HEART MATTERS

“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.”  Galatians 6:1

When I first came to faith in Christ, it didn’t take long for the Lord to strategically place a dear sister in Christ in my life to help me begin my journey.  He must have known (of course He did know) I would require some stern rebuking because one of the first believers He brought into my life didn’t play!  Joslyn and I attended college together.  We were both Marketing majors so we took many of the same classes.  Our friendship began when we began meeting to study together.  Since I was a new believer in Christ I was immediately drawn to this strong, bold, and uncompromising Christian young woman.  I knew our meeting wasn’t happenstance and I was determined to soak up everything I could from her.  I listened to her words, watched how she interacted with others, and took a lot of my questions regarding my new found faith to her.  I looked to her to see what this new life in Christ should look like and she didn’t disappoint!  She was (and still is) on fire for the Lord! Joslyn had a powerful testimony which she readily shared.  She didn’t take her salvation for granted and her day was full of praises for the Lord Jesus! She had a “no holds bar” approach to life and so she had no problem confronting and correcting a “sister in Christ” if she felt the situation called for it.  Although I was the oldest, she definitely was my big sister in the Lord.

She embraced me and patiently made herself available to me.  But she also didn’t mind giving me a stern rebuke from time to time.  I can still remember the one that stung me the most.

Continue reading Accountability? Absolutely! →

HEART MATTERS 

“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things, ” Proverbs 2:10-12

If you knew of a special place that had unlimited resources from which anyone could draw from and experience the most incredible blessings ever, would you share that information with others?  If this was a place in which the outcast, the forsaken, the poor, the struggling and deprived could find the answer to all of their problems would you tell them about it? If it offered the very key to life even to those who because of their material wealth and success blindly believed their lives were already prosperous, would you readily reveal the location of such a place to them?  If such a place existed, one in which the resources it offered were never depleted, would you hesitate to urge everyone you knew and loved to run to it to partake of it immediately?  I don’t think so!

Such is the conundrum many new believers find themselves in when they come to faith in Christ.  When we come to faith in Christ it’s like a whole new world unfolds right before our eyes.  As the Truth penetrates our hearts and the scales fall from our eyes all of sudden we are keenly aware that we have been made privy to the most incredible news ever known to mankind!  The temporal converges with the eternal as the mortal is introduced to immortality. We now know the Gospel truth!  Immediately we have been changed and we are new creations in Christ Jesus (2nd Corinth 5:17).  Now the Holy Spirit indwells us! Now we sincerely desire to read and study the Word of God.  Now we can’t wait to share this marvelous truth with absolutely everyone we know and love!

Although the place I mentioned above doesn’t actually exist here on earth something even better has been made available to all the inhabitants of the earth.   Continue reading Discreet But Not Desensitized →

HEART MATTERS

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”  Galatians 5:1

I once heard a  pastor say “all other religions say “do” but Christianity is the only one that says “done”.”  So true!  Jesus cried out on the cross “it is finished!” And so there is nothing we need to “do” to be saved.  Praise God!  We don’t need to adhere to a long list of do’s and don’ts.  We don’t need to try our best to be good or strive for perfection.  Our salvation cannot possibly be attained through the works of man.  In fact, even our best efforts are “like filthy rags” (see Isaiah 64:6 ).  In the sight of the perfectly pure and holy God, we all fall short “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 The good news is that God knew  we would choose sin, that our sin would separate us from Him, so the almighty God came down. Jesus died on the cross for your sins and mine so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God. His resurrection and ascension proves that He is who He said He is and that He did what He said He would do! It is finished!  The sin debt of mankind was paid in full by Jesus Christ Himself.  All we need do is believe.

Ahhh, the simplicity of the Gospel!  And yet without the power of the Holy Spirit drawing us to Himself we would completely miss it.  You see there is just something inside of man that desperately needs to trust in his own ability. For some reason we would rather trust what we think we can do rather than what the LORD has done. In our foolishness we’d rather try to control than to trust our Creator.  Our pride coupled with our arrogance creates a deception not unlike those who were trying to build the tower of Babel.  Like them we too can become blinded by our own determination and ignorantly believe that there’s nothing we can’t accomplish once we put our minds to it.  And so our belief in what the Bible calls our “works” can become a major stumbling block for us.  It keeps many from receiving the gift of eternal life and it prevents many believers from genuine spiritual growth.

Continue reading The Law of Liberty →

HEART MATTERS  

“Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”  Matthew 7:1-3

I can honestly say that there are not a lot of people I know who I would consider to be judgmental. Thankfully most people seem to be relatively respectful, content to mind their own business.  There are a few people I know who seem to have really pure hearts.  They refuse to think a bad thought about a person no matter what they’ve done.  Then there are those who genuinely struggle with having a critical and judgmental spirit.  Although they try to hide it-one wrong word, one wrong statement or just wrong them altogether and it won’t be long before the way they truly feel is revealed.  You’ll see it in their disapproving countenance; hear it in their demeaning words, or feel it in their distant attitudes.  Nothing good comes from having a judgmental spirit.  It can wreck the lives of others and ravage the life of the one who harbors it.  As a person who struggled with being judgmental and who has since been delivered I’m so glad the Lord is adamant that there’s no place for it in the life of a believer.

