Uncategorized

These books will focus you in some way upon having a right heart before God.  Some will sing to your heart.  Some will explain the heart.  Some will challenge it.

a Kempis, Thomas.  The Imitation of Christ. 

My favorite devotional book.  This book warms the heart for God.

Brother Lawrence.  The Practice of the Presence of God. 

Lawrence was a 17^th century monk who wrote about continual prayer with God.  A series of conversations and letters.

Carmichael, Amy.  Toward Jerusalem. 

This book is a collection of Carmichael’s poetry.  If you are not good at reading poetry, you will find this a tough read.  If you like poetry, try it.  She writes poems about God.

Edwards, Jonathan.  Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections. 

This book is a harder read.  Edwards was writing in the 1700s, but this is thorough, insightful, and extremely influential on later Christian thought concerning the heart.

Piper, John.  Desiring God.    

This has become a contemporary classic.  Very readable.

Tozer, A.W.  “Worship:  The Missing Jewel.”

A pamphlet that puts worship front and center, where it is supposed to be.

Tozer, A.W.  The Pursuit of God. 

Tozer constantly points the heart to its God.  Read everything you can by Tozer.

Over the past months, we have discussed different aspects of a right heart:  peace, joy, humility, submission to authority, confidence in God, the fear of God, simplicity, and  more.  Because each discussion focuses on only one characteristic, we might think that these characteristics are somehow separated from each other as the stripes on a zebra are.  Such thinking would be a mistake.  The heart is a holistic thing. Its attitudes are the sounds of a symphony. They do not exist in isolation but interact together to create a concerto of the soul. Consequently, one of the best ways to tell a genuine heart is to listen to the whole symphony and not just to the cellos.

Satan can counterfeit godly attitudes. He can give false humility, false passion, false joy, false peace. Jonathan Edwards spoke of these counterfeits and said that one of the best ways to tell a godly affection from a phony affection is to see if it has a healthy balance with respect to the other affections.

False confidence often has little humility. Stu’s confidence in God becomes cockiness, and Stu has no brokenness over his own sin. He is too “confident” to be broken. Amanda has a great fear of God but little hope. Her fear dominates and squashes out other godly attitudes. Stacy, on the other hand, has great feelings of hope but no real fear of God or sorrow for her sin. She has grabbed the attitude she likes and conveniently left the more difficult ones aside. Dan has strong feelings of “love” for God, but he has little submission to the authority of Scripture. He does not understand that we show our love through our obedience (Jn 14:15). The confidence, fear, hope, and love expressed in these people is likely false.

In all of these cases, we see the genuineness of a heart attitude by looking at the other attitudes. When God grabs hold of a heart, He grabs the whole thing. He will mix confidence with humility in the same person. He will give hope and fear together. He will give a passion for purity and a love for Himself simultaneously. Satan is not capable of so thorough a counterfeit.

Having said all this, we must, however, leave room for sin. A right heart is holistic, but it still represents a fallen human being. An honest follower of Jesus still struggles with many of these attitudes. He does not always enjoy God. She still worries about her kids. He wrestles with his pride. She sometimes seems narrow minded. All of these failures are real life, and a right heart need not play perfect music.

In addition, the follower of Jesus develops as he matures, much as the faces on Mount Rushmore or the paintings on the Sistine Chapel slowly took shape. God takes decades to chisel away our pride and add the touches of joy.

The right heart is always on a journey to something higher. When you encounter a hiker in the mountains, you can tell whether she is going up or down by the direction she is walking in. You may find her at 2,000 feet or at 12,000 feet, but her intention is revealed not by her elevation but by her direction. You may find that she has tripped and fallen over a log or that she has scuffed up her knees against the rocks, but if she has gotten back up and is walking to higher ground, you know something about her.

Now the fact of the matter is that people with counterfeit attitudes are not generally interested in walking to higher ground. They cannot see past the attitude that dominates their lives and are often stuck in a dangerous gulch.

