From the Head to the Heart

As a counselor, I take the act of reading God's Word seriously. Now, don't take this to mean that I never have periods of time that I don't delve into it on a regular basis. I'm not going into a guilt-ridden post here to try to make me or anyone reading this strive for more "devotional time". However, I know how important it is to look at the Word for myself and see what God is saying to me through it. This certainly helps a great deal in sharing God's Truth with others. The problem is, when I look at myself to see how the Truth I know is being manifested in my behaviors and feelings, it is simply not there at times. One of the main issues is that the Truth gets stuck in my head and doesn't make its way down to my heart. In other words, to put it more bluntly...I often don't truly believe the facts that I know. If I don't believe something, even if I know in my head that it is true, I will not live as if it is true. Then that Truth is really of no value to me whatsoever.


When I think back to my time in school, from Kindergarten on up, I can recall many times that I studied for exams that I really didn't see much need in holding onto the information after I was done taking the test. I only memorized and understood the information that was going to be on the test enough to do well on the test at the time. Yeah, there were times that I knew the information would be important for me to carry over to another class or my future as an accountant and counselor, but there were many times that I just didn't see information for certain tests as applicable to me and my present or future. The problem was certainly not with the teachers that took the time to teach me. You could say I just didn't treasure some of the things I was taught.

I sometimes treat the Bible the same as I did some of what I learned in school. God's Word is Truth. That means when I read something from His Word, what I read ARE facts, but The Word is not just cool inspirational stories and rules. Jesus Christ referred to Himself as the Truth, so Truth has a lot to do with a warm, loving, real relationship, not just cold hard facts to know. Having this kind of relationship with God is an awesome thing, therefore, God's Truth is a treasure.

In Ephesians 2:8, which is part of the Scripture passage from which I got the title for this blog, Paul says that we are saved through faith. In looking up the meaning of the original Greek word used here, I found these definitions were offered (among others) to describe what Paul was getting at when he was talking about faith: belief in the truth, reality, and firm persuasion. Therefore, faith definitely has something to do with knowing the truth and believing it. I must be firmly persuaded that what God says is true...to the point that it is reality for me. That means I live it. Here's where I get tripped up again, many times. I can coldly go about trying to mimic what I read in the Bible (doing good works, staying away from sins, trying not to repeat the mistakes of people in the Bible, etc.) But living by Grace through Faith requires me to live in the Truth with RELATIONSHIP being the foundation. That's what causes us to treasure it.

When I read Paul's words "pray without ceasing" in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, I think back to what I learned from the author, Henri Nouwen, when he asserted that praying like this means living in reality instead of illusion (living according to the lies that Satan wants us to believe about ourselves, God, and others). Praying means I am interacted with God through Christ...talking to Him as if He is really there listening because He IS really there listening, then deliberately listening for Him, watching for Him, including Him in big and little things that I am going through, asking Him questions, getting angry with Him, accepting His discipline, and taking His Truth and applying it in order to experience more of Him. Only He can validate His Truth for me by taking it from my head to my heart, and this happens through life experiences. I experience Him as I interact with Him by living as if what He says is actually true. I have to push myself to get away from the head knowledge trap.

Perhaps the easiest way to begin to attack this issue is to do what Paul did with the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul said, "For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Paul refused to use all the knowledge and the ability to speak eloquently. He made a conscience decision to live out the Truth by not relying on his own abilities and knowledge, but to rely solely on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He goes on to say that he did this "in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling". This was not comfortable for Paul. He put himself in a position where God had to come through for him and for the people he was speaking to. He put himself in a position where he actively trusted God. In other words, He put action to his faith.

I've done this before, but how easily I can forget what it was like by getting complacent. Years ago when anxiety and panic attacks ruled my life, I came to a point in which I chose to face my fears. Through the experiences that followed, my faith grew tremendously. I experienced hope and joy, and it was great. Now it's time to press forward once again...to quit treating my experience back then as if it was a great learning experience and nothing more. Although I've often treated it as such, it was not just a one time event in my life that led to my faith being full-grown. When I think about my wife, I don't just think about the wedding day and nothing more. There have been so many awesome moments since then. The wedding day was only the beginning. Likewise, God has so much more He is wanting to experience with me...many more awesome moments...maybe even some better than what I have experienced thus far.

God's Not Obligated

Several weeks ago, in talking with someone, I realized a false view of God that has plagued me. I have been planning on writing about it and sharing it here ever since. Today's the day.

It's easy to get caught up in religious behavior, as I have written about here before. In religious circles, we often do things out of a sense of obligation. We operate a lot on guilt and scare tactics such as "I'm not a good Christian if I don't serve enough" or "I'd better not do that or God is going to get me for it!" To look the part of a Christian and thinking we need to keep God (and others) appeased with our efforts, we work hard to do the right things and avoid the wrong things. I discovered that beyond this mess, I actually had allowed myself to view God as being like this as well.

This lie that God helped me see in the conversation with my friend was not so much about operating out of guilt and fear this time, but about the obligatory actions. Since I often do things out of a since of obligation, I had been seeing God as doing the same. If I believe God does what He does out of obligation, I lose the ability to receive love from Him. The one big thing that was hurting me so bad was this lie: "Well, He's God, He HAS to love me". I have heard several others make this comment about their parents loving them, assuming their parents had no choice. God's love is not obligatory love. I'd argue that obligatory love is not love at all. It's based on guilt or fear, or some combination of both. God chooses to love me. Jesus chose to die on the cross. God chose me to be His son. When I ponder the fact that God has made choices, makes choices, and will continue to make choices to offer His love to me, it is simply an awesome perception changer.

Get Me Out of the Way

Sitting here this morning, engaging in some much needed quiet time to myself, I have been reminded once again of the necessity to surrender my own efforts in order to allow God to work through me.

"God does not want us to work FOR him, to witness FOR him, to live FOR him. He wants to get SELF out of the way so he can work through us." - Charles Solomon

Typically, as Christians, when we think about "self" or "flesh", we think about things such as sexual sins, drug and alcohol abuse, not being in church enough, stealing, or some other behavior we have or have not distanced ourselves from. I'm finding more and more that I allow my self to be the center of my life in a much more sinisterly hidden way: religious striving.

As I stated in my last post here on this blog, God has begun a work in me to free me from my attempts to win the battle for my mind. The quote from Solomon up above was another loving interaction between the Holy Spirit and me regarding this. I habitually do the work while God is asking me to let Him initiate and guide, while I follow. I talk a lot about being Christ-centered, but when I am stressing and pushing myself constantly, even if it is to do "the right things" and to avoid "the wrong things", I am self-centered...centered on me doing the work FOR God. If we have trouble discerning if Christ or self is in the center of our lives, there is always evidence in our lives that can serve as red flags that we are doing this. For me, anxiety, insomnia, no joy, and exhaustion are among the forerunners.