Anytime we start to exchange external formalities for internal realities, then we are at the edge of the apostasy that Israel committed. When we begin to think that the sum of our Christian life can be measured by a bunch of routines that we follow—a bunch of places that we happen to end up at the right times. We do a certain number of things.I was just typing some editorial comments for this post about how it can be easy for those of us who hear statements like this to pay lip service of agreement because after all, my heart is right even if no one else's is. I'm God-centered. And I'm a biblicist. Well, just as I was typing, Doran said some very similar things in the last 5 or 10 minutes of the sermon.
The minute that we start to think that knowing God is actually a mechanical relationship, we begin to find our feet parked on slippery slope because we are halfway toward abandoning God because we no longer delight in the Lord. We no longer desire Him. So we really don't know him. Because you can't know the true and living God and not delight in him. You cannot know the true and living God and not have some kind of internal response which draws you to him. The fact is that it is already the mark of a heart grown cold that we don't rejoice in Him like that.
Everybody agrees with this. Some people actually understand is. Fewer still really live it.
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