Are you fighting the wrong thing?

Click to listen.

PODCAST:  "ARE YOU FIGHTING THE WRONG THING?"

A friend of author Wayne Jacobsen once drew a cartoon where Jesus opened his arms to the masses and said, "Come to me all you who are heavy-burdened and I will give you an accountability group." 

The "Christianity" many of us were invited into declares that the battle we face is against the heart, not for it. Why?  Because the underlying assumption of a false gospel is that the "heart is deceitfully wicked," even after you've been made a new creation in Christ.  We warn each other about the alleged dangers of following our hearts:  "Don't trust your heart, it will lead you astray.  You have a wandering heart, a divided heart.  Reject the desires of the heart.  If it's what you want, it probably isn't what God wants." 

Certainly discernment must accompany desire:  You need to know if a desire is coming from your heart -- and is therefore a noble desire -- or if it's coming from another source.  Or it may be that your heart may need mentoring before you rush headlong into something good but untimely.  But this is not to say that the Christian's heart is still "deceitfully wicked."

Scripture says, "I will give you a new heart."  This is the gift Jesus gave you when you said 'yes' to him. Paul even says, "In my inner being, I delight in God's commands..."  [How can he delight in God's commands if his heart, his inmost being, is rebelliously set against God?]  He wouldn't be able to delight in God's commands if that was the case.]

When you said 'yes' to Jesus, he gave you his own noble-hearted nature.  The irony is, the brand of misguided Christianity that pins the heart to the wall  -- so that it doesn't go astray -- actually produces Christians who go to war against the most holy and noble place within them!  These mislead souls end up mistrusting their best self! The Christian has then set herself against the very residence of goodness and wholeness God set within her.  We quote, "May Christ dwell in your heart through faith" then attack the very heart where Jesus dwells within. So not only are we at war with our best selves, we're at war with God's work; because we've shackled and shut-down the heart of his work, literally.  The core of God's work in any man or woman begins by replacing a ruined heart with a royal heart, and we've rejected our own crown.

This false gospel creates a house-divided by...

• Guarding against the heart rather than guarding the heart, the wellspring of life within you.
• Holding the heart hostage rather than healing the heart's wounds.
• Locking the heart away rather than loosing the heart from false suspicion.

Don't fight the wrong thing.  Fight the Enemy of your heart, the Accuser, but don't wage war against God's throneroom he has set within you.  In Christ, your heart becomes your ally, not your enemy.

Grace has never been about making a bad heart better.

How far would you go so save your son or daughter's life?

John Quincy Archibald's [John Q] son collapses unexpectedly while running the bases in a Little League game.  The diagnosis is a bloated, diseased heart.  Doctor's inform John Q and his wife that unless his son gets a heart-transplant, he will die.  He won't see his next birthday.

But John Q's health insurance will not cover the boy's heart transplant.  It will cost $250,000 to put the boy on the donor list.  John can't raise that kind of money no matter how hard he tries.  So his dying boy is dropped from the donor list.  There will be no rescue, no future for the boy.  His enlarged heart will kill him in days.

So what does a father do whose son will die because his heart can no longer give him life?  John Q makes a staggering decision...To take his own life, so that his son can have his healthy heart.  Transplant by suicide.  Life begets life:  If the father dies, the boy lives.

"Heart of my own heart."

Grace has never been about God trying to make a bad heart better.  That was never an option. Your old heart was failing to give you life, and reconditioning it was never God's plan for rescue.  Replacement, not refurbishment.   We needed to start over.

There is an untapped vein of gold lying beneath the surface mess.  You were gifted with a new kind of heart that no longer needs an addiction.  The kind of heart that trusts when there is no comfort.  The kind of radiance that doesn't fear the blamers and the shamers.

Grace has never been about making a bad heart better:  It's always been about God replacing your heart with his heart.  And God has already done this for you.  In you.  The day you said, "Yes," to Jesus was the day you got your transplant.

There's one prayer the warrior-poet, David, prayed that you don't need to:  "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."    David's future hope was your present reality.

You are a donor recipient.  Trust the life within you.

