You Can Know Something Without Learning It
By Rick Warren
“You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself.” Daniel 5:22 (NLT)
God won’t teach you something new until you’ve put into practice what he’s already taught you.
He isn’t in the business of simply satisfying your curiosity. He tells you something and waits for you to act on it. Once you act on it, then you get to go to the next step.
You see, God wants you to apply the truth you’ve learned—and you haven’t learned something until you’ve done it.
It’s not enough for you to tell people you believe the Bible. You must do what the Bible teaches. If you don’t do what the Bible teaches, then you don’t really believe it.
That’s what we see in the story of Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. He lost everything because he didn’t put into practice what he’d already learned.
He pridefully refused to learn the lessons God had taught his grandfather—and his empire fell because of it.
The Bible records Daniel telling him, “You are his successor, O Belshazzar, and you knew all this, yet you have not humbled yourself” (Daniel 5:22 NLT).
Belshazzar saw Nebuchadnezzar literally lose his mind for about seven years because of pride. He saw all the mistakes his grandfather made. He saw his grandfather come back and correct those things. He saw the good and the bad in Nebuchadnezzar’s life, and he chose to ignore God. Belshazzar chose to ignore the lessons.
So, God took away his kingdom.
Belshazzar knew, but he didn’t learn. We need to understand the difference between knowing and learning. You can know a lot of things, but if you don’t act on them, you haven’t learned anything.
We don’t always need to know more. We already know enough! We need to put into practice what we know. Jesus said in John 13:17, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (NIV). The simplest definition of spiritual maturity is to be a doer of the Word.
So don’t just read God’s Word. Do what it says. God will support you as you step forward in faith, applying the things he’s taught you to do.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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