have already made.” In other words, we are responsible for the revelation that has been given to us. At the same time that verse was rolling around in my spirit, I came across this quote: “the trouble with many of us (christians) is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.*”
I wonder if one of the real problems we have with spiritual maturity is the inability to deal with spiritual pressure. It’s not that we don’t want to mature in Christ, in theory. Perhaps it’s that we don’t want to be responsible for that next level of revelation. Paul says in Romans, that he would not have known sin if it were not for the law. (I imagine it sort of like the road runner and Wile E. Coyote. Wile E. Coyote runs off the cliff and hangs there, suspended in mid-air, for a moment. Then road runner hands him the book “laws of gravity”, Wile E. Coyote reads it, gets a revelation and then plummets to the ground below.) Perhaps, ignorance is bliss. I don’t think so, especially when ignorance takes the place of true spiritual maturity I strongly disagree.
Back to that quote about hard hearts and soft feet. We really should have hard feet, to assist us on our lengthy christian walk. And we should have soft hearts, also to assist us on our lengthy christian walk. Yet we have it backwards. We have tender feet which causes us to moan, whine and question God as to why we are walking. And we have hard hearts that make us insensitive to the voice of the Spirit and filled with selfishness. Let it not be so! Let’s take the road Paul took. Though it was filled with many struggles and triumphs, he was able to say this: I have fought the fight, finished the race and I have remained faithful.
Those three elements are all equal to this: a soft heart and hardened feet. My prayer today is that my heart would be sensitive to the still, small voice of God and that my weary, hardened feet would carry me on to my finish line. What’s your prayer?
*Quote by Jackie Pullinger, a missionary who spent more than 20 years in Hong Kong working with prostitutes, heroin addicts and gang members.
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