Needing a Little Yada!

Ah, a new year. Welcome to 2006! Did you create any New Year's resolutions? I already thought about the New Year's resolutions I would aspire towards this year, and which ones I would inevitably break...hopefully making it through at least the first day.

But there's one I pray God will help me keep this year. I resolve, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that I will experience Christ to a greater extent this year. I'm not talking about mere feelings or emotions, but the essence of the Hebrew word yada. To review from our study in James, yada means both knowing and doing--experiential knowledge. This is a revolutionary thought. After all, our culture has ingrained in us that knowing is doing. How many times do you walk away from a sermon, feel convicted, but never really do anything about it? Is your life transformed by the Gospel, or is all that head knowledge merely accumulating like dust mites in the attic? Conviction alone is not sufficient, and knowledge without action is useless, or as James puts it, "faith apart from works is dead" (James 2:26b). Don't let society fool you into thinking that knowledge alone is power. Knowledge put to use for the glory of God is power!

So get a little yada into your life this year. I know it's what I'm craving.