The following letter was originally posted on Jul 2, 2015.

My Dear International Friends:

I have gotten to know many of you over the years and am grateful to God that I know you.  Your presence in my life has greatly enriched it.   As you know, this past week the U.S. Supreme Court declared that people of the same sex may legally marry.  This decision will reverberate across American culture and eventually affect your cultures as well.  America exports more than just grain and goods.

I want to talk briefly about this decision and do so from a Biblical perspective.   I know that many of you have told me that America is a Christian nation.  You may be wondering, then, how a Christian nation can justify an idea like homosexual marriage.  Others of you may think that since America is a Christian nation, this decision shows that the Bible approves of homosexual relations.  After all, these “Christians” approved it.

Please, my friends, do not confuse American culture with Christianity.  I have said to many of you in the past that America is not a Christian nation, and perhaps this recent Supreme Court ruling will put to rest forever the notion that American culture and Christianity walk hand in hand.

I do not have time here to discuss the many Biblical texts that deal with homosexuality or with marriage.  Forgive me for not fleshing those out here.  Maybe that is another blog for another day.  Suffice it to say that the Bible in the clearest of terms commands God’s people to love, respect, and show kindness and grace to homosexual people, for such people are created in the image of God.  The Bible also, in the clearest of terms, condemns homosexuality as sin and defines marriage as the one flesh union of a man and a woman.  From a Biblical perspective, the idea of a gay marriage makes as much sense as a square circle.  The United States may now call such a relationship a marriage.  God does not.

The mantra you keep hearing in the media is that “Love Wins.”  But the “love” that won has nothing to do with Biblical love.  Biblical love “does not rejoice in evil” (I Cor 13:6).  Biblical love obeys God’s commandments (Jn 14:15).  Biblical love is not focused on personal gratification but on the glory of God.  Make no mistake.  The “love” that won has been divorced from righteousness, which means that it is no love at all.  Please do not confuse the language of love with the love of Christianity.  They are different things.  The love of God cares about holiness and obeys what God says.

In addition, if you have been listening to the narrative that the media has been feeding the public, you know that the culture repeatedly accuses us Christians of hatred and bigotry.  You know us.  You are intelligent enough to see that the accusation is nonsense, but it does show that the Christian side is not the only side that sees a great divide between American culture and Christianity.  Here in America, the culture at large acknowledges this as well.

Therefore, I ask you again, please do not confuse American culture with Christianity.  My concern in emphasizing this distinction is to preserve in your minds the purity of Christ.  I do not mean that you can truly sully Him.  Christ is holy, and nothing you and I do or think will ever change that.  But just because Christ is holy does not mean we see Him as such.  I want us to see reality.  But when we confuse American culture with Christianity, we tarnish Christ.  When we start to wonder if Christianity approves of things the Bible clearly condemns, we are on spiritually dangerous ground.  Please do not go there.

In saying these things, I do not deny the historical contributions Christianity has made to American culture.  Just as a good teacher impacts her students, so has Christianity impacted this nation.  But the students have grown up and gone their own way, and they now oppose their teacher without knowing truly how much they owe her.  And the teacher sees what has happened and weeps.

Sincerity is a wonderful thing.  But sincerity by itself is empty. All sincere people are always sincere about something. I have seen Mormons who were sincere about their Mormonism and communists who were sincere about their communism. I have seen sincere environmentalists blow up ships and sincere Muslims blow up buildings. Many Republicans and Democrats are sincere about their politics, but their sincerity causes them to push for opposing policies.  For all I know, Hitler himself was quite sincere about Nazism.

This should challenge the rabidly popular notion that sincerity is what makes a heart right. You’ve heard the idea. “It doesn’t matter what Sarah believes so long as she is sincere.” This idea is not from God. A right heart is more than sincere. A right heart is sincere about the right things. It has a right focus. A right heart never has its focus on any of the many good things in life. Instead it is focused on the one great thing. A right heart does not focus on pleasure or family, academics or business, world peace or a clean environment. Its passion is Christ. A right heart may enjoy marital sex, a family and an education, and it may take steps toward alleviating poverty or cleaning the environment, but these things never become the soul’s trump card.

