Podcast: Permission to Desire

Podcast: "THE LONG DESIRE:"  What have you done with your desires?  Do our heart's deepest longings really matter to God?  Can obedience make room for desire?  Yes!

The following podcast is excerpted from Chapter 9 of my audiobook, Recover Your Good Heart.

As many of you know, my creative side also shows up through music.  I've been a professional musician for many years and recently wrote a video music score for an upcoming video, "The Long Desire."  You can hear the music for that video here.



Revealing another side of spiritual abuse...

What is spiritual abuse?
To label something as “abuse” is a tricky thing. What constitutes abuse for one person may not for another. However, I’m going to use a definition of abuse that I think fits with our understanding of the good and noble heart.  It comes from The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, by Johnson and VanVonderan:

Spiritual abuse is the mistreatment of a person who is in need of help, support or greater spiritual empowerment, with the result of weakening, undermining or decreasing that person’s spiritual empowerment.

The authors go further:

Spiritual abuse can also occur when spirituality is used to make others live up to a ‘spiritual standard.’ This promotes external ‘spiritual performance,’ …or is used as a means of ‘proving’ a person’s spirituality.

This abuse may not even be intentional, but kills the heart, nonetheless.  And we often don't consider spiritual abuse's impact on our heart and our attempts to live from our new nature.

Here's how I define what spiritual abuse does to our new hearts:

Spiritual abuse:
Demanding that a person live like Jesus, while denying the new heart [and its supernatural resources] that makes living like Jesus possible. Shame and spiritual defeat are the inevitable result.

*This was excerpted from my free e-book called, Enough Is Never Enough.
FREE E-book - "ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH - How spiritual abuse sabotages the heart" - by Jim Robbins

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.

Most Christians have a lousy view of "sanctification."

Many Christians have a great view of justification [how their journey with Christ begins] but a lousy view of "sanctification"  [how their journey and Christian maturity continues].  This is because we don't get across the dividing line of the Cross completely:  We're straddling the Old and the New, and it's killing our hearts.  It's almost irrational:  like a dying cardiac patient being offered a heart transplant, but wanting to keep the old one in, just in case.

Here's a helpful video on this from Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel:

Is your message just a matter of semantics?

“For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified…” (Romans 10:10)

I recently spoke at a mens' event in which one of the participants asked me if having a good and noble heart was just a matter of semantics.  [In other words, does it really matter?] 

His view was that we should simply count on the Spirit's ongoing work within us to make an errant heart good over time.  In other words, Why can't he make a diseased heart good... in time?  What did it matter that you start the journey with Christ equipped with a brand new heart?

My response was:

• It's hard to ignore Scripture's indication that Jesus replaced our 'heart of stone' with a new heart. [He didn't merely try and clean it up - but replaced it.]  [Ezek. 36:26]  When you said 'yes' to Christ, he removed the heart that would have been a hinderance to the 'in-Christ' life; and gave you a heart saturated with his own goodness, spiritual health and vitality. 
  
  Romans 10:10 points out that it is "with your heart that you believe and are justified."  Just as a sick and dying body can't reproduce life on its own, so a heart that's debilitated, self-righteous and wandering  won't trust God's offer of life, nor have the ability to successfuly abide in that life in the long run.  That would be asking it to do something that's against it's nature:  like asking spotted and rotted fruit to provide the body with nourishment.

• Second, the people of Israel's primary problem was a wayward heart -- forever wandering and fauning after lesser 'gods.'  So God solves the root problem, promising: “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.” (Jer. 24: 7).  You can't "return to God with all your heart" if your heart is 'prone to wander' and waffle.  That's why your new life in Christ begins with a new heart that can receive him, that desires his will, and can love as Jesus loves.

If we start the journey with a thoroughly-new, supernaturally radiant and good heart, then this is the way we continue the journey: We cooperate with the Holy Spirit as he releases the goodness he's already birthed within us.  

