NO LONGER PRONE TO WANDER -- e-book for pastors

I wrote this for pastors and teachers in the area of Southern New Hampshire where I live; but the core idea holds true for churches across the country.  Feel free to share this.

E-book -No Longer Prone to Wander-withcover

Audio book--4-CD Sets and MP3's are available

Both the Four-CD Set and MP3 downloads are now available.

• Read by Jim Robbins
• Unabridged

New e-book: "ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH"

I've just published this free e-book, "ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH -- How spiritual abuse sabotages the heart."  Feel free to download and share. 

You can also leave a comment by clicking, "Post a Comment" below.

E-book - "ENOUGH IS NEVER ENOUGH - How spiritual abuse sabotages the heart" - by Jim Robbins

Sherpa carrying load photo:
Courtesy of PaulPrescott: paulprescott.com/

Update on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 4:18PM by Jim Robbins

Note:  Once you download the e-book, or open it in your reader, the clarity improves quite a bit.  What you see on screen here is the preview version, which lacks a bit of sharpness. 

Books I recommend

The following books take the idea of the Christian's good heart seriously. 
I highly recommend them:

by Larry Crabb
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by Dwight Edwards
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by Andrew Farley
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by Stone & Smith

What books do you recommend that take the Christian's good heart seriously? [Post a comment below.]

Related posts:

"How to Shame a Christian"  - video

"As the heart goes, so goes a life."

Audio book update!

The audio book is done!

The files and artwork have been sent off to the CD duplicator.  The audio book CD sets should be shipping to me at the end of the week, and I'll make them available on the blog next week.  [CD sets and MP3 download.]

New e-book excerpt: "Enough is Never Enough - Abusing the Good Heart"

Non-commercial www.paulprescott.comThis excerpt is from a new e-book I'm writing on the idea of spiritual abuse -- specifically how spiritual abuse can kill the very life of our hearts.
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The particular kind of abuse I'm talking about is reflected in the following description of abuse.  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.

Notice the effects of this kind of abuse:

• weakening, undermining or decreasing that person’s spiritual empowerment.
• enforcing a 'spiritual standard,' 'spiritual performance,' a means of 'proving a person's spirituality'
  

The e-book is nearly completed, and I'll be announcing its completion soon.

As always, feel free to click the "Post a Comment" button below.

Update on Monday, August 16, 2010 at 12:06PM by Jim Robbins

P.S.  Some of your own stories of spiritual abuse will be included in the e-book; experiences that may resonate with your own painful journey. 

Why God became ruined

"A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."  - Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - What I Learned While Editing My Life

God is also a character in a Story. However, even though he is its author, though he could write a less painful part for himself, he subjects himself to the story.     He's in fact, the hero, the protagonist.  If he doesn't come through, then you don't get to live.  So what does God have to overcome in order to get what he's after? 

First of all, what exactly is he after? 
He's after the total and supernatural re-making of each person -- which means he has to rescue their hearts.  Rescue the heart and you rescue the person.  Only restored persons are able to live well in a restored habitat.  God is after the thorough remaking of all living things, so that they may receive his affection and direct, unfiltered Life. 

“This world is a great sculptor’s shop.  We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”  - C.S. Lewis

This has already been done.  The Great Lion, Aslan, by the stirring of his own breath, has released those bound in stone into his own immortality.  Sodom and Gomorrah has been reversed.  This is the gift of salvation.

Second, what does God overcome to get it?
The unintended consequences of his Beloved's freedom. The unintended consequences of his Beloved's freedom.

He has to enter into conflict with his own creation's ruinous affliction and overcome it.  He ties the millstone around his own neck. He goes down with the ship.  Because he is truly free, he discards his own freedom by becoming ruined himself [God "became sin for us"], turning the human heart back towards his affection. He gave the Christian her new and noble heart, so that she could return to God with all her heart.

"A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."

THE ASSAULT AGAINST YOUR CALLING - new podcast in the 'calling' series

Special guest Gary Barkalow, author of the upcoming book, It's Your Call:  What are you doing here?, joins Jim again for part four of their series on living from our calling. 

What has been coming against your heart to shut it down?  What is at stake as we pursue the deep desires of our hearts and the calling that is written there?

This was a powerful conversation with Gary Barkalow, who brings a deep clarity to the struggles of calling.

Danger: Exhortation that ignores the new heart

Much of what passes for the “gospel” these days is a message of exhortation without regeneration—preaching that excludes the New Covenant reality of a transformed heart. (Or more accurately, preaching that is grossly unaware of this transformation having already occurred.)

