I Confess!

To all who are angry, hurt, and confused about Jesus and His Church,

I’m a pastor, a guy, a father, a husband, a friend, a person, an American…and a jerk. I have a confession to make: I don’t love people like Jesus did, and like I should as a follower of Jesus. I say I love Jesus, but I haven’t loved you. I’m so terribly ashamed. I don’t expect you to just be happy now, but I have to get this right, with you and with God. I repent. And seek your forgiveness.

To those of you who want to have nothing to do with Jesus, and as well, to those would like to understand more about His life and His purpose, but have not asked, and have now lost interest because of the mess the Church has made the last 2000 years, I apologize for me and mine.

You may not choose to follow Jesus Christ or call Him Lord. You may have no official connection to a church. You may not even know why you’re reading this. You may have no interest at all in Jesus. You may even hate Him. That’s Ok. That could be partly because of “us” so please hear me: I apologize to you for a Church that seems as if she could care less whether you meet the Savior of the world or not. I apologize for a Church that seems not to care if you go to the heaven we preach or the hell we avoid. Sometimes we act like we’d like you to go to hell. We should be ashamed. I am. And I apologize.

I apologize for our self-centeredness and wrong-focus. We’ve told you to obey the commandments of God without the God within to show you the way and to empower you. We’ve tried to make you sing our horribly outdated music, and told you that yours sucked because it was about your life. Or worse, told you it was from Hell. And then we copied some of it and made lots of money! What greed and short-sightedness! I apologize.

When you visited us we’ve told you to give money for our grand building programs, when people in our cities were starving. We’ve tried to make you listen to long and boring sermons, as if you even knew what the Hell we were talking about! We’ve tried to make you throw away your records, your CDs, your movies, and your friends – all as if in doing these things you would be pleasing to Jesus – while all the while teaching that God is not a God to be appeased by our human effort! “For by grace we our saved...” Which is true, but we have none it seems. What hypocrisy. We have sinned against God and against you. Please forgive us.

I apologize for our two-faces. When you’re addicted we call it alcoholism, drug abuse, or substance abuse. When we overindulge, we call it recovery, or a minor set-back, or worse: liberty. For this I apologize. We’ve placed more importance on our comfort than on your eternity, and on our prosperity, than on your need for love and kindness and deliverance from the things you hate, but can’t deny for some reason. We’ve excluded you from our lives and from our fellowship and from our activities because we’ve not wanted to soil ourselves. We have been wrong – dead wrong. And I apologize for me and my family, for me and my church, and for me and my ancestors in the Church. We were wrong, very wrong, and we repent.

My Jesus would have never treated you like this. He would have eaten with you, sat and talked with you, even skipped church to hang with you. He would have loved your simple attempts to be human. He would have come to your Superbowl parties and your birthday parties and your graduation ceremonies. He would have wept at your pain, touched your hurts, been patient with your habits, eaten at your tables. He would have loved you so much that you would have loved Him in return, I know you would have. But now you’re confused and mad. I understand. I’m afraid we – the Church – have painted a very poor resemblance to the real Jesus. I’m so sorry for our wrong portrayal of our Master. I repent to Him and apologize to you.

You see, I’ve forgotten that people touch the heart of Jesus. Whatever touches the heart of Jesus should get my attention and prompt me to action. His passion is to be my passion. His mission is to be my mission. And He loves people – all shapes and sizes, all colors and languages. With His help, I will clean up my act. I will love you. I hope you can see the real Jesus in me someday soon.

Very Sincerely,


Ashamed

Change what?...Why?

I have previously confessed that I am a 100% Jesus freak. I worship Him as LORD, and endeavor to follow Him as Master. I also believe that the Bible is authoritative as the Word of the LORD; and therefore, my basis for authority in life and work. (I know! I’m horribly out of touch and old fashioned!) BUT … this doesn’t mean that I believe or act like my Master calls me to act. I am inconsistent and fail often – daily! However, I refuse to let my failure, whether it comes from bad habits, bad behavior, or bad attitudes cause me to give up on the truth I have chosen to follow. I at least want to remain consistent over the long-haul of life. I choose to blame my inconsistency on ME, rather than that the God I serve has not the power to reign me in when I’m being an inconsistent, inconsiderate jerk! It means I have chosen to exercise my freedom of choice and be an inconsiderate jerk! 

