PE8: Get Your Heart Back: The Composite Words of a Beloved and Noble Few
Greetings, friends...
Today, we're gong to talk about the heart. If the words I share in this podcast sound a lot like those of Howard Thurman, or, say, John Eldredge in Waking the Dead, or Michael Thompson in The Heart of a Warrior, you would be right. These precious Jesus-followers, along with several others--including Dan Stone, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, Rainer Maria Wilke, and Hannah Whitall Smith--have profoundly shaped my thinking in all these things.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons once said, “The glory of God is [humankind] fully alive.” Many of the institutionalized messages of the visible, institutionalized, and legalistic church (little “c”) have, unfortunately, communicated almost the exact opposite: “The glory of God,” it (as opposed to She) has taught, “is God using someone who’s barely making it… God using someone who’s barely alive.” But the messages don’t end there. The “encouragement” (unfortunately) continues (and does so along even more indicting story lines): “Your heart, dear sinner (spoken rather pejoratively, patronizingly, paternalistically, and, if you can believe it, even gleefully at times), ‘is, above all things, deceitful and desperately wicked.' Above and before anything else—even in your redeemed state—you are a sinner and basically bad… just a lowly worm of a human being. There’s nothing good in you. There never has been; and, in this life, there never will be. In and of yourself, you are ‘worthy’ of nothing. Sinner, your overarching goal in life is to pursue ‘obedience to God’ by ‘managing the sin in your life.’ Unfortunately, though, because you’re bad, you’ll never really succeed at this. But… you must never give up in your efforts. For it will be those efforts—and those efforts alone—that will position you to be ‘used by God as His very broken, yet anointed servant’ and, thus, distinguish yourself from the unredeemed heathen on planet Earth.”
This all sounds right, though, doesn’t? Sort of? Maybe?
Also--and this needs to be emphasized--GOD NEVER “USES” ANYONE. Have you ever been “used” by someone? How did THAT make you feel? God doesn’t use people. He partners with them--through loving friendship, shared values, shared vocational-mission, and a shared heartsong and lifesong. He works with them and alongside them; and He uniquely manifests Himself and His glory for, in, with, through, and (mysteriously) as them.
AS THEM!!
Let that all sink in for a moment…
How, in Heaven (and on Earth!), will it bring God glory for His imagers, His ambassadors, His “warriors”--in fact, His beloved sons and daughters--to be left mired in their desolated states of being so badly marred, broken, and enslaved? So inglorious? I'm sorry, friends, but God is NOT glorified when we refuse to work out and walk in the glory He's shared with us. By "glory," I mean the weightiness of His abundant life being expressed in and through us. Your "glory" is the unique way in which you bear God's Divine image.
But… if you want the former--and, beloved of God, I hope you do!--partner with Jesus in this work. Make this YOUR NUMBER ONE MISSION. I promise you this: Once you have your heart back--then and only then--you’ll be able to help others get theirs back, too. And it will fire in you a never-ending, ever-expanding desire for others to experience what you yourself are experiencing. The truth is, you cannot give to another what you yourself do not possess already, and you cannot lead another to a place to which you yourself have never gone. In all this, you can be and become a partner--a co-laborer--with Jesus in H-his mission to rescue hearts and extend H-his Kingdom. And what a glorious mission it is!
---
One evening, a while back, I asked my lady-friend, Julie, the following question: “Why is it when you add a cockroach to a bowl of cherries the cockroach ruins all the cherries, but when you add a cherry to a bowl of cockroaches the cherry does nothing to (or for) the cockroaches?”
I got a strange look, as well as an “I-can’t-help-it” chuckle, but no answer to my question.
I posted these conversational elements on Facebook, and a friend of mine commented: “Sounds like a thought-line on holiness” he wrote.
I commented back: “Actually, now that I think about it, I think it’s a description of the human heart (a bowl of cherries) and what happens when sin (a cockroach) is introduced. Jesus came to take away the cockroach and to redeem, heal, and restore (and more!) the bowl of cherries. He didn’t, as some might imply, come to give a cherry to a bowl of cockroaches.”
My friends (and I'm going to parrot a little Thomas Merton here), I believe "Jesus offers us true and lasting freedom, true and lasting liberation--not a “theoretical liberation,” meaning, not some nebulous kind of abstract liberation that really just gives H-him (through our freewill surrender to H-him) the right and freedom to exercise dominion over us." To every person, Jesus offers the chance for that one to get his (or her) heart back… to have his bowl of clean, ripe, and tasty cherries back, completely freed--ultimately--of the devastating affects of the cockroaches of sin, death, restlessness, orphanism, alienation, and widowhood. In giving us back our hearts (our life-dominion), Jesus' Kingly Dominion is rightly reconciled, reestablished, and expanded. This, my friend, is H-his continuing vocational-mission, and it’s accomplished through the progressive rescue of one heart at a time. Will you, in faith, receive these truths? Live into this hope? And then join Jesus and those of us partnered with Him in this never-ending, ever-expanding faith-mission?
