Deuteronomy 6:4-6 (ESV)
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
I am sharing a bit about this process of coming to God. Yesterday I shared a bit about the process of coming to him the first time - or at least at a time when one realizes the great need from separation from God. Call it what you will - conversion, returning, repentance, confession - they have the similarity of realizing that a life without God at the center is being lived aimlessly, foolishly.
But, I ended with the way in which Christianity introduces us to Grace - where God gifts through his own goodness and righteousness a place for us to come to Him. We have nothing to give him in return - except a place in our Hearts for him to come in and re-shape our selfish living.
Let's start with Heart. If we are called to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength - then what exactly does that mean?
Our heart - according to the scripture - is the seat of our soul. While the heart is a physical organ pumping the necessary life of the blood to our bodies in order to sustain life; it had become a spiritual symbol of the internal dimension of our soul - the place where we will, we choose, we have motivation, emotions, and attitude, and more. It is the interior dimension I speak of, not the external.
Deuteronomy 10:12 (ESV)
12 “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
God made Moses to understand that the willingness to follow had to come from the heart...not the external rules of the law. The external rules, regulations, stipulations, could outline the requirements, but they could never motivate or purpose us to want to follow on their own. That had to come from the heart.
Psalm 19:14 (ESV)
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Words alone cannot bring about the desired affect of the heart that is "bent" towards God. 777 times in scripture the word "heart" appears - and mostly it has to do with the internal spiritual dimension of our relationship with God.
Proverbs 3:5-8 (ESV)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
Decisions are made, commitments are forged, pursuits are entered into, allegiances are given...it's always a matter of the heart.
Matthew 5:8 (ESV)
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
It is in the heart, Jesus says, that purity directs us to God. And it is in the heart that we can live out of the flesh, and easily forget...
Matthew 15:8 (ESV)
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Very early in my walk with Christ, while still in the infancy of it, I came face to face with how differently God's word and I looked at life. I was surprised by the freedom of God, how everything seemed less difficult when I was not manipulating and deceptively maneuvering my way through the self-flesh I had so easily become without Him. I came to understand how differently life could be if only I made the decision to honor God's word, and simply do what he said - with a willingness to question my flesh at all levels, and a willingness to ask "what is it that God says we should do?" It is in this period that I discovered something of God's Heart for me...and the Joy that went with it.
C.S. Lewis wrote about this: "there is an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it JOY, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished from either happiness or pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and only one, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again."
The longing for God, for something to fill up the emptiness of the self-life, led to the longing for more. This is what began my journey with God, and in this journey, the life ahead of me. I found, keep finding, an incredible source of fulfillment...that each time something inside is more real than it had been before.
It does not come all at once...it is a journey after all. We give our hearts, and God gives it back to us, only it is more full of Joy than full of self - at least that's the scriptural view.
THEN there's the struggle with the flesh that just won't go away...More on that tomorrow.
Peace
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
I am sharing a bit about this process of coming to God. Yesterday I shared a bit about the process of coming to him the first time - or at least at a time when one realizes the great need from separation from God. Call it what you will - conversion, returning, repentance, confession - they have the similarity of realizing that a life without God at the center is being lived aimlessly, foolishly.
But, I ended with the way in which Christianity introduces us to Grace - where God gifts through his own goodness and righteousness a place for us to come to Him. We have nothing to give him in return - except a place in our Hearts for him to come in and re-shape our selfish living.
Let's start with Heart. If we are called to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength - then what exactly does that mean?
Our heart - according to the scripture - is the seat of our soul. While the heart is a physical organ pumping the necessary life of the blood to our bodies in order to sustain life; it had become a spiritual symbol of the internal dimension of our soul - the place where we will, we choose, we have motivation, emotions, and attitude, and more. It is the interior dimension I speak of, not the external.
Deuteronomy 10:12 (ESV)
12 “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
God made Moses to understand that the willingness to follow had to come from the heart...not the external rules of the law. The external rules, regulations, stipulations, could outline the requirements, but they could never motivate or purpose us to want to follow on their own. That had to come from the heart.
Psalm 19:14 (ESV)
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Words alone cannot bring about the desired affect of the heart that is "bent" towards God. 777 times in scripture the word "heart" appears - and mostly it has to do with the internal spiritual dimension of our relationship with God.
Proverbs 3:5-8 (ESV)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
Decisions are made, commitments are forged, pursuits are entered into, allegiances are given...it's always a matter of the heart.
Matthew 5:8 (ESV)
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
It is in the heart, Jesus says, that purity directs us to God. And it is in the heart that we can live out of the flesh, and easily forget...
Matthew 15:8 (ESV)
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Very early in my walk with Christ, while still in the infancy of it, I came face to face with how differently God's word and I looked at life. I was surprised by the freedom of God, how everything seemed less difficult when I was not manipulating and deceptively maneuvering my way through the self-flesh I had so easily become without Him. I came to understand how differently life could be if only I made the decision to honor God's word, and simply do what he said - with a willingness to question my flesh at all levels, and a willingness to ask "what is it that God says we should do?" It is in this period that I discovered something of God's Heart for me...and the Joy that went with it.
C.S. Lewis wrote about this: "there is an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it JOY, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished from either happiness or pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and only one, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again."
The longing for God, for something to fill up the emptiness of the self-life, led to the longing for more. This is what began my journey with God, and in this journey, the life ahead of me. I found, keep finding, an incredible source of fulfillment...that each time something inside is more real than it had been before.
It does not come all at once...it is a journey after all. We give our hearts, and God gives it back to us, only it is more full of Joy than full of self - at least that's the scriptural view.
THEN there's the struggle with the flesh that just won't go away...More on that tomorrow.
Peace
Comments