In the previous post, we affirmed that there is something more needed in the believer’s life than correct doctrine. We said that the Spiritual Heart (the new heart received at salvation) longs to engage God and others in ways to show a new passion for Him. It’s the Holy Spirit who guides and directs the believer, but it’s the heart that operates according to the passion for God. Both are necessary.

In this post, we are going to flip the coin to the other side (in case you didn’t know, many issues in the Bible are often two sides of the same coin). Just as correct doctrine cannot stand alone, neither can the passionate faith that often accompanies correct doctrine. Why is this so? Because while the believer has the Spiritual Heart, he also still has the flesh. The flesh can confuse us, causing sinful passions to appear godly, and vice versa. The flesh can cause illegitimate means of meeting an otherwise legitimate need to appear okay (and vice versa). We have to remember that, before salvation, our whole mind and body was programmed by the Sinful Heart that we had. Though it has been replaced with the Spiritual Heart, the flesh still lingers.

So, then, what is needed is biblically informed and Spirit-directed passion. We must not sacrifice truth for passion, just as we must not sacrifice passionate engagement for truth (though if one must be sacrificed, it is far better to stick with truth—truth guides, but passion consumes). We must engage Scripture and the Holy Spirit, asking the Spirit to illuminate the truth of Scripture even if if doesn’t jibe with our experience. We must allow the Spirit to help us decides what are Spirit-led urges and what are not, and then how best to engage those Spirit-led urges. To put it another way, the Lord wants us to step out of the boat in faith, but keep our soul anchored in His truth.

These posts are designed to draw us together in engagement. We must not be afraid to engage with others around us whose faith-lens looks slightly different than our own. We just might learn something. And so might they. In the end, we will be a step closer to seeing Jesus’ prayer answered: “May they be one just as You and I are one.”