--
Pr 4:23 reads as follows (Note: This is a command from God.): “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”?
The church has, unfortunately, maligned the human heart to the point where the heart has become completely discounted and, rather than honored and protected, treated more as something to be chastised, beaten down, and even tossed out with the garbage.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons once said, “The glory of God is [humankind] fully alive.” Many of the institutionalized messages of the visible, institutionalized, and legalistic church (little “c”) have, unfortunately, communicated almost the exact opposite: “The glory of God,” it (as opposed to She) has taught, “is God using someone who’s barely making it… God using someone who’s barely alive.” But the messages don’t end there. The “encouragement” (unfortunately) continues (and does so along even more indicting story lines): “Your heart, dear sinner (spoken rather pejoratively, patronizingly, paternalistically, and, if you can believe it, even gleefully at times), ‘is, above all things, deceitful and desperately wicked.' Above and before anything else—even in your redeemed state—you are a sinner and basically bad… just a lowly worm of a human being. There’s nothing good in you. There never has been; and, in this life, there never will be. In and of yourself, you are ‘worthy’ of nothing. Sinner, your overarching goal in life is to pursue ‘obedience to God’ by ‘managing the sin in your life.’ Unfortunately, though, because you’re bad, you’ll never really succeed at this. But… you must never give up in your efforts. For it will be those efforts—and those efforts alone—that will position you to be ‘used by God as His very broken, yet anointed servant’ and, thus, distinguish yourself from the unredeemed heathen on planet Earth.”
This all sounds right, though, doesn’t? Sort of? Maybe?
Isn’t this what a lot of us have been steeped in for most of our church-lives? It's what I was steeped in--especially in western evangelicalism.
What I parroted really only “sounds right” because it conforms to what we, in an inertial sense, are used to hearing.
But it’s not right. None of it is!
Beloved, the church teachings I just repeated are grievously false. All of them! (As an aside, the most common rendering of Je 17:9, which reads, "The heart of each human being is, above all things, deceitful and desperately wicked," is a poor rendering of that verse. More on that at another time!)
But it’s not right. None of it is!
Beloved, the church teachings I just repeated are grievously false. All of them! (As an aside, the most common rendering of Je 17:9, which reads, "The heart of each human being is, above all things, deceitful and desperately wicked," is a poor rendering of that verse. More on that at another time!)
Again, these teachings on the human heart are false. All of them.
I’m sorry, but Jesus does not invite us to live like Him, in His Way of Love, without first giving us the equipment (a good, noble, loving, and life-engaged, heart) to do so. Let me tell you for a moment about my heart. My heart is good, not evil. It is, as Jesus has spoken directly to me, the Eden of My Soul, in which H-he--the Tree of Life--lives and thrives. My heart is also The Repatriated Oasis and Missional-beachhead of Immanuel’s Indwelling Presence for, in, with, through, and (mysteriously) as me.
If, as you say theologically, “God cannot live in the presence of evil,” how then does the Spirit of Christ live within your heart if your heart is evil--that is, "deceitful and desperately wicked"? And, if your heart's wicked, why does God, in Pr 4:23, instruct each of us to “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”? Is God urging each one of us to, in some warped and malicious way, guard our “deceitful and desperately wicked” heart? Such a thing makes no sense to me.
Your heart, my friend, is good, noble, loving, and life-engaged. It is the Eden of Your Soul, in which Jesus—The Tree of Life—lives and thrives; in which the Father finds A Temple-mount and Living-oasis of Praise, Wisdom, and Ordained Strength; and in which the Spirit creates A Normandy-like Beachhead of Entrenched and Ever-expanding, Ever-Advancing, and Ever-pollinating Presence, Provision, Protection, Rescue, Rehabilitation, Development, and Missional-incursion. Yes, it is there in your heart where the Trinity dwells. And it is Jesus' desire to partner with you so as to make your entire being Eden again. The original intentions of Genesis and the Eden Germ-principle of Rulership have not changed. In fact, God’s intentions can be seen and experienced now in a far more Personal (that is, Person-IN-person) way.
You, my friend, are NOT worthless or unworthy. Far from it!
