Familiar Truths

“The heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing…” – Acts 28:27

Familiarity with certain truths tend to lessen their impact in our lives. That was Israel’s problem. They heard the prophets and read the Scriptures, but their heart “waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing.” They heard it all, but did nothing about it.

Coleridge said: “Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true that they lose the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.”

Here lies a fearful threat to us all, that we take for granted the very things God never meant should become a matter of course, and because we know them so well and have heard them so often we assume that what is a fact in our heads is a force in our hearts. We pleasantly assent to a Gospel we ought powerfully to assert.

What great truth lies bed-ridden in the dormitory of your soul?