The fear of becoming a spiritual defector

The guy in the audience was pretty rude about it:  He stopped me in the middle of a seminar I was leading on the Good and Noble Heart and said, "I think you've badly misunderstood the Gospel, sir."  His interjection was not simply an attempt to engage me in a meaningful dialogue.  It was an indictment.  And it nearly derailed the seminar for the other participants. As soon as the event was over, he brushed by me with a scowl that said plenty.

Convictions are like armor: well-plated, protective, and hopefully durable. People don't give up their convictions easily.  Nor should they. But you no longer need that armor if Someone stronger is standing between you and your fear. 

Why is it so difficult for many people to embrace the message that their heart is no longer "prone to wander: that while they can sin, their most true and authentic self no longer wants to?  Why so staunchly deny that Jesus is more interested in freeing their good and noble heart than in pressuring them to be better?

Here's the reason:  People are strongly motivated to avoid fear.  If they leave behind the 'gospel' of pressure, at best they'll no longer have a checklist to follow that legitimizes their attempt to feel they've done enough; and worse, they fear betraying the pastors who have spiritual authority over them.  Nor would they want the exposure of swimming upstream while their church friends are swimming downstream; exposing themselves as a spiritual defector, standing outside the group.

But worst of all, they dread betraying God Himself.  And nothing tears at the soul like the belief that you've betrayed "the one who died and gave up his life for you."

A pointy finger warns the questioner, Don't ever betray your spiritual shepherds; and never question God.  At the very least, a rebuke will await you; at the worst, Hell will swallow you whole.

Not many are willing to pull the pin on the grenade.  The reluctant man has already had too much blow up in his face.  But ignorance is not bliss, it's ignorance; and God welcomes a hearty, even heated, discussion; even if it means you have to question the life raft you've been floating in since you were 12.  Sometimes you have to leave the life raft so that the Captain can pull you up into the security of his Coastguard Cutter. 

Bottom line:  Is it worth it to you to risk exposure as a spiritual defector, in order to find out that what you've believed about your heart has been sabotaging it all these years? 

*My book, Recover Your Good Heart, carefully examines the biblical argument for the good and noble heart, which a Christian receives immediately when they come to Christ.  I also demonstrate that this is not a new teaching, showing the reader there's good reason to take it seriously.

Kids: Why both bribes and threats create less-moral children.

A provocative interview with Alfie Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting.  The best book on parenting I've read thus far.  The book contradicts much of the conventional parenting wisdom that suggests the use of "time-outs," "consequences," and other punishments on the one hand; and gold-stars, bribes, and other kinds of rewards on the other.  Even Christian parents who believe in "unconditional love" still fall prey to these commonly-prescribed techniques.

Sabotaging the very results we long for:
Most parents want their children to grow up to be moral, loving and responsible children.  However, the very techniques many of us have adopted are not only ineffective, but produce the very kinds of negative results in the long-term that we hope to avoid.  These traditional techniques that Kohn exposes can actually yield less-loving, more-selfish children over the long haul.

Grace and royalty have the right to you claim you: A lesson from "Kingdom of Heaven."

---

"I'm your priest, Balian; and I tell you, God has abandoned you...The village does not want you."  - village priest

Balian [Orlando Bloom] and Godfrey, Baron of Ibelin [Liam Neeson]

 
"Murder.  I've done murder."  - Balian the Blacksmith

Balian [Orlando Bloom] is a blacksmith, whose wife has died of suicide.  Unbeknownst to Balian, she was beheaded post-humously [for being a suicide] by the wicked village priest  who, rather than consoling the grieving Balian, assures him that God has abandoned him and the village has rejected him. 

Balian's true father [Liam Neeson], a man he's never met, is Godfrey, Baron of Ibelin; and has just come to the village to reach out to Balian and to invite him to follow him into the Crusades, joining the baron's small band of warriors.  Balian refuses to go.  He has no desire to know his father, Baron of Ibelin; nor to move beyond the world he knows.  After all, he's just buried his wife.

The crime

The scene escalates as Balian discovers that the wicked town priest has cut off his wife's head just before burial, claiming it was punishment for the sin of suicide and that his wife would certainly be in hell for it.  In a fit of striken horror, Balian runs a sword through the priest, killing him.  After murdering the priest, leaving his blacksmith shop to burn, Balian flees town to see if he can catch up with his father, Baron of Ibelin, on the road.