Your heart, my friend, is good, noble, loving, and life-engaged. It is the Eden of Your Soul, in which Jesus—The Tree of Life—lives and thrives; in which the Father finds A Temple-mount and Living-oasis of Praise, Wisdom, and Ordained Strength; and in which the Spirit creates A Normandy-like Beachhead of Entrenched and Ever-expanding, Ever-Advancing, and Ever-pollinating Presence, Provision, Protection, Rescue, Rehabilitation, Development, and Missional-incursion. Yes, it is there in your heart where the Trinity dwells. And it is Jesus' desire to partner with you so as to make your entire being Eden again. The original intentions of Genesis and the Eden Germ-principle of Rulership have not changed. In fact, God’s intentions can be seen and experienced now in a far more Personal (that is, Person-IN-person) way.
You, my friend, are NOT worthless or unworthy. Far from it!
Worthless: Lacking worth; of no value; low; despicable; destitute of worth; having no value, virtue, excellence, dignity, or the like; undeserving; valueless; vile; mean.
Unworthy: Insufficient in worth; underserving; lacking value or merit; worthless; not suiting or befitting.
What has eBay taught us? It’s taught us that the value of anything is what someone else is willing to pay to acquire it. So, I ask you: What did the Living God pay to win you back?
He paid for you with H-his Own Life.
Please say that with me: “God paid to ransom me back with H-his Own Life.” Please say that again! “God paid to ransom me back WITH HIS OWN LIFE.”
That, my friends, is how valuable you are… how valuable you were--even before your redemption... before you got "saved," as you or many might say.
He paid for you with H-his Own Life.
Please say that with me: “God paid to ransom me back with H-his Own Life.” Please say that again! “God paid to ransom me back WITH HIS OWN LIFE.”
That, my friends, is how valuable you are… how valuable you were--even before your redemption... before you got "saved," as you or many might say.
Also--and this needs to be emphasized--GOD NEVER “USES” ANYONE. Have you ever been “used” by someone? How did THAT make you feel? God doesn’t use people. He partners with them--through loving friendship, shared values, shared vocational-mission, and a shared heartsong and lifesong. He works with them and alongside them; and He uniquely manifests Himself and His glory for, in, with, through, and (mysteriously) as them.
AS THEM!!
Let that all sink in for a moment…
How, in Heaven (and on Earth!), will it bring God glory for His imagers, His ambassadors, His “warriors”--in fact, His beloved sons and daughters--to be left mired in their desolated states of being so badly marred, broken, and enslaved? So inglorious? I'm sorry, friends, but God is NOT glorified when we refuse to work out and walk in the glory He's shared with us. By "glory," I mean the weightiness of His abundant life being expressed in and through us. Your "glory" is the unique way in which you bear God's Divine image.
Again, God is NOT glorified in our "worm-that-I-am" thinking.
Such a condition of thought--that is, the notion that we're all just sinners first and foremost and that our sinfulness is the predominant condition of our lives (even above that of being God's redeemed offspring)--is exceedingly diabolical, would you not agree? I consider it downright evil that the heart has been so misunderstood--that you, my friend, have been so misunderstood--so maligned, so feared, and so outright dismissed--even by your own self and by those you love and care about. Nearly everyone around you is carrying a similar perspective and conglomerate of devastating (and errant) thoughts, feelings, and perceptions about who and what they are as well as who God is and how He feels about them. This, my friend, is what the enemy has wanted for you and worked so hard to inculcate within you and the whole of humanity from the very beginning. This has been the enemy's top-tier plan from day one. “Assault the heart,” Satan, the deceiver and accuser, says, “because if you can get the heart, you can--and will!--get everything else along with it (their alliance, their allegiance, their relationships, their influence, etc.).” To his legions, Satan urges (and, please note that I draw some of the these thoughts directly from John Eldredge), “Make them (that is, humanity) so busy, they ignore the heart. Wound them so deeply, they don’t want a heart. Twist their theology so grievously, they despise the heart. Take away their courage; destroy their creativity; and make intimacy with God impossible for them.”
Your heart, my friend, is the real estate over which a great and fierce war is being fought. Who's side are you on?
Your heart, my friend, is the real estate over which a great and fierce war is being fought. Who's side are you on?
Without your heart, you cannot have God. And the enemy knows it. And it is this devastating lack (your lack of heart) that they want for you and for all those you love and care about.
Without your heart—without the Eden of Your Soul—you cannot love or experience true and lasting love. Without your heart, you cannot have faith. Without your heart, you cannot find the work you were meant to do--that work that makes you come alive inside and out. In other words, without your heart, you cannot have life--life abundant and free--as Jesus promised.