 

I often fail to love people who don’t fit in my little window of appropriate, or relevant, or cool. I get pissed quickly at people who don’t put their shopping carts back at Fred Meyer! And especially irritated at the stupid people who cross the street anywhere and anytime they want to and force traffic to stop. They just saunter by, flipping us off with their eyes, if not for real - as if they have the right to make you and I choose not to run their sorry hide over! I want to roll down my window and yell, “Use the freakin’ cross-walk, idiot! That’s what it’s for! Or I’ll use my front bumper on your sorry butt ‘cuz that’s what it’s for!” 

 

Yet, all the while, I allow myself not to forgive! I allow myself to lust, to engage in greedy, selfish behavior, to lash out in anger over something petty, or to ignore someone who just needs a compassionate greeting, or a kind act to help them get in line at a busy intersection. I sometimes allow myself the supposed right to be impatient at someone I deem undeserving of such forbearance. 

 

Why all this confession? Am I guilt ridden? No, not particularly - now at least! And no, I don’t think organized (or disorganized!) religion has helped the world by blowing the horn of “moralism” in the face of people who need Jesus! But that’s not what this is about. Today, I simply want to take my place in the crowd of humanity stained and drained by rebellion towards God. I want to get in line for some wisdom about how to continue the journey of faith that was long ago begun with more zeal and less wisdom and experience. As 2007 begins I need change, or to continue the process of change with more focus and effort. 

 

Whether you believe in making resolutions at the beginning of a new year or not, it’s an important part of anyone’s human maturity to pick times to evaluate life - how we are living it - how we must change - how we must hold on what is good and forsake our unhealthy, self-destructive, hurtful and morally wrong patterns of behavior, as we head speedily towards the ultimate finish line? I just want to start with myself and focus on myself. That’s a good change for all of us!

The resurgence of talk about resolutions every New Year convinces me that Blaise Pascal said way back in the 16th century was correct: that even people without God, have a vacuum shaped like God within them: “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” Pascal and many others like him have long encouraged us to admit the failure, corruption and emptiness of life, and to let God be THE source, to let God be the substance, so that we can live a long life if possible, and more importantly, a full life.

 

So, I am asking myself a few questions all over again: If no such ‘Pascalian vacuum’ why do I desire to change? Why do I even think about it? Why should I make an effort to change certain behaviors and drag certain habits to the recycle bin? So what if my behavior hurts other people – even the one’s I love? Why is it so terribly hard to change obvious patterns and behaviors? Where can I get wisdom to know how to change? Is there any time when we will have to give an account for our lives? Or, are we sentient beings who have no ultimate sentient source of origin to whom we must face one day? Does anyone doubt that life is short, unpredictable and difficult? Does anyone know the moment they will take their last breath? 

 

My response is that we desire to change because imbedded within us, is the desire to progress. It comes from our Creator-God, who will always give us the power to change, when we chose to - when we see that the paths we’ve chosen haven’t been working for us, and for those we love. That being said, we must go to that Creator-God for the wisdom needed to make change and make it stick. 

We Preach Christ and Sometimes Invite Bono?

"A Communion service driven by the music of singer Bono and his U2 bandmates is catching on at Episcopal churches across the country" claims a recent article on this little movement. (follow link for entire article: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2006-10-25-u2-churches_x.htm). Our church band has employed U2 music in our worship services for several years now, but leave it to the Episcopals of New York to make it stick! I personally think the U2-charist’ movement, as it's being called, may turn out to be a very cool way to help people connect the reality God and His love to their mundane lives all over again.