The message of exhortation translated today says, “You’re not doing enough of this; or you’re doing too much of that:” “You’re too selfish, not committed to your marriage, not serving enough …”

Exhortation becomes an attempt to manage (or manipulate) people’s behavior by pressure and guilt, rather than urging them to release the good stored up in their heart through Christ’s work in them.  Exhortation leans toward the 'not-enough' and 'not yet' rather than relentlessly pursuing the  supernaturally-pure heart Jesus has already given us at our conversion.

[Excerpted from my book: Recover Your Good Heart -- Living Free from Religious Guilt and the Shame of Not Good-Enough.]

Good and also becoming good

How can Christians be both already good, and becoming good?  Here are two verses that lay this out for us:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17)   (Here, there’s a sense of finality. Our goodness is a settled fact.)

But Scripture also show us the ever-increasing process of becoming good …

“ For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge...and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1: 4-8)

(In this verse, we have a sense of Christ’s character developing in us with growing measure, over time.)

As I learn to live from my new and supernaturally-good heart, I mature in the goodness that God has already given me. That goodness may be as yet not expressed, but nevertheless still present in me. Discipleship is the process by which I enjoy and continue to express an already-present holiness and wholeness within me.

Toxic preaching that confuses and wounds

"Christianity is not about how good we are, but how good God is." 

Are we sure about that?  [Even raising the question sounds heretical, doesn't it?]  As my friend Mike cautions, "Don't poke the bear..."  But what if the answer to the question is:  It depends on who the "we" is, in that statement. 

Part of the problem with preaching today is that it often has to be addressed to a large, diverse crowd, some of whom buy into the teaching of Jesus and some who are cautiously investigating.  The speaker/preacher ends up delivering a broad, cast-a-wide-net message that isn't oriented to any particular segment of the crowd [and ends up confusing everybody], or ends up covertly addressing the "unbeliever" in an attempt to evangelize them, though he appears to be addressing everybody.  [I used to be in that very position, so I understand the complexities.]

However, to preach or teach and not be clear with the crowd exactly to whom you are speaking [especially when making a statement like the one above] can have a bewildering and injurious effect.

For example, the above claim that:  "Christianity is not about how good we are, but about how good God is"  is true, but requires a clear caveat.  If you're a Christian who hears that statement, you might assume that your heart [your true nature] remains selfish and sinful --because it's not about "how good we are," according to that statement. 

This would in fact, be untrue and unbiblical for the Christian to believe.  The idea that the human heart is desperately wicked is true -- prior to a person entering the 'in-Christ' life.  After Jesus enters the person, he or she has a supernaturally and thoroughly-pure heart [true nature].  This is the classic notion of regeneration.

You can image the confusion many Christians have felt when hearing statements that are non-specific and unclarified like this.  The affect of such an unthoughtul approach to preaching (and a misunderstanding of Jesus' rescuing of the heart] leaves many who are technically free, but functionally bound, like Lazarus:  Invited into life, but unable to live freely, under the 'easy yoke.'  They don't know they've been made radically good; and their spirits break under the weight of poor preaching.

Can you think of other apparently 'Christian' statements that really need clarifying and a deeper undertanding?

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Related post:

"How much do you know about 'grace?'

Video:  "How to Shame a Christian"

Update on Monday, July 12, 2010 at 3:05PM by Jim Robbins

If someone were to read only this post and be unaware of my full perspective, they could conclude that I think we ought to condemn the person who has yet to follow Christ, or that Jesus himself approaches people through condemnation. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Jesus didn't approach people this way, nor do I.  However, neither can we ignore the conclusion that the heart [prior to Christ's rescuing work] is just as scripture describes -- in ruins, bent inward, unable to love and receive at the level Jesus loves and receives.  [ -- what Scripture describes as 'deceitfully wicked.']  As an aside, "deceitfully wicked" doesn't have to look like rape or genocide.  It's often much more subtle. -- Remember, Jesus' indictment of the Pharisees is that their righteousness didn't go far enough.]

Just because we want to think all people are basically good [whether Christian or not] doesn't make it so.  It's easy to understand how we, in our attempt to make sense of troubling issues, can draw conclusions based upon what we wish was true.  But this doesn't get us closer to what is real.

All these issues have to be held in tension. 

Web "Live" event series - registration is now open

I'm teaching an online webcast series on "RECOVER YOUR GOOD HEART."  The first (of four) sessions is called, "Guilt, Shame and Pressure!"

1. When:  Thursday, July 8th at 8:30 p.m. (East Coast time)
2. Registration for that event is now open.  Click here for more.

Watch the video to get an idea of what I will cover in the web series:

HOW TO SHAME A CHRISTIAN from Jim Robbins on Vimeo.

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E-book available - "RECOVER YOUR GOOD HEART"

It's possible to be forgiven, yet not free. 