In order to guard our hearts against it we must first understand what it means to judge someone.  I believe overall the concept of judging others has been greatly misconstrued. Unfortunately today we live in a culture that believes everything is relative.  In regards to others most adhere to “whatever floats your boat” and “if its right for you then that’s all that matters.”  We live in a society that desires to determine right and wrong for itself. Anything that challenges one’s belief’s and behaviors is considered “judging.” As a result, a sincere stand for truth is interpreted as intolerance and frowned upon as an unwelcome intrusion even to the detriment of the souls of men.  What it means to “judge” has further been reduce to well known comedic punch lines.  Like Arthur Spooner on the King of Queens any reasonable question can elicit the response “don’t JUDGE me!”

Continue reading Stop Judging-Sing For Joy! →

HEART MATTERS

“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”  Ephesians 4:7

Have you ever done something really kind for someone only to later have that same person wrong you in some sort of manner?  Stings doesn’t it?  Normally when this happens we become incensed with that person.  The first thing our mind goes to is that time (or all those times) when we afforded them a special kind of grace so to speak.  We may have felt like they didn’t deserve it and yet we treated them to something special.  We may have thought “I’m going to probably regret this…” but we continued on in our friendship with them.  And even though that apology they gave really seemed insincere at the time, we chose to forgive them anyway.  When something questionable occurred, we chose to give them the benefit of the doubt, although the waving red flags were blinding us.  Overall, we chose to be “the bigger person”, in turn making them a recipient of our grace.  This “gift of grace” we’ve given them can be ever present with us even if it’s neatly tucked away in our subconsciousness.  Therefore when the offense happens, our minds can quickly remember all the good we did and why we never deserved to be so wronged.  As a result we can’t believe this person had the audacity to go there with us.  So our response is usually something like, “how could you!” or the “the nerve!” Every time this happened to me I had a special way of expressing my grief.  It wouldn’t take long for me to say “(such and such) completely stepped on my grace!”

One day I made this comment to a friend about someone else.  (I know I shouldn’t have.  I’m working on having more discretion.  But in this moment I went there and there I was mouthing off about how this person once again “stepped on my grace”.)  Immediately I felt that stick of conviction the Holy Spirit will sometimes ever so gently jab us with.  So when my conversation ended I began to pray about it to see why I felt convicted. As I examined myself, I knew the conviction wasn’t about me speaking about it to my good friend.  Normally anything I share with someone else, I’ve already spoken about it with the person involved. No, I knew this had to do with my phraseology-that sentence I so loved to use-“stepped on my grace.”  I started to realize maybe I had no right to say such a thing.  Although I thought it was a clever way to express what I felt maybe my wording was not so appropriate after all.

Continue reading Gifts That Flow From Grace →

Heart Matters

“Therefore , my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”  1 Corinthians 15:58

I can’t think of many people who actually like being uncomfortable.  Most of us are always working to ensure our comfort-through our finances, our health, and our environment.  In fact some are so consumed with their own comfort they obsess over it  by trying to control every single detail of their life. I have to admit I’m a lover of comfort.  For me that translates mainly into living in a nice environment and being able to do what I plan to do each day.  As such, there was a time in my life whenever someone asked me to do something for them, the first thing I thought about was how it was going to inconvenience me.  I rarely said no, but the more the request took away from my comfort, the more I resented serving (and the more I complained).

Comfort is such a natural desire that it’s understandable that most wouldn’t stop for a second to think of guarding their hearts against it.  And yet the quest for comfort is like one of those subtle little foxes that sneak in under the radar and rob us of something very valuable.  Our preoccupation with the reasonable expectation of living comfortably ends up confining and enslaving us.  It’s an insatiable desire of sorts-its obtainable, however, once we have a certain measure of comfort, we either spend all our time fighting to keep it or endeavoring to reach an even greater level of comfort. People work hard all their lives so that they can retire comfortably.

However the areas of our greatest needs are the areas that can present the greatest threat to us.  The things we believe we deserve are the things we can become fixated with obtaining.  The things we feel we need are the things that can cause us to compromise our values to attain. Our comfort is important to us and rightfully so, but if we’re not careful, securing our comfort can cause us to sacrifice our call.  Therefore even this reasonable desire for comfort must be taken captive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  HE alone can keep both our needs and our wants in perfect balance.  And He’s the only One who can make sure that our own comfort never precedes our call in HIM.  Continue reading Uncomfortable For CHRIST →

HEART MATTERS

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”  Ephesians 2:10

I believe it takes some time for a new believer to accept that God has a call on their lives. It takes a while for us to embrace the idea that God has an incredible purpose that He’s specifically designed for us to accomplish.  We enter into our relationship with Christ and we are instantly changed but the environment around us remains the same.  We continue to wake up and go to work; come home and cook dinner; spend time with the kids; unwind, watch some t.v.; and prepare to begin the process all over again the next day.  We continue to do life accepting the repetitive and sometimes mundane activities that afford us the ability to live comfortably. We have enough on our plates to keep us busy and as such we are easily distracted from things of eternal value.   As believers, deep down we know we should be serving the Lord in some way, we just don’t know how to “make it happen” and/or find the time to do so.  As such we find ourselves feeling spiritually stuck.  We attend church and perhaps we find time for our daily devotions, but overall we feel like spiritual failures.  In a sense we’re actually grateful for all the busyness of our daily activities because they distract us from how defeated we really feel.