The Law would claim him

Balian catches up with his father, Baron of Ibelin, on the road, and confesses the murder to him. But the law has sent a hunting party for Balian.  The law has come for him so that he may face charges for murdering the priest.  Even knowing his son's sin, his father still won't give him over to the Law; and they quickly discover themselves ambushed by the hunting party. 

Half of the baron's warrior band is slain.  When the dust settles, Balian reminds his father,

"They had the right to take me."

His father replies,

"And so do I."

---

Notice three things:

1. Balian the blacksmith doesn't realize there is royalty in his blood.


2. The Law will always try to claim you.


3. Grace, his true Father, also has the right to claim him. 

Lesson from The Horse Whisperer: You don't "break a horse."

The Horse Whisperer
"Buck," the  documentary, is about the man behind the legendary cowboy in "The Horse Whisperer."  His name is Buck Brannaman.

You don't 'break' a horse:

You don't break a horse.  You don't force them into compliance.  You don't enforce your will upon them by violating their will.  Neither do you do this to a person.  Another term for "breaking a person" is compliance:

Compliance breeds fear, and uses intimidation to its advantage: 
"Do this or we will threaten you with 'consequences' until you meet our expectations."




Compliance is impatient: 
"Do this now:  We're more interested in outcomes than in hearts."




Compliance violates the will of the other: 
"I have the right [and power] to bend you to my will.  What you want isn't important."

You don't break a child.

Neither do you "break" a child; and this doesn't always imply a physical domination over a child.  Yet common parenting techniques that enforce "consequences" and varieties of disciplinary punishment; as well as "classroom management" techniques that get kids to shut up and be quiet "break the child" to gain compliance over their will. 

I once observed a substitute teacher scream across a cafeteria at a young girl for dropping food on the floor.  The adult's voice shattered the din and the room went silent.  The young girl shook with fear.  Tears streamed down her cheeks for the next 10 minutes.  He broke her.

The children, our spouses, or whomever we jerk around with bit and bridle, are the mirror to our souls.

"In this particular discipline, you have to be a sensitive person.  That vulnerability makes you great."  - from Buck, the film

Why avoiding sin's consequences isn't the point.

.........................................................................................................................

A family member said to me that he never wanted to find himself in the situation David got into with Bathsheba.  My relative would do all he could to avoid the consequences of sin, rather than risk falling into temptation and it's aftermath.  As we talked, I sensed this was how he lived his life:  "Avoid sin and the judgement that follows." Stay clear of sin's allure because you don't want to pay the piper. 

While there is the command to flee from sin, and to be self-controlled [Which is to say, be "Spirit-led"], I think there's a better alternative to the "stay out of trouble, avoiding the consequences" model: 

God's unhindered affection is a much better reason not to sin than the fear of consequences or judgement is.

• It's better to avoid sin because you're well-loved and have the real thing, not needing sin's false promise. 


• It's better to be obsessed with how well regarded you are by our Father, than to become preoccupied with consequences and outcomes. 

Love covers a multitude of sins.

• It's better to indulge the striking goodness of your new and noble heart; than to allow fear to overshadow your God-hearted nature.

Delight is stronger than judgement:  Affection reassures where fear accuses.

New podcast: "If I really do have a good and noble heart, then why does the evidence seem to suggest otherwise?" -Guest Joel Brueske joins Jim.

Joel Brueseke [see his insightful GraceRoots podcast] joins me as we try to offer encouragement for Christians who do want to believe that their heart is now good and noble because of Christ's redeeming work for them, but who continue to struggle to live from that new-hearted goodness.

Podcast:  "If I really do have a good and noble heart, then why does the evidence seem to suggest otherwise?"  [Special guest, Joel Brueseke of GraceRoots.com]

In the podcast, Joel and I address:

• Why does my experience seem to suggest my heart really isn't good, noble and true?


• Why truth must drive experience and not the other way around.


• What about us is "finished" and what is still "unfinished?"


• What happened to the "Accuser" in our worldview?  "Warfare" has been grossly abused in the Church, but for the sake of our hearts, the idea is worth revisiting.


• Why multiple exposures to the truth is necessary so that our minds, emotions and bodies can catch up to the truth about our new and noble hearts.