Many Christians are living under very damaging assumptions about their heart.  I wrote the book to expose those assumptions and to help readers believe that their heart is now truly good and noble.

My book, Recover Your Good Heart is available in E-book format below.  You can also find it in print on Amazon.

RECOVER YOUR GOOD HEART

'HOW TO SHAME A CHRISTIAN' -- mini-movie

I created this mini-movie to expose some of the wounding, shame-based messages Christians hear. 

Finding your hidden vein of gold

Quite often, we're asked to be honest about our weaknesses and shortcomings -- job interviews ask us to disclose this, churches obsess about it,  and accountability groups major on our failings.  There's nothing wrong with being honest about our weaknesses, but there's something more worthy of our attention:  it's the vein of gold within:

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness; yet, perhaps, as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." -- Jonathan Swift

The vein of gold is where God focuses his attention:  he is obsessed with what's most alive, radiant, and strong in you.  A vibrant seam of gold.

ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ - 'How much do you know about grace?'

Do you want to see how your answers compared to other people's?
I've included the percentages below of those who answered 'false' and 'true' for each question.

1.  Grace simply means that you are forgiven.     
False (84.4%)  True  (15.6%)

Answer:  False.  Grace does include forgiveness; but must also include a restored heart.  Otherwise, we have stunted grace:  much like a prisoner who is pardonned and his debt paid;  yet the prisoner remains the same person who committed the crime -- unable to relate well and to live well.  He's technically free, yet functionally bound. Unless he's transformed, his pardon won't help him.

Grace requires restoration.  That's the offer of Jesus.  Your heart was restored (the old was removed and a new one put in its place)  when you said 'yes' to him.
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2. God the Father looks at me through 'Jesus glasses,' so that he only sees Jesus and not my sin.      False (68.8%)  True (34.4%)

Answer:  False.  Because of Jesus' work on the cross and resurrection, your heart (true self) is absolutely pure.  The old was removed.  (Because of the flesh, you can still sin -- but that's not who you really are any longer.)

God can look directly upon you - without Jesus glasses - because you're actually good and holy now, not simply 'positionally' holy.  God is not pretending.
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3. My heart (my true nature) is totally clean right now.
   False (6.5%)   True (93.5%)

Answer:  True.  Jesus gives us nothing less than his own heart and goodness.  Your true nature is his nature.  You now want and have the capacity to love as he did. 

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4. There's a mix of good and bad in my heart now -- like two dogs fighting for dominance.   False (81.3%)   True (18.8%)

Answer:  False.  Though the flesh remains, it is no longer you.  It is like a thorn lodged in your body - it can cause pain, but it isn't actually you.  You no longer have a divided heart.  Your heart and flesh are diffferent things:  The heart is the real you.

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5. Any good in me is because Jesus now lives in me.   
False (56.3%)   True (46.9%)

Answer:  False.  This might surprise many of you.  It is certainly true that Jesus lives in you.  However, he doesn't need to stand between you and the Father (like Jesus glasses).  You are actually good now.  Today.  He made you so by giving you his own goodness.

Any goodness in you is now your goodness - coming from the new heart Jesus gave you.  He certainly is the source of that goodness; but that purity is now your own.  It is borrowed, but nevertheless your own.  His righteousness has become your righteousness:  It's the result of your union with him through his work.

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6. Discipleship is about taking on the behavior and habits of Jesus.     False (65.6%)  True (34.4%)

Answer:  False. Discipleship is cooperating with the Holy Spirit as he strengthens and releases the new desires and goodness of your new heart.  Habits flow from heart.  Otherwise we end up with behavior-management.

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7. I grow more like Christ only because I am accepted by God.  
False (53.1%)   True (46.9%)

Answer:  False.  This is also surprising to many. 

Acceptance alone will not restore a person.  Only restoration restores.  We are indeed fully accepted by God; yet we needed something more -- a new life and power to love well.  Otherwise, what you have is a fully-accepted dead person:  much like pardonning and accepting a corpse.  The corpse needs life.

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Were you surprised, even troubled, by any of the answers?  Do you agree with them?

How much do you know about grace? ... Take the quiz.

I've put together a quick quiz to find out what people know (or what they are convinced they know about 'grace.')  I've  used SurveyMonkey.com to create this short quiz. 

The answers to the quiz may be quite surprising to some - even for those who have been walking in grace for years.

The quiz is short - only seven true/false questions.

I'll be revealing the answers this weekend here on the blog.

Click here to take quiz.

Trusting your heart is the biblical thing to do.

It's o.k. to trust your heart now.  In fact, Jesus wants you to.

