Getting off the paper

If we're honest, many of us have this impression that even though we may have "asked Jesus to come into our hearts" at some point, he seems to have left ... sort of.

It's as if we call on him to come pay us a visit, to help us out in this situation or that; and then his nearness dissipates. The God who fades. But what kind of assumption might this discouraging view of Jesus be founded upon?

We say that the Cross and Resurrection is about an exchanged life -- his for ours. But don't we look at this rather forensically -- as if the whole deal occurs on paper, like a contract with each side's lawyers signing off on it? Wouldn't it be better to assume that something actual was exchanged: that a sin-sick and dead heart was removed, and a new and supernaturally radiant heart was given?

There is no virtual reality here. Not in this Kingdom.
I think our problem is that when we imagine Jesus giving something to us, we think he gives us a substance, something other than himself. For example, we ask for "more grace." So is grace a solid, liquid, gas? - A powder or something transient and illusive? Of course not. Grace is Jesus saying to us, "Take me. ...
I am what you need. I'll bind myself to you, as you."

So why do we think he comes for a brief visit to fix a problem or answer a prayer, yet slowly disappears again as a ghost? It's because we don't believe that the incarnation -- the self-giving of Jesus -- still continues within us today. Not just for us, within us.

It's also why we don't believe anything supernatural really happened to us at conversion. (Again, it's that on-paper-only problem). When he rescues, he gives himself. When he performs spiritual surgery, he gives himself. When he gives us a new and supernaturally- purified heart, he gives us his own. That's why the Christian's heart is good now, actually good.

"Take mine. I am what you need. I'll bind myself to you, as you."
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Source: "As you.." The Rest of the Gospel, Dan Stone & David Gregory.
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Comments

[Amy]

Jim,
Great Blog Post. I fully agree. As I think you know, I recently began my own Blogpage. I've been touched that people are reading it. Yet, in spite of this, I find that some people just can't accept the Truth that our hearts have been completely exchanged at the incarnation and are now NEW and GOOD. They seem to "get at me" that I'm denying that I still live in my flesh. I try to explain the best I can that my heart is indeed New and Good, but my Old Dark Heart has been cast out into the margins of my being...and I still DO have the choice to listen to it's temptations, but that I don't have to. But now, because the Holy Spirit is living and breathing in my New Heart, He gives me the motivation and strength to not choose the temptations or commands of the Old Cast Away Heart.

How have you responded...or do you at all...to comments of people who seem to accuse you of "denying" that my Old Heart is still "in the picture" somehow (which, as I said, I'm not denying that it IS)?

~Amy :)
http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com