God is a jealous God. He demands that He be center stage in our hearts. When we pursue our business more than we pursue Him, we are like a wife who pursues a handsome coworker more than she pursues her own husband. She is free to work with the coworker and to be friendly toward him, but she crosses the line when she begins to give him her heart. Only one man has the right to that privilege.

Too many sincere people are like that woman. God made the soul in such a way that He alone must be its Husband, but instead we give the central place in our hearts to things like jobs, pleasure, money, fame, and power. Many of us understand that these pursuits easily damage the heart when they become its main focus.  What we rarely see, however, is that feeding the hungry and raising a family equally damage the heart by becoming its main focus. The ultimate purpose of a human being is not to feed the hungry or raise a family.

Many sincere people are in love with the church or with ministry more than they are in love with God.  Many sincere people have given central place in their hearts and lives to helping the poor or pursuing social justice. Many sincere people worship true doctrine more than they worship the true God. These sincere people are committing spiritual adultery against their God, and their lives will never be what God means them to be as long as their own desires or their good cause dominates their life.

Jesus is Lord. He reigns. We are not our own. We are bought at a price. Jesus will not have substitute lords as His rival. A right heart understands this and cries out for the grace of God to make it happen.

Open the eyes of my heart to see that You, O God, are the source of all good things and fill me with gratitude for Your kindness.

The heart that sees God sees that we owe everything to Him.  The heart that sees God sees that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights (Jas 1:17).  The heart that sees God is constantly grateful.  It is grateful for simple things like a cup of tea.  It is grateful for weightier things like children, which are a gift from God (Ps 127:3).  It is grateful for spiritual things like redemption and joy.  It is grateful because it sees.

The heart without gratitude withers away.  It fails to see the source of our blessings.  In fact, it often fails to see the blessings as blessings.  It takes for granted the fact that we have food and clothes and friends and work.  But the heart that sees God knows that we have no right to any of these things.  It knows that our home and food are a gift.  It sees in every good thing the grace and kindness of God.

We have such a good God.  A grateful heart simply sees that fact and responds in the   most natural way.   When we show gratitude, we have joy.  Grateful people are joyful people.  Ingrates are not.  If we pay no attention to what God has done for us, we live in our own fantasy world, and whatever “happiness” we construct for ourselves is merely the product of our fantasy.  But the real world of God and His grace is so much richer and deeper than any of our self-centered fantasies.  It produces real, lasting, deep happiness, and gratitude is the heartfelt response to that reality.  Thank you, God, for the riches of Your kindness.

A walk in the woods with the snow falling.

A hot cup of coffee and a chat with a friend.

Diving under the blankets when the wind howls.

A warm sun.

A laughing baby.

A hearty bowl of stew.

These pleasures are all brought to you by God.

Mothers and fathers and children and families.

The tulips in April and the fiery hillside in October.

The watermelon and the raspberry.

Green grass and blue sky.

The starfish and the mountain ram.

These gifts are all brought to you by God.

Laughter. Sight.

Rain. Fresh air.

A mind. A purpose.

These wonders are all brought to you by God.

Peace for your soul.

Forgiveness for your sins.

Love from the heart.

Freedom from condemnation.

These marvels are all brought to you by God.

Father, grant me a heart that is pure and simple and devoted to you, and I shall be content.

The University of Texas is a sophisticated world.  Professors, thinkers, influencers, media.  Indeed, the University of Texas is quite proud of its sophistication.  But God is not necessarily looking for sophisticated people.

God wants a simple heart in His people.   A simple heart trusts God as a child does.  It laughs as a child does.  It rejoices in simple pleasures and is free.  Praise you, God, for the sunrise this morning!