Your heart can be trusted now because it is no longer 'deceitfully wicked.'  If you follow Christ, it would be wrong to mistrust your heart:  It would be at cross-purposes with what God is doing in your life to constantly hold your desires under suspicion.

I recently asked a group of men to raise their hands if they thought that trusting their hearts was the right thing to do.  About a third of the hands went up.  The majority thought that holding their heart under suspicion was the biblical thing to do.  As we unpacked the truth of their new hearts, given to them when they said 'yes' to Jesus, we exposed the debilitating assumptions they were taught about their hearts.

I explained that within the new heart Jesus gave them came new and noble desires -- and that dismissing those desires as selfish or inherently wicked would prevent them from doing certain things like:

• discovering their unique calling
• loving God and loving each other

But not all desires are created equal
There are, of course, competing desires that can be whispered to us, but those desires are not ours.  They are either whispered by the Enemy, or our culture, or our 'flesh' (which is no longer us, not our real self);  but those desires are not our desires.  False desires are like thorns lodged in the skin -- they are embedded in our bodies, but not of our bodies.  The thorns cry out for our attention, but our health lies in the vitality already present in our bodies.  Our concern must focus on what's most alive and already present within us.  That's where God focuses his energy.

Ask God to reveal the desires of your heart. 
Stay with the process.  It's what he's up to in your life.  Trusting your heart is biblical.

Training scars

Law enforcement and the military have a term for an inappropriate or mistaken response that was mislearned during training, a behavioral script that gets laid down during the officer's training that would clearly not be helpful in a real situation, or perhaps even yield a deadly result. The term is "training scar."

David Grossman, in his book, On Combat, describes an officer-in-training who learned how to grab a gun out of a would-be criminal's hand. During practice, the officer would grab a gun from a colleague, then give it back to him in order to rehearse it again. During a real confrontation with an assailant, the officer surprisingly grabbed the gun from the man's hand, then gave it right back to him. Fortunately, the officer's partner dispatched his own weapon and shot the attacker. The officer who had learned an inappropriate response during training -- giving the gun back -- nearly cost someone's life. That's a training scar.

The Church today is functioning with numerous training scars, or behavioral scripts that are not serving us well. These scripted beliefs are wreaking havoc on The Body. These rehearsed patterns of thought are perhaps even neurologically wired into our brains in ways that lock the spirit and body (Spirit and Body) into dis-ease. The training scar I'm particularly concerned about is our continuing belief that the human heart remains dark, inwardly bent and sinful even after Christ has given the Christian a new heart, goodness and identity at their conversion.

We have remained in the Old Covenant approach to relating, refusing to pass over into the New. Listen to most sermons on any given weekend, and you'll discover the following ingrained script: "Your heart is still selfish and prone to wander. Kill you heart and call that 'holiness.' It's our job to help you behave more like a Christian so that you can do more, be more committed, and stop being so spiritually inept. You don't really want to follow God, so we'll pressure you into becoming like him."

The script of "New creation in Christ, but bad heart, still" is the pervasive training scar of the day. It is not the Gospel. And the result to the unwitting Christian is this wound: "You're not pleasing to me. Try harder." ---------------------------------

For more on behavior scripts, see Laurence Gonzales' books, Deep Survival and Everyday Survival. "Training scar" gun story, from Everyday Survival.



Restoration is better than 'acceptance' alone...

A Mountain Search and Rescue unit gets a call that a climber has fallen on Mt. Hood, near Portland Oregon.  The climber's pick axe failed to grab when he attempted to lodge it into a unstable pocket of ice.  There was nothing to stop his fall.  Other climbers found the body, mangled and barely alive, one-thousand feet down from where he started to slide.

When the mountain rescue unit got there, multiple bones were shattered, including the spine, and the climber was bleeding from his ears and nose.   Rescue workers knelt near the bleeding body and spoke reassuringly to it:  "We accept you." 

And then they did nothing else.  To comfort the climber, they again offered, "We accept you.  You are loved and safe now."  But nothing else was done - no attempt to discern the man's vitals or assess his awareness of surroundings.  No attempt to stabilize and transport the body. 

Only, "You are loved and accepted.  It's o.k. now."

..................................................................................................
O.k., so I made up the story to demonstrate something.  It is not enough for Christians to see themselves as merely loved and accepted by God's grace.  That's a beautiful thing; but it won't restore a person or give them back the capacity to live well -- There was great damage that needed healing.

God is smarter than that.  He restores us by equipping us with a new and noble heart so that we can relate well, live well, and enjoy this new grace we've been given.  Anything less would be as cruel as the clearly shallow and insufficient 'hope' the mountain rescue unit offered the dying climber. 

What have you been taught about 'grace' and 'acceptance.'  Was it enough?