 

As we say, "nothing changes unless something changes." Something in the Church has to change, especially the Church in America that has become so issue focused we’ve lost sight of Jesus we say we preach. We need something to cause us to again breathe the fresh air of celebration, focused on God rather than the stifled and stuffy air of everything normal. Maybe a change like this will help some who’ve grown "deaf and numb" in their particular worship circles to pay attention once again? One may think it strange to consider adapting U2 music for use in a worship setting, or even heretical for some reading this. I think change is good if more people consider the activity if their Creator in their lives, or hear the Good News with new ears, as a result. In fact, I think it’s a freakin’ stroke of genius, if not a direct act of the Spirit of God! The risk, of course, is in that Bono and the Edge have become Swami, and Side-kick for many of us music freaks. So, we can easily think we’re worshipping God when we’re simply getting into the emotional river with a very charismatic leader. Caution! We are challenged by Jesus in the Scripture to be Jesus freaks foremost. Remember, that "thou shalt have no other gods before me" thing?  

 

However, we should also remember that God is still after individuals and calling them to a personal relationship with Himself, and that worship is the blessing of reaching up to the One who reached to His wayward creation first. He did this in humble condescension, by jumping into a flesh-suit and suffering the distance from His Father that we will never experience. He ran to us first. His affection demonstrated by the birth, life and death of Jesus, the Son, causes a response in people with a pulse. We celebrate this condescension at Christmas time, if we don’t miss it by the helter-skelter shopping pace in which most engage beginning the last Friday of November!

 

This is really nothing new. Much of our conservative hymnody was the result of someone putting words about God that people could understand, with the music of popular - bar room tunes - known to those who needed Jesus. Martin Luther’s famous "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" (German, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott for you purists!) is one example. Written for the masses in a popular tune, it was first tolerated with much trepidation from the Church’s deeply rooted religionists, but has since been called "The Battle Hymn of the Reformation!" Can’t you just see people swinging their mugs of German Barley-pop to a paraphrase of Psalm 46? I'm gonna be there! 

 

Maybe God is rewarding the sincerity of those worshipping Him, combined with some very suitable words that direct hearts to YAHWEH again? Maybe the "change is gonna do me good" thing really does work? Whatever the outcome may be, let's not be so myopic as to think that God may not use something outside of a largely dead church to reform Her again! After all, He IS God. And He’s done it before. For those of you who simply can’t be convinced that the lines of worship should be drawn by content, rather than by musical style, and that worship music can emerge from somewhere outside of a stoic church, I'm just going to repeat what a well-know pastor once said to a large audience after they heard that he had prepared a cigar dinner for his leadership staff after they had reached a particular goal: “lighten up!”  In love of course . . .  P/Rod

Careless Speech -- Different Gospel!

The evangelical church has worked very hard on our political agenda. Instead of preaching Jesus, we tell everyone that they can only find Him, have Him and receive His love if they adopt our brand of cultural re-coding. Sometimes our "message" comes across politically, like a fundamentalist right-wing "religioneer." The end result will be Constantine-like: just "herd the poor heathen Geeks into Lake Washington and pronounce them baptized, then we can create an army to go beat the crap out of the rest of the heathens." Only this time, the "heathen geeks" are wiser. When we make a show of arms that looks political, they now know how to beat us in that battle field. Maybe some of us are secretly thinking we can get some good exposure for Christ from a secular media. Are you kidding? They will slaughter you! That's their playground.

 

We deserve some criticism if we push a moral, social, or cultural agenda and not preach Christ and Him crucified. We claim to be the Church, but beat on those who need Jesus! Instead of presenting Jesus foremost, we seem bent to present what we claim to be His calling to the pure life, before the people to whom we preach even have the means to obey Him! When people with influence, again like many we read about in current blog traffic, forget that it's not just what we say, but how we say it, and in what order -- we lose the battle. I'm sad. 

 

Historian Lord Acton (1834-1902) issued epic warnings that political power is the most serious threat to liberty: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Now ironically, it seems that in our context we're beginning to see that those in power without accountability, will render threat to our religious liberty because of a false gospel preached to the masses. 

 

If the world hates me, I want them to hate me because I smell like Jesus, talk like Jesus, live like Jesus, and love like Jesus. Not because I'm yelling out in self-righteousness that they need to get their crap together then God will/might love them, and only then if they adopt my version of women, Church leadership, and male authority. I can respect a man for his opinions, but I don’t have to appreciate how he expresses them. Careless speech renders truth unheard. God’s people beware! I’m convicted. 

Permission for Un-Cautious Speech?

