Tag Archives: mantra

Full hands and empty heads?

Ravi Zacharias mentions a guru whose mantra was “Your hands must be full and your head empty” (The Grand Weaver (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan: 2007: p. 124)).

But Christians come empty-handed to the Lord of life. “Nothing in my hand I bring // simply to thy cross I cling” sums it up perfectly. Full hands are a great hindrance to life and salvation. The Christian gospel is not about what we can do to reconcile ourselves to God, but what he has done to reconcile us to himself.
The guru’s mantra is totally wrong, not just on the need for full hands, but al on the love of empty-headedness. The Christian Gospel is not a mind-emptying message, but a mind-enhancing and hand filling one. We do not come to Christ with empty heads. The Christian Gospel has real content: that Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification.

If we do not have some understanding of our sinful condition and Christ’s sinless remedy, we will be unwilling or unable to accept it. We do not come with full heads, as if there is nothing more to it. We do come with the sufficient information the Bible gives us that we may be convinced that this is the truth of God. Thereafter, as we grow in the knowledge of God our heads will be filled constantly and more fully with him who is all in all. It will be our delight to be filled with him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

If the Christian Gospel had a mantra it might be empty hands and non-empty heads. Anything less will open us to deception, deception to believe we can save ourselves, and deception to believe any nonsense we come across.

Thank God for a Gospel that requires empty hands and non-empty heads.