Simply relying on Jesus to be good for you underestimates his restoring work in us:  Jesus is not going to be good "on your behalf."  [This is the fallacy of "imputed righteousness."]  This would be short-changing his surprising work in you. Rather, he's made you good by giving you his own goodness; and will continue to nourish, celebrate and release "the work he began in you" -- the work that started with your heart.  We mature as we allow him to engage this new goodness he's already given us.

What, actually, is "new" about you?

How many times have we heard that we are “a new creation” in Christ and yet felt a vague sense of confusion? Perhaps even disqualification?

“I know I’m supposed to be a new creation but I really don’t feel any different. There must be something wrong with me.”

If we're honest, many of us think that "new creation" means God will change us...at some point in the future.  What if that "new creation" change has already taken place to a large degree?

So what exactly changed when we came to Christ? What became "new?" Is this just a quaint metaphor for 'new life' or has something actually happened in us, something worth talking about?

For centuries, theologians have rightly upheld the idea of “regeneration,” or the drastic transformation of heart Christ brings about. Sometimes, this is called the “new birth,” a spiritual re-creation of our deepest self. It therefore includes a re-creation of the heart. This restored heart is exactly what Paul means when he says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17) We should “put off the old self … and put on the new self.” (Eph. 4:22-24)

That ‘new self’ is a new heart given to us at conversion. Our radical goodness is an already-established fact, a gift given when we trusted Jesus. The new heart is the fulfillment of God’s promise to us in Ezekiel 36:26 and Jeremiah 31: 31-34.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you …” (Ezekiel 36:26)

You now have a supernaturally-good and noble heart. 

Why your good and noble heart is a big deal.

A friend of mine, who received the audio book of my book, "Recover Your Good Heart" sent me this response to the message.  I share it because it exposes why it is so hard for us to see the message for what it is:  startling. 

The message of your good and noble heart is not a footnote:  It's a HEADLINE.  It is not a theological nuance, nor a cute metaphor to describe our new life in Christ.  As one attendee said after I had spoken to his group:  "I don't know yet whether I believe what you're saying:  But if it's true, it changes everything."

Brent's response to "Recover Your Good Heart:"

Hi Jim,

I wanted to write to you and tell you how your book is having an impact in my life.

To be honest, when I first heard you describe your thesis, I thought, "That's nice. But what difference would it make?" In essence, I was asking rhetorically, "What difference would it make if I really believed that?" The key thing to notice, is that I didn't really think it was true. I thought it was just a nice metaphor, like a lot of other nice metaphors in the Bible.

Somewhere along the way, as I was listening to your book, the thought occurred to me that it might really be true. Factually. My heart(?) fluttered a little at the possibility.

I sort of began to accept the premise that it was true: That this fundamental change actually happened. But I still found myself wondering, "So what? What difference will it make if it was always true all along?"

I've found that it HAS made a difference. And the difference is a matter of faith. I find myself approaching problems, situations and life in general from the faith standpoint that I don't need something in addition to what God has already given me. I just need to live from my truest self, the new self that genuinely wants to please God. Needless to say, I was surprised by the difference.

As I've thought more and more about it, I really look forward to sharing the Gospel with people again. How many times have these conversations turned into "well, I know I sin, but I'm not that bad" discussions. I SO look forward to being able to say, "Hey, let's agree not to focus on behaviors...Jesus never said 'I have come that you might behave'...God wants to give you a new heart." What a great message, made greater by the fact that it's the truth.

Anyway, thanks.

b 

Is the message of the 'good and noble heart' a new teaching?

The idea that we have a good and noble heart now because of Christ's work in us comes from the classic Christian doctrine called, "regeneration."  It was even forecast in the Old Testament when God declared:

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you."  [Ezekiel 36:26]

This is not a new teaching; but rather, one we've largely ignored in contemporary Christianity.