Thankfully The Lord is above all!  He’s above our foolishness, our naivete, our carnality, our self-centeredness, and our sinfulness. He’s above our lackadaisical/lazy attitudes. He is above our shortsightedness and all of our weaknesses. Thankfully God’s doesn’t allow anything to go to waste! So what does He do about our insensitivity towards our real purpose and our willingness to ignore our opportunities to serve HIM?  HE meets us right where we are! Continue reading The Prepared Path →

HEART MATTERS

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55: 9

It wasn’t until I read the book of Isaiah that I fully understood the Sovereignty of God.  I think up until that time, although I had been a believer for many years, I thought that the difficult places of my life were either the result of chance or perhaps the consequences of my sin.  We all have them-those ongoing struggles that persist year after year with seemingly no end in sight.  Those areas of our lives where we just can’t understand why God hasn’t answered our prayers even though we have been praying the same prayer year in and year out.  We all have those places that causes us to feel weak, weary, and desperate for deliverance.  Like a kid strapped in his car seat against his will “we want out!”  At times we feel like we can’t stand another moment of that difficult person, that unbearable circumstance, or that dire situation.  We refuse to accept the dysfunction, the brokenness, the disease, the addiction, or the illness.  And yet whatever it is we’re dealing with it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.  Unwanted as it may be, it continues to be a part of our life’s journey.  Some days it’s bearable, but others, it’s just downright cruel.  Those are the dark days when we feel as though we are being beaten, broken, and under an oppression that clouds every space of our being.  We cry out to God knowing He hears our prayers and yet He allows the painful thorn to remain.

For a while we subconsciously reason that God must not know about this.  He had to have let this slip through the back door because there is no way He would allow something so difficult in our lives. Surely such a good God would not want us living with something that can be so devastating.  Continue reading The Cleansing Cup →

 HEART MATTERS

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.  2^nd Corinth.10:4-6

Normally when someone hears the word “confrontation” thoughts of a battle or a war ensue.  Overall, it’s difficult to see “confronting” as anything other than threatening or at the very least somewhat abrasive.  If the concept of confronting someone generally invokes something negative for you, today i’m going to challenge you to reconsider altogether.  When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mound in Matthew chapter 5, one of the things He said was “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God” (verse 5).  Have you ever considered that in order for there to be peace there first must be confrontation?  We normally automatically assume that if we hold our peace, we then keep the peace, and thus we are being peacemakers.  The problem is  holding our peace also results in us holding everything in where it can fester.  When we sweep important issues under the rug build up can begin on the inside of us.  Nothing gets resolved and both parties are left stuck with the disparaging feelings they refuse to openly address in hopes that they will just disappear on there own.  But they never go away do they?  In fact, those resentments become our filters through which we now view our offenders. We can be civil around them and even love them, but we begin to like them less and less and resent them more and more.  So which way is best?  Not saying anything and holding our peace all the while disliking the other person more and more?  Or, deciding to lovingly confront in a effort to promote healing and restoration so we can continue having a healthy loving relationship?   Continue reading Compelled to Confront →

HEART MATTERS

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.  The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”  James 5:16

Did you know you can be in a loving relationship with someone and yet not be completely restored to them?  My girlfriend Kat and I were discussing this very issue after listening to Back to the Bible (I believe it was David Chadwick) a while back.  He explained that a person can completely forgive someone without the relationship ever being restored.  He said in order for there to be restoration there has to be ownership.  Each party has to be open, honest, and transparent regarding their role in the areas of fault.  My friend and I both readily agreed with his assessment.   We realized there have been people in both of our pasts who we have forgiven but with whom our relationships have never been the same.  The relationships have either completely ended or are only a shadow of what they once were.

As we dove deeper into this issue we began to question how this truth plays out within the context of our committed relationships.  The ones in which we have no other choice but to continue to do life with, the ones we’d never want to do life without, even after terrible contention and ongoing conflict.  Relationships such as marriage, parents, siblings, and in-laws.  None of these relationships are exempt from conflict and so we often times find ourselves having to forgive and forget-or at least move on.  Forgiveness is a basic principal within Christianity.  Although we struggle with it, hopefully we realize that forgiveness is not an option.  The Lord commands us to forgive others as He has forgiven us.  So as believers we make the mental decision to extend forgiveness to the other person and by the Lord’s grace and equipping we’re able to do it.  Victory!  That very act of choice, choosing to forgive, changes the trajectory of the relationship and does something beautiful inside our hearts.

But then what? Does healing of the relationship naturally ensue?  Does it mean the relationship is now automatically reset right to where it was before? Continue reading Loving Relationship-Limited Restoration →