Leadership is a precarious position. We should pray hard for men and women who have been given a huge field of influence. Whatever they say "can and will be used against them" in the world-wide court of law. There are many current examples, just check out the current blogosphere. Power tends to grant permission for un-cautious speech. And power unchecked in the Church often fosters a gospel that holds the unbelieving world accountable to act like Christ, without knowing the presence of Christ. That is a false gospel. 

 

I know some of these church leaders. I respect them for their calling and their influence. I love these leaders in Christ. And as a pastor I understand their tension, their temptations, their pressure and the expectations their responsibilities place upon them. Pray! Many of them are excellent communicators. Some of them are skilled culturalists and most of them have a natural gift of leadership. But I believe we should always take issue with anyone who tries to sell a gospel that appears dangerously close to a political and moral agenda. 

This is not to criticize one pastor or another, there is enough disunity, but rather to clarify the Gospel and the climate many leaders are unwittingly (hopefully) building for themselves. While the Gospel of Jesus Christ does have clear ramifications for life change under His management -- the true Gospel IS “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15). It is NOT the “change-‘em-on-the-outside-and-the-inside-will-soon-follow” version that some pastors seem bent on peddling to their masses. Preaching a moral or socio-cultural agenda rather than Christ is a dangerous step toward writing our own gospel. Certainly there are strong and clear, moral imperatives in the Gospels and in Paul's writings. Even Old Testament prophets foretold that God would one day give us new hearts and write His Name upon them. There can be no life change without a heart change. Preach anything else and we introduce yet another cause for the unbelieving world to hate the Church for the wrong reason.  

 

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:6-9)

 

The Church must repent for making our mission a social, political, and even moral one. Without "Christ in [them] the hope of Glory," the people He gave His life to forgive and reconcile have no hope to successfully follow any of our moral code, our social gospel, or our 3-step cultural clean-up plan. This is not the Gospel Jesus preached nor called people to receive. 

 

Jesus did not give His life to affect a social and political agenda. Even His early disciples had false expectations in this area. Many of us still want Him to come and set up His kingdom on our planet. And we're going to help Him out by condemning the sinners He came to save! We're going to help him by "baptizing" those heathens in our version of morality, and pronounce them justified if they adopt our version of the Bible’s family plan. But Jesus' kingdom is not of this world! It is as if we keep telling Him He's got it wrong. "Oh, Lord, are You sure? Look at all the earthly press we could get for You! You could maximize Your potential and minimize conflict if You would just set up government here!" Maybe we're more honest if we just admit that we want a following for ourselves. When this is our purpose, we do not know the God-Man. We have no idea of His power and authority. He doesn't need our opinion to run His universe. He doesn't need us to assist Him in building a sin-free society. Every time we've tried, we got it way wrong. Jesus hasn't called us to preach anything other than His message. We've preached our own for far too long.  

 

To be sure, Jesus calls us to help alleviate some of the pain and suffering in our world when and where we can, but again, He did not give His life for a more clean and fresh world. He did not give His life for a moral agenda. He did not give His life to clean up Geek City by pushing the gospel of "change the outside first and the inside will follow." He gave His life to save sinners who repent! When the Church re-engineers the gospel, she not only fails at her mission, but also becomes quickly irrelevant and impotent. We have nothing to say if we are not preaching Christ! And when we preach lifestyle first, many will never hear the real Jesus.

Moral Bigotry?

Often the people who have the hardest time repenting are those who’ve already repented! Christians sometimes act like because they’ve confessed Christ, they have no more repenting to do. That kind of “it’s all good, we’re gonna win” mentality is nothing but hypocrisy and it’s killing our witness of the real Jesus. For example: those who call themselves Christians and yet follow and push a moral code instead, should repent for claiming to be followers of Christ but following another code of ethics or system of morality! Jesus certainly preached morality, but the purpose behind His preaching was so that His hearers would meet His Father first! Jesus was concerned about the poor, but His agenda was to save men and women from eternal fire, not just earthly discomfort. Jesus was concerned about right living to be sure, but preached an alignment with the Father in a relationship that would empower obedience. Jesus’ plan for cultural change was to invest in people so that they came to know Him. Not first to force a form of righteousness upon them hoping that it would somehow result in an inner faith conviction about His Lordship. 