J.I. Packer, whom Time magazine listed as one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals in America, describes our regeneration as, “the spiritual change wrought in the heart of man by the Holy Spirit in which his/her inherently sinful nature is changed so that he/she can respond to God in Faith, and live in accordance with His will (Matt. 19:28; John 3:3,5,7; Titus 3:5). It extends to the whole nature of man, altering his governing disposition, illuminating his mind, freeing his will, and renewing his nature.”

He goes on to say that, “The regenerate man has forever ceased to be the man he was; his old life is over and a new life has begun; he is a new creature in Christ, buried with him out of reach of condemnation and raised with him into a new life of righteousness.” (See Rom. 6:3-11; II Cor. 5:17; Col. 3:9-11)

[In my book, Recover Your Good Heart, you can read quotes from preachers of old such as Jonathan Edwards, Andrew Murray and Martin Luther who also confirm the supernatural goodness of our new nature.]

False humility doesn't do God ... or you any good.

Once again, I ran across the phrase, "More of you, less of me" in another popular Christian artist's worship song.  The sentiment is noble, but misguided, and it denies the true nobility of our new nature.  But didn't John the Baptizer say just the same thing: "He must become greater; I must become less.” ? [John 3:30]

Context would be helpful -- it always is:  some Jews were questioning John the Baptizer as to why Jesus and his disciples seem to be attracting converts away from John.  ["...here he (Jesus) is baptizing, and all are going to him."]  In other words, "Aren't you worried, John, that this other guy is stealing your followers?"

But John isn't rattled by this at all, for he knows what his role in the Story is:  "This is the assigned moment for him [Jesus] to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines."  -- from The Message

John's humility is not a devaluation or deflation of his worth:  It's a realization that his role in the mission is coming to an end, or at least taking a different shape.

So when worship leaders, song writers, or Christian pundists claim, "I must decrease, for he must increase" we need to ask:  "Decrease in what?  Grow less ... in what?" 

God is not asking you to get out of his way.  He's not going to walk around you so that he can go where he really wants to do, without you being in the way.  He's not asking you to recoil and retreat from your true, good and noble heart.   You are not a hinderance to him.

If anything, he may ask you to retreat from pride [ yet he recognizes that pride is no longer in your heart anyway.  It may be lodged in your 'flesh' but not in your new heart].  Remember, it's not in our nature to be prone to wander or selfish any longer -- even Paul declares this:  "It is not I, but sin living in me."   [If you came down with a horrible virus, you wouldn't think you were the virus, or that the virus now defined you.]

True humility comes only when you are content with your new God-given noblility.  Denying your God-crafted brilliance and splendor would be like the night's canopy of stars asking their Maker, "Please dull our light -- we would prefer to be dirtied, dingy and grey."   Or a swan asking God to break its wing for fear of being too beautiful.

You can't "reflect the Lord's likeness with ever-increasing drabness."  The proper thing is to shimmer.

•  Related Video:  "Kingdom of Nobles"

"I have come that you might behave?"

We were handed the wrong lens:
You will read Scripture through whatever lens you’ve been given. For decades, I mis-read the Scriptures as a way to behave better so that I could act like a good Christian. Others I know have been mislead as well. In fact, one man I know told me, “The four Gospels are about how we behave.”

Is that what Jesus came for? —“I have come that you might behave.”?

The commands of Jesus as well as Paul’s strong guidance to young churches felt heavy and wearisome to me. The commands became admonitions to avoid certain behaviors and take on other ones, lest God be displeased.

I was never told Jesus had given me a new and pure heart or the supernatural power for good that comes with it. I was left reading the New Covenant through an Old Covenant mentality [ a distorted lens]. After a while, one begins to resent God and despise the Christian life for requiring something, without providing the power to carry it out.

And that's the point:  the new heart Jesus gave you, tended by the Holy Spirit, gives you the power to change, to live well and to relate well.   As long as you believe your heart remains 'wicked' and 'prone to wander,' your healing will be sabotaged and the work of Jesus will be short-circuited.

