It's a Heart Thing

1 Corinthians 8:1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

I like this reminder. One of my favorite thoughts about getting to know Jesus is taking the knowledge that we have in our heads and getting it into our hearts. Heart knowledge changes everything. This is one of those topics that can also be hard. We often want to convince people about Jesus by what we know. This rarely works. Sometimes people are interested in the factoids we can pull out, or the historical references beyond the Bible that show Jesus' existence.  These things are just what I called them, factoids. They might help change a mind, but they definitely won't do anything to the heart.  And the same holds true for all of the head knowledge we can use to answer questions about the Bible or God, it won't change a heart. Love is what changes people.  Think about how you feel when you know someone loves you. It makes everything okay. It changes your outlook. The same is true of the love of God, except that it is even more potent.  Love from others makes us happy and gives us something to look forward to. Love from God brings us deep joy and gives us hope in all things. We can know with our heads that we are going to Heaven when we die, but that won't make living easier. However, when we live with Christ in our hearts, "to live is Christ and to die is gain" becomes a reality. Get to know Jesus with your heart and see what happens!