 

Others, maybe most professed Christians myself included, need to repent of moral bigotry – discriminating against people who have no conviction about our biblical morality, but are yet held to it by the Church. In the last fifty years much of our evangelical zeal is sickeningly similar to that of Emperor Constantine, who force-baptized the heathen hoards by driving them into water and then calling them Christians! Are we not comparably guilty when we, the Church of Jesus Christ, attempt to force people into our morality when they don’t even have the Spirit’s power or illumination to disobey their sinful nature yet? I say YES!

 

Many of us have spent our Christian lives building up steam against those who don’t follow Jesus’ moral imperatives, forgetting that unless one is part of the Kingdom of God by faith in Jesus Christ, there is no kingdom power available to enact life-change. Only Jesus is the power behind Jesus’ call to life-change! Do we not notice that though the world hates our churches they are still interested in discussing our God? Hmm… I wonder if we’re missing it? Maybe this is because we’ve become practicing Religioneers, in effect, telling Jesus how His Church is supposed to be. We’re preaching a different gospel than Jesus or Paul when we tell the world they must pass our tests of morality and culture before meeting our God. Now that is sin! 

 

The Apostle Paul faced a similar situation in first century Corinth (nothing new under the sun, eh?). His response was very simple for them, and for us, if we have ears to hear: “…we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor 1:23-24)

 

Again, I repent.

Different Gospel?

 

The Church seems full of what I call “religioneers.” Religioneers attempt to re-engineer Church to fit their agenda and promote their idea of how to operate in the mainstream. These attempts to make the church powerful and palatable are quite simply pitiful. Jesus was ticked off at those who were religious but void of the true message of God, not the people stranded outside of life with God who didn’t know any better than to follow the current leadership. 

 

In our religious culture it seems now implied that a Christian is quite literally anyone that’s nice once in awhile, lives in America, or at least the Western Hemisphere, goes to some church when there isn’t a child’s soccer game to attend, hasn’t murdered anyone or stolen anything big - or at least hasn’t gotten caught yet. That’s bad enough, but here’s what really sucks: when we, the Church, imply that to be a Christian one must be aligned with a political ideology! Shame on us! This is an example of the work of Religioneers: to make up man-centered systems of appearing to be aligned with God’s kingdom. If you’re in this category, you should repent! Jesus said, “my kingdom is NOT of this world.” So why the heck are we trying to re-engineer this world instead of preaching the one to come? 

 

We attempt to create systems and organizations that exalt ourselves instead of movements about Christ, that exalt Christ. We’ve attempted to force those ‘sinners’ to repent from ungodliness without even knowing the God to whom they are to repent! Maybe we are the ones who must first repent! I think so. I love the story told by Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz about the true Christian attitude that lead some college students to set up a confession booth on Reid College campus. Then when the party animals came by to see what was really going on, their little booth became a reverse confessional! The Church began confessing to the world for our religioneering of the gospel which has produced some horrid aberrations of the teachings of Jesus Christ in years past. I Repent!

More on Repentance

Why is repentance so hard for us humans? Pride. Admitting we are wrong presupposes that there is a Someone who is over us and above us, and is therefore able to define right and wrong; a Someone to whom we must give account. The fact that people will not or cannot repent may be due to a person’s refusal to give account to anyone.

Repentance is first a change of mind towards God and a turning away from incorrect thinking about God that lead us to sin. Wayne Grudem defines repentance as “a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.” Paul Tautges wrote, “Repentance is not a human work but the gracious work of the Holy Spirit preparing sinners’ approach to a Holy God on His terms, rather than their own.” And therein we find the problem: our attempts to approach God on our terms rather than His. We hate it when the One Someone tells us the terms of relationship and says we have to humble ourselves and submit to those terms. That’s pride. We all struggle with it, and we need to repent.

