If I Knew Then What I Know Now

I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:33-34*

Yesterday, as I was preparing a talk on addiction, it occurred to me how little I understood about the subject 10 years ago. Medical school provided little training on addiction and so I’ve had to learn about it on my own. As I was preparing this talk, I got to wondering if I had known back then what I know now, would it have made a difference? Would I have avoided addiction if I had understood it better?

It’s impossible to say, but my suspicion is that more knowledge would not have saved me. I knew that what I was doing was destructive. My appetite simply overruled what I knew to be right. I doubt that more truth would have changed that. Simply knowing the truth is not enough. If I want to live rightly, I must know the truth and I must choose to live in it.

Today’s passage is one of those profound truths, in which we must purposefully live. In the passage, God reminds us that we are his and that he is our God. If we have put our faith in Christ, we belong to him and nothing can take that away. We can have a two very different experiences today though if we live in that truth or if we follow our own way.

It is not enough to simply know or claim that we belong to God. I can know and claim a healthy diet while eating junk food. God has made me his child. Now, I must purposefully live like it.

I’m not dismissing the necessity of truth. When we are plagued by guilt and shame over our past, we must remind ourselves of the truth that God remembers our sin no more. Simply knowing that truth is not enough though. If we continue in our sin, we will continue to experience painful, practical consequences in this life. Knowledge alone is inadequate. If we want to experience the life, joy and peace of God, then we must choose to live out his truth every day.

*My first edition this morning came out without the Bible Verse. Sorry about that and thanks to all of you who notified me!