• Should you leave a church that preaches a performance-based, "bad-heart" message?


• Resources for finding new-hearted community and messages. 

................................................................................................................

You can find new-hearted community - people who want to live from their good and noble heart - on the "COMMUNITY" page on my website.  The focus is simple:

1.  Where are you finding it difficult to live from your good and noble heart?

2.  Where are you finding encouragement to live from your good and noble heart?

The King has granted you "Naud." What Celtic lore knows about law and forgiveness.

What do you do when you don't get justice for the wrongs done to you? 
- When the King seems more interested in pardonning your abuser than making sure you get justice?

The betrayer claims "naud:"
Everyone knew that Paladyr, the murderous betrayer, would receive the death penalty for what he had done to them:  Stabbing his former king through the ribs - slicing the cold blade into the king's heart; then setting fire to a village that killed twenty-five, including young infants choking on acrid smoke as they burned while they slept in thatched huts; and joining ranks with the king's wicked son who raped, burned and slaughtered innocent life.

When they captured Paladyr, only a death sentence would satisfy the villagers' grief.  But to the horror of every widow, every father of a burned child and everyone watching, Paladyr claimed "naud" of the High King, and the king granted it.
.................................................................................................................

In Stephen Lawhead's book, The Endless Knot [Part Three of his Song of Albion Trilogy],  we watch as the wicked Paladyr stands before the Aird Righ, the new High King, arrogantly claiming the clemency and grace of "naud" - which if granted, would instantly erase his crimes; and with that, the hope of justice for the wounded.  There would be no satisfaction for the mother whose daughter was thrown from the high cliffs as Paladyr tossed her onto the bone-splintering rocks below; nor any justice for the father whose baby lay under charred timbers.

Yet Paladyr didn't ask for the mercy of "naud" out of repentence or sorrow for his crimes:  He isn't the humbled prodigal son:  He asked because a bizarre twist of the laws of Albion gave him that option.  In effect, "this personal feature of justice means that the guilty man can make a claim on the king which he has no right to make:  naud."

If the King refuses mercy
Granting "naud" to a criminal put the king's own reputation at stake:  if he refused to grant mercy, "the king effectively declared himself inferior to the criminal" because his grace couldn't surpass the criminal's wickedness.  It would give the impression that the king's power and sovereignty would have limits:  In effect, the king's authority would be constrained by the strict letter of the law, binding the king's authority to the narrow rights and wrongs, consequence and punishment the law demanded.  In effect, not granting mercy/naud tied the king's hands to the law, making the King a servant of the law, rather than Sovereign over it.

If the King grants mercy
If, on the other hand, the king did grant pardon, allowing naud, his mercy would be seen as greater than than the crimes...extending his sovereignty beyond the guilty one's offenses.  Because the king himself is justice incarnate, his choice to grant naud supercedes the strict letter of the law.  He is able to grant mercy over and against a forensic, "eye for an eye" unforgiving legalism. 

Because the High King of Albion did chose to grant the mercy of "naud" to Paladyr, the angry crowds' cry for justice found an unlikely answer:    When the High King granted "naud" to the beligerant Paladyr, the king says that "in essence, I had been asked to absorb the crime into myself."  

The truth behind the analogy
Does this not strike you as oddly familiar?  Under the grace of Jesus' reign, justice is no longer a written code of sin and sanctions.  Rather, Jesus, because he IS justice in the flesh, [as Lawhead says, "justice wears a human face"] isn't obligated to mete out justice according to a rigid adherence to a legal code:  Rather, Jesus' authority supercedes the legal code:  "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."  [2 Cor. 3:6]   God isn't obligated under law to dole out punishment equal to the crime, nor any punishment at all.  He has granted us a peculiar gift of his sovereignty:  he has given us the outrageous right to "claim naud" of him.

Justice absorbs the crime into Himself.  The Cross is our claim to "naud."

What's up with the new look?

Many of you know that in addition to being a full-time writer, I'm also a solo piano recording artist. 

For some reason, I thought I had to keep these two sides of my life separate.  Part of that was the fear multi-artists can have that people will think:  "He can't possibly be qualified in multiple areas:  You know, "Jack of all trades - master of none." 