According to the Bible, “all have sinned and fall short of His glory.” (Romans 3:32) God tells us our relationship with Him was broken by rebellion. To fix the relationship requires a sacrifice – a perfect One. He provided the solution we must accept to receive forgiveness and eternal life – one that only He could provide in Jesus Christ His Son. Thus, true Christianity - biblical Christianity - begins by receiving God’s initiative rescue plan, and making a heart decision to follow Jesus on HIS terms. It is not some patched together attempt that sort of lumps all religions together thus making their own! Religion like this sells a god we can reach on our own terms - patching some spiritual ideas together presenting it all before God as righteousness, and expecting Him to accept us on our terms.

And before we get all self-righteous, Christian, all too often this describes us and the churches we attend! Far too much of this religion has made its way into our churches and out the front doors into the culture of America, taking forms that damage the true cause of Christ Jesus, which is to glorify God by saving sinners. Some examples of these forms of religion are our political agendas, our moral agendas, and yes, even some of our social programs. Here’s the deal: attempting to proliferate our version of cultural engineering without “Christ in [them] the hope of glory” is just empty religion and it hurts the cause of the true gospel! From this we should repent. (To be continued …)

Reformation: Tearing to Heal

Of greatest importance is what God desires to do in our hearts today and how we respond to His urgings and convictions by the Spirit and through the Word. Eugene Peterson said, “the Bible is interested not so much in whether we believe in God (it is assumed most people do) but in our response to Him.”

I’ve been urged by God through a series of events going back several months now, to look more closely at the concept of repentance. The Bible’s story is of a God so passionate about creating that He made the heavens and the earth. He is so passionate about community, having experienced its perfection in the Fellowship of Three from the unbeginning-forever-eternity-past, that He created people in His image. And He is so passionate about holiness that He sent Jesus Christ to bring to Himself a people of faith that have been made holy in order to be included in that eternal fellowship.

To begin and finalize this relationship, God spoke in the language of Jesus (Heb 1:2a) and initiated the supreme sacrifice. Therefore, every story, sign, wonder, miracle, battle, sacrifice, symbol and prophecy in the Scripture culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God’s Son and our Savior, who is the exact representation of God Himself – God in the Flesh, come to rescue sinners by providing forgiveness of sin.

To receive this gift of salvation and enter that eternal fellowship, we must repent: change our mind about God – go from unbelief to belief about His Son and receive Him as Savior and Lord. That initial repentance is of supreme importance and gains the repentant entrance into God’s Forever-Family.

As Peter preached to the crowds at Pentecost, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before,...” (Acts 3:19-21)

And it doesn’t stop there. We are urged to a life of repentance throughout Scripture. As the red arrow of redemption runs through every book of the Bible, so the concept of repentance is sewn into all of God’s urgings to His people in both covenants. In fact, putting the biblical material together we find that a life of repentance and confession defines authentic faith in God through Jesus Christ His Son.

Before I go any further, as one of our pastors said recently, “The atonement of Christ and the forgiveness that act provided gave entrance into the Kingdom of God for all who believe and take Jesus as Master and Savior. If you never confessed one more sin as long as you lived, you’d still go to heaven.” That’s really how complete the work of Christ is for His followers! BUT . . . (there are some really big but’s in the Bible and this is one of the biggies!) the issue at risk without a life of repentance and confession is the awesome fellowship with Jesus that results in maturity, service, obedience, and reward making our lives purposeful, and our eventual and literal wedding in heaven so exciting to anticipate!

Repentance is a change of mind towards God and a turning away from disobedience.

Repentance is not a popular term, and has been subtly morphed, as one author put it, to penance. However, the Bible presents Jesus as Propitiator of sin (the turning away of God’s wrath by a perfect offering; Romans 3:24-25; I John 4:10) and the once-for-all sacrifice (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12:10:10) needed to provide once-for-all access to God the Father. No amount of human sacrifice could ever make up for one drop of the Savior’s blood shed to procure this final necessity.

Instead, we shy away from this concept of true repentance relegating it to the category of past irrelevant rituals that have no bearing on us in the 21st century. We include it in the same grouping as “turn or burn sermons” and “Hell-fire-and-brimstone” preachers whom we’re supposed to believe were intending to literally scare the Hell out of sinners. (Have you ever really had the Hell scared out of you?)