[Excerpted from Jim's book, Recover Your Good Heart - Living free from religious guilt and the shame of not good-enough]

I will give you a new heart.  - Ezekiel 36:26

Too much of the Church's message is about sin.

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin:  with wrong-doing or wrong-being and its effects.  Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally.  -- Dallas Willard, 'The Divine Conspiracy'

The Gospel is not primarily about rescue from sin. It is a rescue from death:

• Rescued from deadness of heart [spirit/will],
• Rescued from deadness of disconnection,
• Rescued from deadness of disorientation,
• Rescued from deadly and demeaning desires that are less than us.

The Gospel is about a life-giving-life:

• A life-giving heart,
• A life-giving connection with God and others,
• A life-giving re-orientation around the Incarnate Life himself
• A new set of life-giving desires.

Jesus' primary offer is not forgiveness of sins [although he does forgive our sins]. Rather, his offer is a great restoration: returning to us the things that Death has stolen from us.

Christmas is the gift of a restored heart.

If you rescue the heart, you rescue the person.

"For God is not merely mending,
not simply restoring a status quo.
Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.” - C.S. Lewis

“I will give you a new heart…”
– Ezekiel 36:26

Therefore, Christ’s work, of necessity, must deal with the heart, the “inside of the cup.” As Dallas Willard rightly states:

“If we would walk with him, we must walk with him at that interior level [the level of the heart].… He saves us by realistic restoration of our heart to God and then by dwelling there with his Father through the distinctively divine Spirit. The heart thus renovated and inhabited is the only real hope of humanity on earth.”

Notice that salvation is a rescuing of the heart, for when you rescue the heart you rescue the person.


Christianity is not about moral behavior.

Parents often get their young families to go 'back to church' in order to give their children a proper moral upbringing.  Adults often look to Christianity to provide a higher moral compass.  But Jesus never intended that to be the thrust of the new way of life he was offering. 

To be clear, the new-hearted love he was offering does, in fact, produce a responsible, moral person who cares about how their actions affects others; but this was not of primary importance.  As N.T. Wright suggests:

Christians from quite early in the church's life have allowed themselves to see this [way of Jesus] as a new rule book, as though his intention was simply to offer a new code of morality ...  Jesus' contemporaries already had a standard of morality to rival any and to outstrip most."  [from The Challenge of Jesus, N.T. Wright]

If morality was the central point of Christianity, Jesus would have simply re-instituted the moral code the Jews already had in place.  Thankfully, Jesus' righteousness [goodness] surpassed the moral code of the day by being rooted in God's faithfullness, and his capacity to produce his righteousness within us.  The same faithful goodness Jesus possessed is now rooted within your new heart.

IDENTITY REFORMATION -- A new Facebook Page for finding authors/bloggers you like

IDENTITY REFORMATION - Living our new identity is a new Facebook Page I created to showcase authors/bloggers/publishers who support the good and noble heart message. Here you will find resources and content from people like:

Current Contributors:
Jim Robbins, Gary Barkalow,
Kevin Miles, Joel Brueseke,
Bob Regnerus, Matt Gillogly,
Andrew Farley.

[More may be added.]

Go  to IDENTITY REFORMATION.

The armor of God is not something you wear.

We tend to think of the armor of God as something you put on, external pieces of battle gear that you wear on the outside to protect the life inside:

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. ¹⁴ Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, ¹⁵ and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. ¹⁶ In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

In this passage, even the words "put on," take up," and "take" could imply protecting yourself with something you lack or don't yet have, and therefore must "put on."

But what if the armor and its protection extends from the inside - out, rather than outside - in?  Wouldn't that make sense, given the reality of our new and noble heart?

So what does that look like?