I think things are changing for what one writer calls us "slashes."   Marci Alboher calls people who operate equally in multiple areas "slashes."  Some examples of "slashes/" are:  

• architects/personal trainers,
• accounts/poets,
• student/personal chef
• I.T. tech/musician

I read about a psychotherapist who also makes violins that sell for $15,000 each to high-end orchestral clients.  Or, you can look at the classic case of DaVinci.  His own brilliance covered such sweeping pursuits as painting, architecture, the anatomy of the human body, and even the design of tanks and advanced weaponary.  The man who painted the "Last Supper" also excelled in geometry and architecture.  [I wrote a past post on the Renaissance Man.]

By pen or piano, the goal is restoration for the heart.
I'm introducing what really isn't another side of me, but rather a different expression for my creative outflow.  I write books and I compose music both for the sake of restoration.  I still write daily and love that.  But the music expresses things my writing doesn't.  It's a perfect marriage. 

Upcoming project:
In fact, in the future, The Good and Noble Heart Creative Studios [me] will be introducing a project series called "The Restoration Sessions"  that will combine both my teaching message of the Good and Noble Heart with my solo piano music.

As a former pianist/keyboardist for large worship events, I used to create "worshipscapes" and prayer backdrops for different elements going on in the worship moment.  Music can reach wounds and gently gain access to places that words might not have permission.  By combining word [teaching] and music, I get to offer the synergy of both.

I'll also be working on my second solo piano album.  My first was recorded on a Steinway Concert Grand and was called, "RESTORATION."  They are all originals.  "Emotion.  Touch.  Sensitivity" might describe the contemplative piano pieces on that album.  For now, enjoy.  [CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.]

Rescued through a promise, not obedience.

Even if most Christians believe their relationship with God began with grace, they often mistakingly believe it must be maintained by obedience or our capacity to keep the fires of faith stoked. 

For many years, I twisted believing into a work, fearing that God would save me only if I kept up a certain level of faith.  I based my eternal salvation on what I could maintain, rather than on what God promised.

God's promises act differently than ours.
A promise is the future peering into the present:  a sighting from a future God has already accomplished.   It's the difference between an acorn and a tree:  The tree already exists and God sees the tall tree right now.  God is present to that full-grown promise.  Yet at present, you can only see the acorn the tree sprouted from.  God has tossed the acorn from the future into the present in order to remind you of the tree.

*Truth flows from the future into the present.

The fact is, our relationship with Jesus has always been rooted in a promise God made, not our obedience [rule-keeping, law-based performance] and not our faith-keeping.

Before he had done anything good or bad...
Paul reminds his own Jewish friends, who thought they were qualified by their Jewish obedience to "thou shalts," that God chose their ancester Jacob to carry foreward the promise of his forebears, Abraham and Isaac, before Jacob was even born - before Jacob had the chance to do anything good or bad. 

God chose Jacob "When they [Jacob and Esau] had not yet been born, and had done nothing either good or bad - so that what God had in mind in making his choice might come to pass, not because of good works but because of the one who calls...  [Romans 9:11-12]

Yes, we choose our having been chosen, but when God saves a person from death into life, it is never about that person's obedience:  It is always about God's choosing them. 

Rescue and obedience have nothing to do with each other:
God made a promise to rescue.  He heals and saves because he wants to, not because you've done well this week:  An emergency room doctor doesn't treat and heal only those who have done less bad during the week than the others who have come for his care. 

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to heaven is paved with God's intentions. 

Trust the Promise, not your obedience. 

What's the opposite of grace?

The opposite of grace is reciprocity.
You owe God nothing: Obligation isn't a part of grace. Love is, but not obligation.

The opposite of grace is pardon alone. 
The version of Christianity we have today is cruel: It amounts to pardon without palingenesis [i.e. regeneration].   [- Pull that puppy out at your next gathering and you're sure to impress. ] 

"Palin" means "again." "Genesis" means 'birth.' Grace without restoration is cruel; like releasing a man from prison without giving him new internal desires and capacities. Grace has gone beyond forgiveness (pardon) to giving the Christ-follower a new and supernaturally-good heart.

The opposite of grace is rationalization.
Rationalization and self-defense only inhibit our ability to receive.

