Condemnation of the Heart

1 John 3:19-24

 

19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us. RSV

 

Before the scientific understanding of the circulatory system, surely there was an intuitive connection between blood and the beating of the heart. One could feel a beating in one’s chest and note that when we are frightened or emotionally excited or physically stressed the intensity of that sensation increased. When someone was to do something important, he might have felt a pounding in his chest. Therefore, the connection between an important act and commitment to that action was linked to the condition of the heart. Is your heart in it?

Have you ever felt a “sinking feeling” in your chest on the occasion of feeling ashamed or embarrassed? I suppose this is what is meant when the writer says, “our heart condemns us.”

If I was brave, which I am not, I would share with you several examples where I felt this sinking feeling. You will have to provide your own examples from your own life’s experiences. Two insights are gained from the passage we cite. One is that our hearts (this sinking feeling) is not a sure indicator. Second, we can experience the opposite of this shame, which is confidence, by believing in Jesus and loving one another.

Today, do you require a restoration of confidence? If so, visit your hearts, honestly seek the Lord in prayer and confess the Gospel anew. “Lord, I know you love me and that you have provided mercy for all my sins through the perfect and complete work of your Son on my behalf. Lord I do desire to love those you have placed in my life. Restore to me the joy of my salvation.”

Confidence in the natural world is self-reliance, in the spiritual world it is God-reliance. Oswald Chambers (1874–1917

God wants us to be victors, not victims; to grow, not grovel; to soar, not sink; to overcome, not to be overwhelmed. William Arthur Ward (1812–1882)

 

If your security is based on something that can be taken away from you—you will constantly be on a false edge of security. Tim Hansel

Our confidence in Christ does not make us lazy, negligent, or careless, but, on the contrary, it awakens us, urges us on, and makes us active in living righteous lives and doing good. There is no self-confidence to compare with this. Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531)

Young Love

Jer 2:2
I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. RSV

There is a wonderful line of dialogue in some movie I once saw. I think it was two men speaking. One was older and other younger. Neither one was a kid. The topic was the younger man’s relationship with his wife. “I just don’t love her anymore.” “Did you ever love her?” “O, yes, very much!” “Then remember back until you can find the place where the love died. That is where you start again.”

The Roman Catholics have a notion they call “mortal sin.” It is a sin that kills innocence – it kills Divine Grace. It stops the process of sanctification. It creates in us an aversion to God. While I cannot follow our Catholic brothers and sister when they claim that our sin reverses or negates Divine grace, I can certainly affirm that sin will create in us an aversion to God. We begin to avoid God. We might even create silly and pretentious ways to “manage God.”

Un-confessed sin strains love. This is true with a human/human relationship and a human/Divine relationship. When a husband fails to “come clean” with his wife on some small deceit or transgression, then there is a small estrangement between them. These small sins add up and estrangement grows to the point where love suffers fatally. The love just dies.

It is the act of remembering that restores lost love. Consider the Lord’s Supper. We are called to “Do this, remembering me.” The grace of the Lord’s Table lies in the reconciliation that happens when sin meets the full truth of Jesus Christ. Salvation comes from the two great aspects of Divine Holiness. First is the purity of God, which shines on our impurity and reveals our sin. Second is the deepest purity of God, which displays and demonstrates Divine love and mercy. It is here, that sins are forgiven and love restored.

 

Never once is God said to be reconciled to man; it is always man who is reconciled to God.

William Barclay (1907–1978)

 

To reconcile man with man and not with God is to reconcile no one at all.

Thomas Merton (1915–1968)

Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down his life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.

William Cowper (1731–1800)

Forgiveness is not that stripe which says, “I will forgive, but not forget.” It is not to bury the hatchet with the handle sticking out of the ground, so you can grasp it the minute you want it.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837–1899)

 If God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

Old Leaven

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (RSV) <sup>6Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I have enjoyed baking bread. I received a "bread machine" as a gift one Christmas. It was convenient, but the product was not as good as handmade and it defeated my reason for making bread is the first place; which was the doing of it. Frankly, sometimes I needed to knead. In making bread, with machine or by hand, one knows to avoiding killing the yeast. Salt, a biblical symbol for cleansing, and yeast, a biblical symbol for sin, does not mix.

Yeast is an excellent symbol for sin. It affects the entire "lump." The lump is the symbol for the community of faith, the Church. Salt, the working of holiness, kills the yeast of sin. It is helpful for us to consider the interaction between the affects of sin and the work of holiness in our lives and in our churches.

The reason for casting out the leaven of sin is not to secure our redemption. Redemption is fully accomplished by Christ, our paschal lamb, who dies for all our sins and, thereby, saves us from Hell and death and makes us completely fit for Heaven and for new life.