1. You already have the Truth moving within you, having permanently given his heart and mind  to you.


2. You've already been transfigured into the righteous radiance of Christ's own goodness.


3. You're already poised to bring the restoring shalom ["peace"] of Christ to others around you.


4. Jesus has already given you the settled and faithful confidence he has in the Father.


5. You've been rescued and renewed by the saving life of God.


6. The mind and heart of Christ, voicing his affection for you and counseling your heart, dwells within you richly.

 We can certainly "put on" or practice or rehearse the armor of God, remembering what we've already been given.  But the armor is an internal powerhouse:  The power and protection move from the inside - out.

The old hymn got it wrong.

The old hymn got it wrong:

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.

~ Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Because Christ has rescued your heart:

• Your heart is no longer prone to wander.


• God the Father doesn't wear 'Jesus glasses'.


• Your sin is no longer you.


• You do love God with all heart.


• There is no difference between the purity of Jesus' heart and yours now.

How can you feel 'wretched' and good at the same time?

How can the apostle Paul call himself a "wretched man" -- overcome by sin; yet also see himself as a new creation, claiming that he's really not "controlled by the sinful nature but by the Spirit?"  Which is it, Paul?

Doesn't he seem to be forgetting his own God-given goodness, his new and noble nature, when he calls himself "wretched?" 

John Lynch, co-author of True Faced and Bo's Cafe, has a fresh and more helpful way of looking at "wretchedness:" 

“Wretched”:  Miserable, because of the pain in my regenerate heart of wanting to do what’s right but overcome with my [natural] inability to pull it off.  Only the regenerate mind can grieve over unrighteousness. 

This kind of wretchedness doesn't dismiss the radically-pure nature God has given us: 

Rather, it means, “Wretched through the exertion of hard labor.”  In other words, "I’m so tired of trying to make this work!”

It's the wretchedness of a man who has exhausted himself by trying to live a super-natural life with grossly inadequate, depleted natural reserves:  a man trying to live apart from his new heart and the Spirit's work there.



Deep tissue healing

Medical students will tell you that in a deep wound two kinds of tissue must heal:  the connective tissue beneath the surface and the outer, protective layer of skin. 
- Philip Yancey, What Good is God?

Let's use the idea of deep tissue vs. surface healing as a metaphor for healing the whole person:  What is 'deep below the surface' must heal if the person is to become well.  The layers below the surface must be knit together in wholeness. 

The heart [deep core of a person's identity] must be made well if the person is to recover from the Fall.  For too long, the Church has focused on getting the outer layer to look good, to behave well; as if apparent health on the surface was necessarily indicative of the reality on the inside.  [We all know that appearances can be faked.]

The new paradigm for spiritual [and therefore mental, physical, social] wholeness is this:  heal the heart [the reality below the surface] and you begin healing the whole person.  Health radiates from the Christ-follower's new heart [deep core] outwards.  The focus for God is not on proper outward appearances -- the surface layers:  Rather, His goal is the well-being and restoration of the heart/spirit deeper within; and the subsequent nourishing and release of the life-giving resources of that new heart.

This has already occured in the Christ-follower.  The sickly and sin-ravaged heart has been replaced.  A transplant took place when you said 'yes' to Jesus:  the Son dies to give his heart to the wounded and dying.  The wounded one receives the Son's heart so that he can live well.

THE HEART TAKES FLIGHT -- new e-book

My newest e-book.  It's free, and short [five pages]; but gives what I think is the rest of the 'grace' message:
E-book - The Rest of the Grace Message-Jim Robbins

Not likely to sin.

There are some better ways to view temptation:

1.  Sin is not a foregone conclusion.  It's a lie that you're likely to give in.  You've been taught to see yourself, your heart, as weak and prone to wander.  It's no longer true.  You don't merely have the forgiveness of Jesus -- you have the noble heart of Jesus as well.

2.  The object of your sin [a woman, a guarantee of financial security, a drink] isn't what you really want.  The temptation is a false and shallow substitute for the real thing.  Underneath the tempation is a deeper [and good] desire for life and loving connection. 

So how can you walk with God and others --  to trust him for the life your heart most deeply wants and needs;  fulfilled in healthy, life-giving ways?

Feel free to post a comment below.