It seems that every Christmas, some specific theological nugget from a Christmas carol gets lodged in my teeth and I find myself chewing on it throughout the entire holiday season. Last year, it was about Jesus being the light of the world. I was thinking about that concept for weeks.

This year, the theme that has plagued my thoughts came from the carol "Angels from the Realms of Glory," by James Montgomery. The verse is this:

Sages leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar

Seek the great desire of nations, ye have seen His natal star

Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King.

We sang this early in December, and this verse really affected me. You see, I am a knowledge seeker; I love to study, I love to learn, and I love to engage with "sages." I am drawn to intelligent, articulate people like a moth to a flame. I love talking with people who use words I have to go look up, who sharpen me and help me to grow. 

I'm especially like this when it comes to theology. I love to read commentaries and listen to recordings of theology lectures (or academic sermons). I get completely jazzed up by deep, rich conversations about the nature of God and salvation and redemption. Some people are energized by sports or shopping, but I'm a theology buff. 

Perhaps that is why this line hit me so close to home. When we sang it, I had just spent some time with some impressive philosophers and theologians and authors, and I was feeling pretty impressed with myself and, more accurately, the company I was keeping. Then it suddenly dawned on me that God was not the least bit impressed by my new friends. As Thomas A Kempis  wrote in The Imitation of Christ:

What good does it to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a (wo)man holy and just, but a virtuious life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it. For what would it profit us to know the whole Bible by heart and the principles of all the philosophers if we live without grace and the love of God? ... all is vanit, except to love God and serve Him alone.

I have been haunted by the essence of this question: What good does it to know a lot about God, yet displease Him by the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart?

Do I feel contrite, or simply know how to define it and teach others about it?

Do I spend as much time living out my faith as I spend writing about it?

Jesus warned the religious scholars of his day, saying, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean." How often do I look spiritually beautiful on the outside, while struggling with faithlessness and lust and pride on the inside?

I need to address this every so often. There are no gross, obvious sins in my life. Most religious people would be pretty impressed by my behavior. I don't cheat or steal, I am very honest and forthcoming with people, I am no scheister.

But I see the depth of sin in my heart, and sometimes it terrifies me. Forget about the externals for a moment; my heart needs to be purged, cleansed and renewed. And while certainly there is a sense of the renewing of the mind through studying God's word, it is only when the words on the page become attitudes of the heart that a person is truly walking in faith.

And this is what I want. I want the words of my mouth and the attitudes of my heart to be pleasing to God.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but I am considering a list this year, thanks to a recent sermon I heard. Whether I end up making a list of resolutions or not, though, one thing is certain: I want to devote myself not only to gaining knowledge of scripture, but also to gaining understanding, in such a way that my life will become a living corroborator of what scripture teaches. In other words, I hope that people who do not think much of God will, upon spending time with me, feel curious and motivated to be more devoted to God.

I love to learn about God, but at the end of the day, it is not how much I know about God, but how I live out what I do know, that matters. So, in response to how this song has been on my mind, I am "leaving my contemplations" a bit more right now, in order to simply apply myself to the worship of God. This is all that matters in the end. 

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me."

That's it, when it comes down to brass tacks. "I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Love, life, light and grace for all humankind.