The opposite of grace is self-improvement.  Growing into a new God-given goodness and radiance, yes.  Even professional mastery, yes.  But efforts at improving our core nature, no.  Why try to be loving when God has made you loving? 

New behaviors [outward signs of an inward renovation] will flow when we cooperate with God as he releases our new super-natural goodness. 

"When you clean the inside of the cup, the outside will also be clean."  - Jesus. 
[Behavior follows heart.]

Parents: We are not Correction Officers

I hate to see children who are rigidly controlled like cattle, poked and prodded; or like lab rats, rewarded or punished based upon an adult's perception of successfully meeting expectations.  Control and compliance, the handmaids of shame,  assault my spirit to the core and this is an issue I am currently researching and writing about. 

I thought I was doing much better at stepping back from over-correcting my kids, refusing to control their every decision ...until I tried this little experiment:

Experiment:  Try not to correct your child for a day, or even one hour.  [Unless, of course, there's a safety issue involved.]  Try not to say, "no" or evaluate their behavior.  Don't pressure them to conform to your expectations.  Just connect with them. 

The experiment was all too revealing for me.  Though I think my parenting has changed for the better in the last few years, and I'm much more conscious of trying not to unnecessarily control my kids, the experiment showed me just how ingrained and reflexive my need to correct them was. 

It's also draining and takes an enormous amount of energy to control others -- energy that could be used to connect with them rather than getting them to comply with our often rigid expectations.

TRY IT: 

• Just one day.  Or even one hour. 
• No corrections, except for safety concerns:  Just connect with their hearts. 

Try it and let me know what you discover.

Related resources:

• "Parenting Where the Heart Comes First,"  Jim Robbins

Video: "THE PRONE TO WANDER MYTH"

I just finished producing this video.  The video exposes one of the most damaging myths in the Church today.

Podcast: "GOD WITHOUT RELIGION:" PART 3 - author Andrew Farley joins Jim Robbins

This is the final episode, part three, of the podcast mini-series, "GOD WITHOUT RELIGION." 

Drawing from Andrew Farley's new book, God Without Religion,  Drew and I dig deeper into the confusing mess that religious compliance and performance has made of things:

1. Discover why it can't be your old nature that causes you to sin, or that tempts you.


2. Learn why we often mistake the voice of sin for our own heart's voice, believing our heart is still "prone to wander."


3. Explore why, even when we sin, as Andrew Farley points out, "There's something in us, that's not us;"  and why relaxing in your new and noble nature will set you free.

To learn more about "God Without Religion" visit Andrew's site:  www.andrewfarley.org.

  CLICK TO LISTEN.

........................................................................................................

To hear Parts 1 & 2 of this podcast series:

To hear Parts One and Two of the "GOD WITHOUT RELIGION" podcast series, go to the podcast page; or download them in iTunes.

VideoBlog: "The Monkey Experiment"

A rewards and punishment system will backfire. It did with monkeys and it will with people. Learn about Harlow's monkey experiment and how it can help you understand your new and good heart.

Grace won't work for just anybody.

Grace won't work for just anybody.  It's only intended for those who've been made new at the core.  It's our newness in Christ working with the freedom of grace that unleashes expressions of God's Spirit.  - Andrew Farley, God Without Religion

 
In other words, NEWNESS + GRACE = FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

While speaking at a men's event, a guy actually argued with me that God had only made us "positionally" righteous.  In other words, we were righteous 'in heaven,' or 'in the eyes of God' but not actually good and noble...not yet.  Another way to state this guy's claim is that God only imputed [or credited] us with his goodness, but didn't impart [give or infuse] his righteousness within us.

I told the man that kind of only-in-heaven-goodness wouldn't do him any good; that merely getting credited with something is a lousy substitute for actually possessing it.  How do you overcome addictions with only a 'positional' goodness and not actual goodness to overcome it?  [ In other words, with a righteousness that can only be tapped into in heaven, but is of no value to you on earth.]  That's like telling a convict at his review hearing that you've credited him with good behavior and time-served, but you're still going to keep him behind bars.

Grace will do you little good without newness:  What you needed was a restored and alive heart that  possesses the attractive and powerful goodness of Jesus.  If God hasn't given you a new heart, with new appetites and new inclinations, what would his "grace" have to work with?  God can't release a goodness in you if there is no goodness to release.  He can't shape within you a better character if there's no spark of nobility to work with, no well of Christ-like purity to work with.