Jesus came to give you your heart back. H-he came to soften-up the tread-upon parts (those parts that have been made hard, rough, crooked, and diseased through the traumatic tramplings-upon by the enemy). H-he came also to reconnect your heart--reconnect YOU--to H-his Own Life through a restored (that is, an “adopted, repatriated”) Blood-relatedness. H-he (that is, Jesus) came to make your heart Eden again.
In Jn 3:4b-6 (which illuminates Is 40:3-4), we read these words, which are often ascribed to John the Baptist:
He is (or will be)… a voice of one calling in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the LORD, and make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill shall made low. The crooked roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.”
The mission of John the Baptist was intended not just to prepare the way for Jesus but to physically represent, proclaim, and foretell the Personal ministry of God within the heart of each one of His sons and daughters. Jesus, our Big Brother, Closest Friend, and Fierce and Eternal Lover--the Carpenter, the Stone Cutter, the Latrine Digger--was (and still is) the Divine Artisan, the One who prepares the human heart to be and become the Trinity’s Eternal Oasis and Missional, Normandy-like, Beachhead. Jesus makes the heart straight again. He fills the valleys and makes low the ridges. That which is crooked, He makes straight again; and that which is hard and rough, He makes soft and smooth again. Jesus… makes the heart Eden again.
Jesus came to give you back your heart (see Ez 36:26) and to set you free (see Ga 5:1). Drawing again from John Eldredge, "Did Jesus keep H-his promise? Was the freedom from sin Jesus brought about for you a true liberation? Or was it something else? Something 'less' than that?" My friends, ask H-him, and search your soul for the answers to these questions. For these questions, my friend, are THE QUESTIONS OF QUESTIONS. Ask these things of Jesus, and then write down what H-he says. The answers you receive may astound you. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your first reactions sound a lot like what my friend Michael Thompson said to himself upon hearing John Eldredge illuminate such things, "Is this really true? This couldn’t possibly be true."
But these things are true, my friend--most assuredly. The Good News of what Jesus did for you is, to quote Andrew Wommack, almost too good to be true.
Almost, but not quite.
So, I ask you: Do you want to be free? Do you want to have your heart back--fully and completely? Or do you want to stay lost and confused in the disorienting aimlessness of your very present “worm-that-I-am” thinking? Lost in the never-ending feelings of enslavement and worthlessness? And mired in the muddied (and self-defeating) prospects that you’re evil, unworthy, and of no real and enduring good whatsoever?
If you want the latter, keep thinking the way you've been thinking, and keep doing the things you've been doing.
Without your heart—without the Eden of Your Soul—you cannot love or experience true and lasting love. Without your heart, you cannot have faith. Without your heart, you cannot find the work you were meant to do--that work that makes you come alive inside and out. In other words, without your heart, you cannot have life--life abundant and free--as Jesus promised.
Jesus came to give you your heart back. H-he came to soften-up the tread-upon parts (those parts that have been made hard, rough, crooked, and diseased through the traumatic tramplings-upon by the enemy). H-he came also to reconnect your heart--reconnect YOU--to H-his Own Life through a restored (that is, an “adopted, repatriated”) Blood-relatedness. H-he (that is, Jesus) came to make your heart Eden again.
In Jn 3:4b-6 (which illuminates Is 40:3-4), we read these words, which are often ascribed to John the Baptist:
He is (or will be)… a voice of one calling in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the LORD, and make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill shall made low. The crooked roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.”
The mission of John the Baptist was intended not just to prepare the way for Jesus but to physically represent, proclaim, and foretell the Personal ministry of God within the heart of each one of His sons and daughters. Jesus, our Big Brother, Closest Friend, and Fierce and Eternal Lover--the Carpenter, the Stone Cutter, the Latrine Digger--was (and still is) the Divine Artisan, the One who prepares the human heart to be and become the Trinity’s Eternal Oasis and Missional, Normandy-like, Beachhead. Jesus makes the heart straight again. He fills the valleys and makes low the ridges. That which is crooked, He makes straight again; and that which is hard and rough, He makes soft and smooth again. Jesus… makes the heart Eden again.
Jesus came to give you back your heart (see Ez 36:26) and to set you free (see Ga 5:1). Drawing again from John Eldredge, "Did Jesus keep H-his promise? Was the freedom from sin Jesus brought about for you a true liberation? Or was it something else? Something 'less' than that?" My friends, ask H-him, and search your soul for the answers to these questions. For these questions, my friend, are THE QUESTIONS OF QUESTIONS. Ask these things of Jesus, and then write down what H-he says. The answers you receive may astound you. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your first reactions sound a lot like what my friend Michael Thompson said to himself upon hearing John Eldredge illuminate such things, "Is this really true? This couldn’t possibly be true."
