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.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God came to this earth, lived a sinless life and died on the cross in our place to pay the price for our sins.  On the third day He resurrected.  He ascended to Heaven is now seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us!  He offers salvation to all who will believe.  And to those who place their faith in His finished work on the cross He reconciles them to the Father.  In fact He said that all the Father gives to Him He will by no means cast out (John 6:37).  Jesus is The Good Shepherd, The Life and The Resurrection, and The Bright and Morning Star.  He walks with us, works on our sanctification, and gives us purpose until the day He calls us home.  Here on earth no matter what we encounter or endure we can still have an abundant life because of our intimacy with HIM.  As His peculiar people nothing enters into our lives without first passing through His hands.  And as if all that wasn’t enough, He promises us the gift of eternal life in Heaven where we will be with HIM forever more.  Its a win/win situation.  Absolutely Priceless!

Now that we know this incredible love story, this awesome truth, how could we possibly withhold it from those we know, care about, and love?  As a new believer this was impossible for me!  I now knew the truth.  I now knew The Truth!  And I wanted (and did) share it with everyone I possibly could!  (And let me tell you, boy did I run a lot of people away!).  In my excitement and zeal I lacked wisdom and understanding.  I didn’t comprehend the concept of being led by the Holy Spirit.  All I could think of was how the Lord spared me from the hell I deserved-the same hell any of my unsaved loved ones could enter into at any moment.  I was delighted to finally know the truth but it also caused me to desperately try to save everyone I knew and loved.  I did this of my own volition relying solely upon my own strength.

I fully expected everyone I shared the Gospel with to see and embrace the truth immediately. In my immaturity and naivete I couldn’t imagine anyone turning a deaf ear or just outright rejecting the Lord.  I’d obviously forgotten all those people the Lord sent to me with the same truth and how I quickly I either shut them down or politely shut them out. My strong desire to see people saved caused me to have unreasonable expectations. Eventually I allowed my newfound joy to be high jacked by a burden I was never meant to carry.  As I struggled like a fish trying to swim upstream I began to grow weary.  I didn’t realize it but it caused me to have a critical spirit heavily laced with cynicism.

Before I came to faith in Christ it was easy to hear the opinions, perspectives, belief’s and interpretations of others.  But now I knew the truth.  So as I filtered everything my unbelieving family and friends said through the truth it became harder and harder not to respond to all the lies. Now that I knew the truth I also knew the cost of ultimately rejecting that truth.

Jesus is The Way the Truth and the Life.  No one can come to the Father except through the HIM (John 14: 6).  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.  What an incredible sacrifice The LORD endured to secure our eternity.  When I consider this I understand why The Father will not allow anyone to get away with trampling on and rejecting what His Son did for us.  He pursues us because of His love for us but He leaves the choice up to us.  There are no loop holes and no other ways to heaven.  Only Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life.

Having the understanding that those who are casual about their fate are not really aware of what’s at stake can cause a believer to either run ahead of God or greatly lag behind.  We either have a tendency to go full speed ahead shoving the Gospel down the throat of everyone we encounter, or we tend to just quietly and passively blend in, afraid to offend anyone in any way.  Neither approach is correct.  Only God can show us how to be balanced in this area.

Only The Lord can give us the discretion needed to be in the world but not of the world.  As we are to interact and love on those who haven’t yet accepted Christ, we must know to how to carefully thread such waters.  If we lack discretion we may feel the urge to scrutinize and criticize every sinful behavior and attitude an unbelieving family member or friend may have.  We will ignore Paul’s command not to judge the world because the world will do what the world does.  An unhealthy tree will produce rotten fruit.  When we lack wisdom and understanding we will try to change the unbeliever by teaching them Biblical principals and trying to impose our moral values on them. We won’t be able to discern that the only principle we need to share with those who are loss is The Gospel.  This is where is all begins and where it all starts.  To convince someone to act and behave like a Christian without them experiencing a genuine transformation simply will not suffice.

On the other side of the scale sometimes having continuous contact with those who reject Christ and who may even be offended by the cross, can cause us to become chameleons. Our experiences with trying to lead others to faith in Christ have been so devastating that we can become cynical.  We really start to believe that it’s a no win situation.  That no one will cares to hear about the Lord, no one thinks they’re lost, and no one wants to be saved. And so we throw in the towel.  We are in the world but our desire not to rock the boat causes us to look more and more like the world ourselves.  Eventually we can become desensitized and ineffective in the cause of Christ.

But God is the God of all balance.  His Spirit is willing to teach, lead, and guide us in how we love and win those who do not know Him.  The Lord will show us how to connect with the world without compromising who we are in Him.  We have to remember that God is both patient and longsuffering and that He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2nd Peter 3:9 

We must trust the Lord for our unsaved acquaintances, friends, and loved ones.  We need to know and understand that salvation is the work of The Holy Spirit.  All we need to do is the fulfill the daily purposes to which the Lord has called us to.  As we walk in love and obedience with the Lord, we will be lifting up Christ to others and others will be drawn to Him.  When the world sees our joyful, thriving, and fulfilling lives as we endure the same challenges and difficulties they experience they will want to know the secret to our success.  When they see the fruit of the Spirit being produced from our lives they will ask us the reason for the hope that lies within us.  Then when we are giving opportunities to speak we should be as bold as lions and not be afraid to open up our mouths.  As we walk with the Lord we can always make ourselves available to Him to be His mouthpiece.  When God wants us to speak He will put it on our hearts and will always open up the door for us to do so.  When we can interact with unbelievers through discernment and without being desensitized we can also rightly reflect the love of Christ.  His love covers a multitude of sins!

It’s the love of Christ that helps us to be in the world and not of the world.  We can have an impact on others for The Lord when we are so secure in who we are that we can be around unbelievers and absolutely love them, without judging them, and without compromising who we are as followers of The Lord Jesus Christ!

Let HIM speak this to your heart today:  “clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.”  2nd Corinthians 3:3

Heart to Heart:  “Faith and Fear cannot coexist, so choose to be Fearless and live Faithfully for CHRIST!”