“Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,”

Without the address, chapter and verse, do you know in your heart what comes next?

Before you answer, ask yourselves if you are searching your memory or your heart.

“for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” is the verse that follows.

Faith is not an exercise of the mind but rather a condition of the heart. 

The great commandment is to love God with all your heart first. The soul and the mind follow. God, being a God of order, places great emphasis on the condition of the heart.

John 12:40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”

Hebrews 3:15 As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Rebellion is such a harsh accusation and should be taken seriously. In order to see why that word is used we need to look and see what happened back then.

Psalm 95:8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

In Numbers 20 the people complained, “And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” So God told Moses to take his staff and speak to the rock to bring them water. Moses disobeyed God and struck the rock for a second time, a symbol of crucifying Christ afresh. For this rebellion against God Moses was denied entry into the Promise Land and died in the wilderness.

Before we judge Moses’ rebellion as justification for rejection of the resurrection, remember that Moses met Jesus in eternity on the Mount of Transfiguration.

A hardened heart blocks promises. It has not yielded itself to God by faith.

2 Timothy 1:14 By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

We have many ways of looking at this relationship we have with God and we label them in ways that make us feel good about our God. We are children of God, we are co-heirs with Christ, we are disciples, co-workers, and especially His Bride.

This morning as I began my studies I was struck with this notion that I do not think about often.

He has invested in us. That deposit is God in the third person, the Holy Spirit.

In business terms we think of investments as being monetary with the investor having an expectation of returns on that investment. The value needs to increase to prove that the investment was a sound decision. If the stock drops, investors will dump the stock.

It is a good thing this isn’t a business arrangement. God invested in us with the promise to never dump us.

• John 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
  John 17:11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

In giving of Himself, He has made us one with Him, and this sovereign God who created all things, would not have invested in us just to lose Himself.

When it comes to guarding the deposit, there is an effort on our part to be aware and keep an eye on that deposit and see to it that the investment gains value in being used according to the will of God who valued us enough to invest in us in the first place.

Given that He is God in the third person and that He has the power to enact the will of the Father and tells us all things the Son has said, then the first thing we can do for God the Father is to be aware of the Holy Spirit. The second thing we can do is to cooperate with Him in whatever endeavor He is doing.

The third thing is to praise God, who with all wisdom, never makes mistakes in His investments.