Good Monday morning (8-30-10),

We are living in what has been called “the information age”. Information conduits constantly bombard our senses: television, computer, smart phones, books, magazines. I could watch Christian preaching and teaching 24 hours a day, all the while reading one study book after another, and regularly monitoring my Christian computer sources to see what’s happening in the blogosphere.

None of this would be considered wrong since all of it is centered around God’s Word. And yet, the Bible teaches that knowledge puffs us up. That makes sense because knowledge is all about acquisition. And acquisition, collecting things to possess them, is a self-centered activity. Whenever something is self-centered, pride is not far behind.

I can be puffed up thinking I am more spiritual because I have studied a particular writer. I can be puffed up because I’ve done so many more studies than someone else. I can consider myself closer to God because my library is filled with exalted commentaries.

As I study great moves of God I am in danger of thinking I know more than the guy in the denomination down the street.

Such thinking inevitably leads to judgment, criticism and condemnation.

Isaiah warned us to put away, thrust far from us, the pointing finger and wicked speaking (Isaiah 58:8-9) The promise for those who do so, who refrain from the ‘pointing finger’ of criticism and judgment, goes like this: “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I.”

Knowledge puffs up. Pride enters all that air-filled space. God resists the proud.

Being “puffed” up is not a good thing. It implies something filled with air, not solid, not strong or trustworthy. Consider a soufflé — always in danger of falling!

There is a rock solid foundation for our life. That rock solid foundation is Jesus: His ways and His character — His mind and His heart. No storm can wreck me once I am standing on that foundation. The winds can blow, the temperature can fluctuate, the waves can crash. But I’m standing on a solid rock that cannot be moved.

Knowledge may puff up, but love builds up. There is a marked difference between being puffed up with air and being built up into a solid structure with a deep and enduring foundation. Given the choice, we would all choose to be strong and permanent.

Unfortunately, many of us in the church have confused knowledge with wisdom. Knowledge is not a bad thing. But knowledge without love is empty and unsatisfying. The church in America, the land of round the clock information, is guilty of gathering knowledge like a possession. We are fat with unused information.

Love changes everything. Love challenges us to put our information to work. Love forces us out of the armchair onto the street to apply those prayer principles. Love takes us into the highways and byways to share what we have discovered.

God’s principle for growth and empowerment is for us to take what we know and apply it until that particular truth transforms us. His natural order is that, once knowledge has been applied to life through action, it changes us. Then we are ready for the next infusion: information, application, transformation…and so on until we are mature.

Growing in this way will never puff us up because it is solidity built upon solidity; balance added to rootedness. Remember — knowledge is not a bad thing. Knowledge, added to the strong foundation of love, becomes wisdom.

So before we consider getting yet another book on prayer, let’s begin practicing what we know. Let’s look for someone to pray with. Let’s spend more time on our knees rather than in another book.

I want to be built up, not puffed up. I want to be wise, transformed by what I have learned. I don’t want to be without foundation, filled with the emptiness and pain of pride. I want my light to break through like the dawn and my healing to quickly appear. I want righteousness to go before me and God’s glory to be my rear guard.

Love builds up!

“Mere knowledge causes people to be puffed up (to bear themselves loftily and be proud), but love (affection and goodwill and benevolence) edifies and builds up and encourages one to grow to his full stature.” (1 Corinthians 8:1, Amplified)

Laurie Gross