So why, the hell, is repentance so hard? Exactly! The world, the flesh, and the Devil (Hell) make it hard to repent – but also prove the necessity of living a life of repentance. Repentance is serious and important business to God. We’ll talk it through the next few blog entries. I’ll discuss what I’m learning about the incredible act of mercy along my journey, demonstrated again and again as God urges his people towards repentance.

Soundness of Heart

As I wrote to my oldest son this week, on training assignment with the U.S. Air Force, I began thinking about the importance of the heart and encouraging him to guard that important "organ." Of course, I was not referring to the blood-pumping organ that feeds the body with blood so necessary, but the center of the person – the core of being for the human-being. I’ve already confessed to being a certified, though imperfect, Jesus freak, so though you may disagree with my Source for this discussion, at least I want to remain consistent with the Authority I attempt to follow. 

 

My son is facing some adversity, which one might imagine is easily found in an organization like any branch of the military. Not that it’s a bad organization, but because of its purpose and its complexity – and because it includes other human beings who are familiar with neither the dangers of an untamed heart, nor the power of a sound one. It takes wisdom to navigate life even when you do have a few right answers! And wisdom works in the human heart. So, I encouraged my son to "do your work heartily as to the Lord." (Col. 3:17) I explained that outwardly he must demonstrate respect to his superiors and obey them. But in doing so, it is really God to whom he defers and whom he obeys. This is a matter of the heart, not luck, nor mere self-discipline. The Bible teaches that life is lived for good or for ill, from the condition of the heart. So, I said, "This is my encouragement for you in this season Son, 'Guard your heart . . .'"

 

I have nothing to say about this on my own, but the Bible speaks of the heart literally hundreds of times. So I’m just going to skip a stone over the vastness of its instruction in order to true my own compass again and invite you to eavesdrop. Though we live in the body, we live from the heart. For example, Proverbs 3:5 says not to trust our own heart, but to trust the Lord with all our heart: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." That's a fine bucket of fish now that I've been raised in an age where I'm deluged with tripe like "follow your heart" which has the sound of spirituality but has no power to make me avoid foolishness. Instead, the Bible teaches that my heart by itself, leads me to selfishness and self-centeredness. No, it's not because I'm a necessarily bad person (though left to my own desires I am) but because I'm spiritually dead without Jesus! By the way, Jesus didn't come to make us good! He came to give us life by believing on His Name! 

 

The Bible teaches that the heart is the source of the things that come out of us. This is why the wiseman of Proverbs tells us to store up wisdom in the heart: "Let your heart retain my words; Keep my commands, and live . . ." (Prov. 4:4). This is also why we're exhorted to soundness of heart, because the heart is the source of all that flows from my motives, lips and actions. "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life." (Prov 4:23). So it really isn't what we drink, eat or wear; where we go, where we've been, or where we're going, that makes us good or bad. What matters is the condition of our heart. What comes out of us is the overflow of the heart. To test this theory, just measure what comes into your mind or out of your mouth the next time someone runs a red light and crosses your right-of way! If only my windshield could talk . . .

 

In light of the human condition, God's word exhorts us to soundness of heart. "A sound heart is life to the body . . ." says Proverbs14:30. Men and women grow in wisdom and understanding by cultivating a sound heart before the Lord. "Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, but what is in the heart of fools is made known." (Prov 14:33)

 

Jesus condenses the Old Testament wisdom when He says, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man." (Matt 15:18-20) Later, Paul the Apostle taught that a heart restored to God by Christ Jesus would begin to live from sincerity of heart in submission to God, even in the face of harsh treatment (Ephesians 6:6-8).

 

Here's how I finished my letter:

 

So, my loving encouragement to you is to guard your heart these days my son. There are many enemies arrayed against a young man with your potential. And thank God that though we sin, we walk in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and He is our Advocate: "...if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins..." (1 John 2:1-2). (To propitiate means to make right with by payment, to appease and conciliate by payment of a debt.) Remember: Jesus became our sacrifice, and He IS our righteousness. If this were not the case I'd have given up long ago. And the way to soundness of heart is to spend loads of time with Jesus:  

 

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:37-39)

 

Stay the course. Work hard. Live one day at a time. And enjoy the rewards of integrity, the satisfaction of the adventure, and the blessing of being in the center of God's will. 

 

Love,

 

Dad