Yet, cast out sin we must. The tools for doing this are sincerity and truth. The forces against this work of holiness consist of malice and evil.

Today, gently look at the sin in your heart. Be as loving with yourself and others as Christ was toward those sinners he met along the way. At one point, it is written, he looked at a sinner and "loved him." Then he tells him exactly how he is to repent. Christ’s salvation is never a license to sin. It is, if the truth were known, a license not to sin. It is a liberty from the bondage of sin.

　

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new.
John Donne (1572–1631)
　
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969)</sup>

Living with a Whole Heart

1 Chronicles 28:9 (NIV) ⁹“And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

If you watch children play, you can see signs of character at a very early age. While my daughters were in their early formative years, that is, from one to four years, I would watched them solve problems. Unless the problem was entirely too difficult or the circumstance unsafe, I wouldn’t interfere. If the goal was important enough, they would find a way to achieve it. Often they gave up or turned to someone for help. Even asking for help is better than just giving up.

We enrolled them in gymnastics and they had a great coach. We watch as little girls strived to excel. They would try, fail, and try again to master a difficult task. The students either decided to pursue gymnastics with “wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind” or they lost interest and quit.

I belong to billiards team sponsored by the America Poolplayers Association. Some teams are more cohesive than others. I have belonged to my current team for more than eight years. We usually ended up on or near the top of our division and have wonder several city wide tournaments.  Out of nine players, there are about four or five who have stayed the course for five years or more. Watching these players play for several years has taught me much about “wholehearted devotion.” There is on those teams displayed that same “wholehearted devotion” to excellence that I witnessed in my team mates and from many others display great strength of character. To try with all your might to do a thing is always inspiring.

David wants his son to become such a person. While we are not all meant to be pool players, we are each meant to follow God in Jesus Christ. To be a child of God is so easy – it requires only the surrender of our selves to God and accept by faith the finished work of Christ on the cross, who died for our sins. We sing, “Jesus paid it all,” because he did. Yet to become a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ requires “wholehearted devotion and a willing mind.”

God wishes each of us to work as hard as we can, holding nothing back but giving ourselves to the utmost, and when we can do no more, that is the moment when the hand of divine providence is stretched out to us and takes over.

Don Orione (1872–1940)

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say: “Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968)

 

Tomorrow ?

Acts 9:13 (NKJV)
¹³ Then Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem.

 

“Okay, let’s assume . . . .” What follows is usually a dangerous line of reasoning. Do you ever check your track record regarding assumptions? Another piece of slippery ice is any statement beginning with the words, “I had assumed you . . .” Rarely do we know and understand even our closest friends and family well enough to accurately guess their motives or even their wishes.

 “Wow, if I had known you would react this way, I would never had done that. I thought you would like it.” I think it is far better to ask, than to guess what another person might desire. Ananias had formed his opinion of Saul of Tarsus (Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles) Based solely on his reputation. While it was true that Saul had brought great harm to the believers in Jerusalem, it was even true that his intention was to persecute Ananias’ congregation, Ananias was wrong in his assessment of Paul.

We shouldn’t be too hard of Ananias, had you ask Paul, even then, he would have admitted to his cruel intentions. But that assumption and assessment was based on outdated information. While cruelty was in the heart of Paul just days before Ananias’ words to the Son of God, now Paul was being changed by the inward working out of God’s secret plan. Paul was, in Paul’s words penned decades later, “A new creation in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus warns us to make no judgments before “it’s time.” Fact is, before the next stage of God’s perfect plan is revealed, any assumptions at all would be foolish.

 

I sit here in my new study wondering if I have a future ministry ahead of me or if God is finished with me. Sure, I can find some kind of activity to do in the name of Jesus but will I ever be the pastor of another Church? Will I ever preach and teach regularly? I am tempted to say that I am a man without prosprects. It is far more accurate to say that I am a man who can see no known prospects.

 

One of my favorite phrases in the Bible is one I will use out of its context and apply to life in general: Paul says, concern the afterlife, “It does not yet appear what we shall be.” This can be applied to life in general. Only God can know the future as clearly as he knows the past.

Right now, I am standing by, awaiting the next stage of my ministry. The greatest threat to the peace of Christ is a flood of false assumptions. My frail mind is the headwaters of such foolishness.

What are your prospects? Where does your hope reside today? We can only live each day as it is presented to us by God’s providence. We must trust the promise that “hope does not disappoint.”