A simple heart is content.  It does not require that we get accepted to the school we want or that we get our article published in the right journal.  It is happy in God.  Praise you, God, for giving us yourself!

A simple heart is focused.  It knows that ultimately only one thing matters, and it does not get distracted by a thousand different activities.  The schedule may be full, but the heart is still.  Praise you, God, for quiet on the inside!

A simple heart sees God.  It sees because it is pure, and the pure in heart see God. (Mt 5:8)  It is not cluttered but clean.  Earth has a way of cluttering our affections, but God has a way of clearing out the clutter.  Praise you, God, for making us clean!

Sometimes we are too sophisticated for God.  Sometimes we are like the teenage girl who thinks she knows what her parents don’t and consequently never listens.  She is too smart to listen.  A simple heart is never too smart to listen.  It allows us to know God.  That is why I have seen three-year-old children who knew more of God than Phd scholars at the University of Texas.    We learn God by trusting Him, not by studying subtleties.  It really is simple.

Father, may I trust you as a three-year-old would.

No one can experience God unless he has faith.  Faith believes what is unseen, and without faith it is not possible to please God (Heb 11:1, 6).  This is basic.  Faith deals with our beliefs, and since it deals with our beliefs, one may think that it does not belong in a discussion about the heart.  But faith is first and foremost a matter of the heart.  “If you … believe in your heart that God raised [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9).

Faith does have an intellectual element to it, but the intellectual part has no meaning without the heart.  Many people honor God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him (Mt 15:8).  They say the right things; they may believe the right things in their heads, but they have no heart for God.

Sometimes you hear people criticize the idea of faith because it makes a big deal out of the beliefs a person holds.  “Who cares what your beliefs are?” they may say.  “What really matters is the life you live.”  To such people, someone who lives a “good life” without the beliefs is better than someone full of hatred with the beliefs.  The criticism might be worth exploring if faith actually implied such a situation.  In reality, however, the criticism shows merely that the critic does not understand faith.

Faith does entail beliefs.  But those beliefs must be rooted in the heart.  If you argue for the doctrine of God but never entrust yourself to your Heavenly Father, then you have no faith.  What good will it do you to nod your head to a set of beliefs if you never give your life to them?  When Jesus touches hearts, He changes people’s lives.  Until someone believes from the heart, he is not a follower of Jesus, for Jesus demands the allegiance, the love, and the submission of the heart.  This is crucial.  The heart translates belief into life.  Unless the heart gets hold of a belief, the belief remains dead.

Faith from the heart means that the believer lives as if his beliefs are true.  Indeed, this is what a believer truly is.  If people do not live in accordance with what they say they believe, then the normal word we use to describe them is “hypocrites.”  Hypocrites are not followers of Jesus.  They are pretenders.

The heart of faith is simple.  It is the heart of a child.  It trusts in what God has said.  It stands firm upon God’s Word.  Faith tells us that we are forgiven through the shed blood of Christ even when we may feel guilty for lashing out at a friend.  Faith tells us that God is on our side even when we lie sick in bed.  Faith tells us that God will complete His work in us even when we see so much sin in our own lives.  Faith brings hope because it reveals the glory that God’s people shall one day see and share.  Faith brings love because it is itself a warm embrace of the love of God.  Faith produces peace because it rests in the righteousness that God has provided.  Faith leads to joy because it sees the pit out of which God has rescued us.  Faith brings gratitude to God.  Faith produces freedom in the Spirit.  Faith helps us wait with patience.  Faith simply trusts God.

Faith is so simple that a three-year-old can have it, but it entails so thorough a claim upon our hearts that most adults don’t want it.  They would rather have something less pure and call it faith.  Faith turns a person inside out because faith is how we see God, and God turns people inside out.  For this reason, faith is dangerous.