A potter needs good and clean clay to work with.  Otherwise, his master hands will only be shaping wet gravel.  He has already made you clean, new, noble.  Enjoy it.

NEWNESS + GRACE = FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

Related posts:

Enjoy your new nature

Isn't Jesus being good for us all we need?  No.

Diagraming my journey: How I got my heart back

I wanted you to see how the journey of getting my heart back unfolded over the years; primarily how I discovered the message of Scripture that the Christian's heart is now good and noble -- ultimately leading me to write RECOVER YOUR GOOD HEART.

Share your diagrammed journey here. 
Email me [jim at thegoodandnobleheart.com]  with a sketch or PowerPoint diagram of your journey of getting your heart back.  Get creative.  Use stick figures - it doesn't matter.  I'll post it.

Indulge Your New Nature

A friend of mine told me that because of the message he was hearing in church each week, he expected to sin.  He didn't expect to love well, follow in Christ's footsteps, or live in the strength of the Holy Spirit.  He expected to sin.

His Christian leaders taught him to expect that.

And this is the message being offered most Christians on any given week.

It's like a Christian suffering with an addiction,  confirming the worst [and least important] thing about him at the weekly meeting:

"Hi.  My name is _______, and I'm an alcoholic."

Stop right there:  Your behavior and struggle is no longer a reliable indicator of your identity.  No matter how it feels to you, you are under a different, more powerful influence. 

The problem with the expectation to sin is that it contradicts the already-remarkable work of Jesus in the Christian.  Rather than fearing we'll indulge dangerous desires, seductive temptations, or selfish ambitions, we ought to think about indulging our new nature. 

• Bing on our new goodness.


• Dote on our new, God-given passions and desires.


• Cater to our circumcized hearts.


• Nourish our new purity.


• Pander to our new heart's super-natural potency.

By the way, this is exactly what the Holy Spirit is up to in you:  he is releasing the new and noble goodness he's birthed in your new heart.  He's inviting you to the bash he's throwing there and waiting to see what kinds of unadulterated love gets stirred up in you, spilling and splashing onto those who need your life.  Your new heart is a wellspring of life cascading out and advancing into barren places.  Indulge your new goodness and let it come out and play.


Parts of the Old Testament no longer apply to you.

Some ways of describing a God-follower in the Old Testament no longer apply to Christians.  Many Christ-followers read the the Old Testament today as if Jesus hasn't come. 

We can't simply apply certain passages to ourselves without thinking.  These passages were written to God's people prior to the Cross and the radical change of heart that comes with Christ's indwelling.  

Some ways of describing a God-follower in the Old Covenant are no longer true of you - now that Christ has rescued you. 

1.  For example:  Jeremiah 17:9:

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Salvation is a rescue of the heart [ -our core self, or nature and tendencies of a person].  Jesus cures the problem of a deceitful and wandering heart by giving us a new, pure, and blameless heart - his own heart/spirit/will embedded in our bodies.  [See Ezekiel 36:26; I Cor. 6:11; Heb. 10:10.]   This new heart, given to us at conversion, was the missing link in our Story.  We needed it in order to reconnect with him:

I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.

2.  Praise songs that sing, "Create in me a clean heart..." are no longer necessary.  David's cry [which is everyone's cry] for a good and noble heart has been answered.  So what would David sing now?

3.  The Ten Commandments are no longer a necessary yardstick for the Christian.  This may be surprising for some.  Why?  Because the law has been "written on our hearts."  By living from the Spirit, our new hearts naturally want to do what the law commanded.  External constraints are needed no longer because the internal power and desire to live out the spirit of the law are now active in our deepest selves [our new hearts]. A person who is living from their new heart no longer wants to murder, covet, or make an idol of anything.

As Martin Luther declared:  the "Spirit doth make us new hearts, doth exhilarate us, doth excite and enflame our heart, that it may do those things willingly which the law of love commandeth.”  You now want God's will, despite your flesh's attempts to deny that.

It's like a parent removing the training wheels from a child's bike:  the child no longer needs them because the ability to ride the bike is now within her.