 

There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, yearning for something better; nobler; holier than it knows now. Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887)

 

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but only empties today of its strength. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892

 

Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and his will for us. Billy Graham (1918– )

 

Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father; who cares for you today, will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. Either he will shield you from suffering or he will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Saint Francis of Sales (1567–1622)

 

God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today’s duties and tomorrow’s anxieties piled on top of them. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822–1909)

Okay, Now Just Fall Back and Trust

Exodus 14:10 - 15 (RSV) ¹⁰When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them; and they were in great fear. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD;  ¹¹and they said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, in bringing us out of Egypt?  ¹²Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”  ¹³And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.  ¹⁴The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be still.”  ¹⁵The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 

I feel especially wicked today. The longer I live in Christ, the greater a sinner I see myself to be and a greater Savior I know our Lord to be. As my sin increases, God’s mercy multiplies to cover it with the all sufficient blood of His Son. “O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” I think the root of all sin lies in the idolatry of Self. How quickly I can turn inward and stew in my pettiness. How quickly I see myself as the center of a Universe where galaxies revolve around me.  This is not a pleasant disposition. There is no peace in narcissism. We sinners suffer greatly and with an unrighteous loneliness. Our idolatry keeps us from holy compassion. “It’s all about us.” Even the pain of other becomes an occasion to talk about our own. I long to have my heart broken by the sorrow of another – that I may be more Christ-like.

 

In the story above, I am not Pharaoh, in his menacing power and rage. I am too weak for such a role. I am not the Egyptians who know nothing of God’s covenants and promise. Far from it, I know the covenant sealed in the blood of Christ; I know that all his promises are “yes” for me. I am not Moses who holds fast to the promises of God and trusts all His provisions. No, I am among “the people of Israel.” I am one of those who are fearful and complaining. A great salvation waits me, if I were not frozen in fear and blocked by my independence.

Here is the righteous cure to my sinful predisposition to despair - “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today.” Okay, now I am pumped! Tell me what you want me to do, God, and I’ll do my best to get it done! God says, through Moses, “You have only to be still.” Is it that simple? I think, if stillness were simple I would have done it before now.

 

Can I be still in the midst of a storm? Can you?

 

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

 Courage, brother! do not stumble,

Though thy path be dark as night;

There’s a star to guide the humble,

Trust in God and do the right.

Norman Macleod (1812–1872)

 

Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber,

Holy angels guard thy bed.

Heavenly blessings without number

Gently falling on thy head.

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

 

 I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea

Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;

I shall believe the hand which never fails,

From seeming evil worketh good to me.

And, though I weep because those sails are battered,

Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered,

“I trust in thee.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919)

 

Let us be like a bird for a moment perched

On a frail branch when he sings;

Though he feels it bend, yet he sings his song,

Knowing that he has wings.

Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

 

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963)

 

That little bird has chosen his shelter; above it are the stars and the deep heaven of worlds; yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring for tomorrow’s lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig and leaving God to think for him.

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

 What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. For each of us the time is coming when we shall have nothing but God. Health and wealth and friends and hiding places will be swept away, and we shall have only God. To the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain.

A. W. Tozer (1897–1963)

Come On, Who'ya Trying to Fool?

Ps 51:6

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. RSV

My dear wife has an annoying habit of asking me “What are you thinking?” Often I lie. I say, “Nothing.” Now that is such an obvious deception that I might as well had said, “It’s none of your business what I am thinking.” Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a button that would, when pushed, cause anyone to truthfully report, accurately and unedited, the past ten minutes of their “inner dialogue.”

My mother and I once visited her mother’s brother. He was in his late 80’s, lived alone and I wanted to interview him for genealogical purposes. He was not at all responsive to my questions about our family. It soon became clear that he really didn’t want to talk with us. During one of the many periods of silence, without the slightest expression of any emotion, he said “I wish they would leave.” I don’t think he ever became aware that he had spoken part of his inner dialogue.

Are there lies in our “thought world”? I would imagine that we are more likely to be truthful to ourselves than to others, so fewer deceptions will happen in our secret spaces. The lies we tell ourselves are more formative, that is, they have a greater impact, than the lies we tell others.

Techniques like keep a journal of your “private thoughts” (or inner dialogue) is useful to check the accuracy of those perceptions. It is dangerous to assume that anything in my head must be the truth. A necessary spiritual exercise is to purge your heart from as many untruths as possible.

Ps 51:6

6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

RSV

And silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)

 

Acceptance of one’s intrinsic worth is the core of the personality. When it collapses, everything else begins to quiver. James C. Dobson (1936– )

 

He who respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

 

Our acceptance before God is complete and secure even when we are disappointed in ourselves. Erwin W. Lutzer (1941– )