Faith is practical.  It involves real life situations like “will we have enough money to pay the rent this month?” or “will we ever be able to have a baby?”  Faith sees something bigger and more important than the rent or a baby and fits those cares into a proper perspective.  It also sees a great Father who provides our every need.  It can thus rest not in the job or the doctor, both of which are fleeting, but in the goodness of God Almighty, who never wavers.

All of these things, and so much more, get at the heart, and without the heart, faith does not exist.

Praise you, Father, for you are incomprehensible.  You are God.

God once asked me to start a church.  The church closed.  As I sought God after the church had closed, He gave me a very clear sense that, yes, He really had called me to do that.  In other words, He had called me to fail, or at least it looked that way.  And why not?  God called the King of Kings to die.  If that is how God operates, He is not going to be easy to predict.

An agnostic man once told me that he would like to test scientifically whether God exists and acts in history.

“And how would you do that?” I asked.

“Oh, I would take a sample of people who believed in God and a sample of people who didn’t, and if God is real and acts in history, then the people who believe should be healthier.”

I gave him a look.

“You don’t think it would work?” he asked

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what if God can get to a man’s soul by making his body sick?  To God, that would be a good trade, and He would do it in a minute.”

The agnostic was thinking superficially, as people are custom to thinking, but God looks deeper than we do.  God refused to remove Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”  God said that His grace was sufficient.  The thorn forced Paul to rely on God, and that reliance was evidently worth the thorn.  God says that He makes His strength perfect through weakness.  He says that we gain our lives by losing them.  He says that the first will be last.

God does not operate as we do.  He constantly astounds us, thus, forcing us to approach Him with an open mind.  He will close a church to build a man or let cancer spread to gain our trust.  To us, this all sounds crazy, but it is how God works, and we must let God be God.

Unfortunately, however, many of us will not let God be God.  Often we have our preconceived notions, and we will not allow God to surprise us.  We, thus, miss God.  At Pentecost the Holy Spirit came.  The disciples had been told this would happen, and they had been waiting for it, praying for it, and expecting it.  Yet when it happened, none of them had ever dreamed that it would manifest itself the way it did.  God gave them the very thing they were expecting, and it still surprised them.  That’s God.  Too many followers of Jesus have their spiritual routines set and will not allow God to do something fresh and new.  Too many churches have their programs going so efficiently that they have neither room in their minds nor time in their schedules for God to show up.  If God ever did show up, one wonders whether they would recognize it.  Their minds are too narrow.

A narrow mind is a heart problem, and an open mind is not the child of the mind.  This is true of agnostics as well as church people.  When Bart Ehrman dismisses the Resurrection of Jesus because, well, resurrections don’t happen, his argument is simply a closed mind.  It may be the best argument he can give, but it is still a closed mind. His world is confined in a cramped closet, and anything outside that closet simply cannot be. Such people are not open to the possibility that perhaps God could surprise them, and their narrow mind is the product of the heart, not of the intellect.

But church people sometimes display similar narrowness.  Some have no room in their theology for God to heal the sick or raise the dead today.  Some are so stuck in running their church like a business that God becomes the great CEO in the sky, and He certainly would not operate outside accepted business principles, which they would call wisdom.  They incorporate marketing, programming, research, technology, and fiscal policy, all of which can certainly be helpful. But none of these things is what makes the church the church.  When God operates, He does so through His Spirit, and the Spirit doesn’t generally follow the market trends.  Sometimes the minds of church people are so fixed on how to do church that they won’t let God work.  This is a narrow mind, and it is the product of the heart.

Perhaps we want God to be safe and simple so that we can fit Him into our brains, or perhaps we fear uncertainty.  Whatever it is, God still insists on being God.  He is far bigger and wilder than we would like Him to be.  His ways are not our ways, and we must learn to live with that.  A mind open to God comes from a right heart, a heart humble enough to admit that God is bigger than we, a heart willing to let God surprise us.  For if God never surprises us, we have a small God, a small heart, and a small mind.