But these things are true, my friend--most assuredly. The Good News of what Jesus did for you is, to quote Andrew Wommack, almost too good to be true.
Almost, but not quite.
So, I ask you: Do you want to be free? Do you want to have your heart back--fully and completely? Or do you want to stay lost and confused in the disorienting aimlessness of your very present “worm-that-I-am” thinking? Lost in the never-ending feelings of enslavement and worthlessness? And mired in the muddied (and self-defeating) prospects that you’re evil, unworthy, and of no real and enduring good whatsoever?
If you want the latter, keep thinking the way you've been thinking, and keep doing the things you've been doing.
But… if you want the former--and, beloved of God, I hope you do!--partner with Jesus in this work. Make this YOUR NUMBER ONE MISSION. I promise you this: Once you have your heart back--then and only then--you’ll be able to help others get theirs back, too. And it will fire in you a never-ending, ever-expanding desire for others to experience what you yourself are experiencing. The truth is, you cannot give to another what you yourself do not possess already, and you cannot lead another to a place to which you yourself have never gone. In all this, you can be and become a partner--a co-laborer--with Jesus in H-his mission to rescue hearts and extend H-his Kingdom. And what a glorious mission it is!
---
One evening, a while back, I asked my lady-friend, Julie, the following question: “Why is it when you add a cockroach to a bowl of cherries the cockroach ruins all the cherries, but when you add a cherry to a bowl of cockroaches the cherry does nothing to (or for) the cockroaches?”
I got a strange look, as well as an “I-can’t-help-it” chuckle, but no answer to my question.
I posted these conversational elements on Facebook, and a friend of mine commented: “Sounds like a thought-line on holiness” he wrote.
I commented back: “Actually, now that I think about it, I think it’s a description of the human heart (a bowl of cherries) and what happens when sin (a cockroach) is introduced. Jesus came to take away the cockroach and to redeem, heal, and restore (and more!) the bowl of cherries. He didn’t, as some might imply, come to give a cherry to a bowl of cockroaches.”
My friends (and I'm going to parrot a little Thomas Merton here), I believe "Jesus offers us true and lasting freedom, true and lasting liberation--not a “theoretical liberation,” meaning, not some nebulous kind of abstract liberation that really just gives H-him (through our freewill surrender to H-him) the right and freedom to exercise dominion over us." To every person, Jesus offers the chance for that one to get his (or her) heart back… to have his bowl of clean, ripe, and tasty cherries back, completely freed--ultimately--of the devastating affects of the cockroaches of sin, death, restlessness, orphanism, alienation, and widowhood. In giving us back our hearts (our life-dominion), Jesus' Kingly Dominion is rightly reconciled, reestablished, and expanded. This, my friend, is H-his continuing vocational-mission, and it’s accomplished through the progressive rescue of one heart at a time. Will you, in faith, receive these truths? Live into this hope? And then join Jesus and those of us partnered with Him in this never-ending, ever-expanding faith-mission?
I hope you do.
--
Today's MRL Maxim: Your heart is the Eden of Your Soul, in which Jesus--the Tree of Life--lives and thrives.
--
Today's MRL Call-to-action: Ask Jesus the following line of questioning and then listen (with a pen and journal in hand) to what H-he says (and please, please, PLEASE... write down what H-he says to you--even if it makes you feel uncomfortable--ESPECIALLY if it makes you feel uncomfortable): "Jesus... Was the freedom from sin you brought about for me a true liberation? Or was it something else? Something 'less' than that?"
--
So... there you go, friends. Go, and think upon these things. Do the work, and BE revellious.
Until next time…
We (and that includes you and me!!)...
Are the few... the proud... THE REVELLIOUS.
Dave out…
_______
ABOUT DAVE
Beyond being an imager, lover, imitator, and follower of Jesus Christ, Dave Brown is nothing more than a contemplative artist of life in desperate need of His Master: The Triune God. His greatest desire is to experience loving and Divine intimacy with God Almighty (the Trinity). After that, it’s to walk before Them—in and with great holiness, humility, and revelliousness of heart—all the days of his life. To meet his needs, Dave works as an ecological engineer, inventor, writer, life- and business-coach, and personal trainer (in mixed martial arts, holistic life-discipline, and meditative prayer). If you’re interested in engaging with Dave in conversation or through personal one-on-one training in living revelliously, you can connect with him through MyRevelLife.com and The Revellious Podcast. If you’re interested in his engineering and inventiveness sides, please visit his other website here.
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