A Hard Heart Goes Soft in the Middle
July 30th, 2010 by Angela
I always find a person’s testimony of how they became a follower of Jesus, the Christ, interesting, don’t you? I love to hear people’s stories, and how God has worked in their lives, perhaps even pursued them, when they were not the least bit interested. Maybe their testimony includes how God used another person to speak to them or befriend them, and modeled Jesus to them, or showed them what their life was missing.
There are many people who have known me for the various seasons of my life. They may have known me as a child, when I was growing up in church, and giggling all the time. They may have known me during my later college days or perhaps my early career days, when I wanted very little to do with God. Or perhaps they met me later on, when I became a new creation in Christ Jesus, and was never the same. I look back, and think of those few years in between, when I probably would have described myself as antagonistic towards the things of God. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with Christians or church or anything of the sort. I wanted to live my own life, do whatever I wanted, and although I hadn’t consciously made the decision to not be a Christian, I certainly wasn’t one. If you would have asked, I would have said I still believed in God; still prayed; and even attended church some. That’s why I always feel the need to differientiate for people the vast difference between church attendance and being a true follower of Jesus Christ. You can still attend church religiously, every week, and claim you believe in God, and be about as far away from Him as possible.
One sure fire way to know the true state of your heart, is if someone attempts to share something with you, that may make you see a sin in your life by pointing out the way you are living is not Christ-like, and your reaction is anger towards them. You begin to dislike them, and the things that they stand for. This is why Christians are often hated in the world, by the world (by unbelievers), because people, in general, do not like the goodness and truth that you stand for, and oppose the light that you shine upon the sins in their lives. No one wants to be reminded that what they are doing or thinking is wrong. If one is honest with oneself, and you look deep enough, you will realize there is guilt buried inside, for you know that how you are living is wrong, and what you are doing is sinful, and not honoring to God. You may even be inwardly mad at yourself and become depressed, because although your way of life may be what you want, and what you are choosing, it most often leads to misery, problems, negative consequences, or just plain emptiness. You may not like yourself and how you react in your personal life. You may be hot-headed, foul-mouthed, rude, mean, or impatient with your children or others. Subconsciously, you hate that about yourself, get mad at yourself because you want to change, but can’t, and then turn that anger inward, and find yourself in a depression, or addicted to some substance or food or habit, to dull the pain. Sometimes there is no guilt, but that is because the heart has been hardened so hard, it no longer feels these things and God allows it. That is the most sad case of all.
People can say that they believe in God, yet want nothing to do with Him, because they want to continue their lifestyle. They perceive, rather erroneously, that the required change that God would make in their life if they were to give their lives to Him, would be the path to misery. They are being deceived to think that the path they are currently on brings joy. In fact, its the path that brings death and destruction. Yet, I believe, that it takes the Holy Spirit, (the Spirit of God) to soften one’s heart to the things of God. The hardened heart, one who is antagonistic towards the things and people of God, has very little chance of turning to God for redemption, without His divine intervention. One’s heart must be softened, to be receptive to hearing the saving Gospel and grace of God, so that they can throw off the sin and habits that entangle them, which brings them pain and misery, and instead, choose life; to choose God and being conformed to the image of Christ. What I did not understand in those few years when I was not choosing Christ, was that to love God meant, “that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.” I John 5:3. It is pure joy, my beloved brothers and sisters, to follow God and to obey Him. It is the path that leads to living an abundant life, now, in the land of the living. God is so good, and He wants us to choose Him and believe in His Son, Jesus. It is the only way to inherit eternal life. Jesus is the only answer that satisfies now, and in the age to come.
What is your story? Are you antagonistic towards someone like me, who is crazy about Jesus and hopefully, living it out radically, so you can see him? Do the things I share with you, bug you just a little? Would you rather just be able to ignore me and pretend I’m not there, so you don’t have to deal with things? Do you attend church weekly, but live however you want the rest of the week? Is it merely a religion, church-thing for you? Or have you personally met my savior, Jesus? The man who preached about the Kingdom, who gave us a living example of how we are to live, and who died on a cross, to shed his blood for our sins? Have you seen him? Have you accepted his free gift of life, so that you can be resurrected from the dead, and rule and reign upon this earth with him someday? Do you have any doubts of whether you truly are saved or not? If you really do know him? Do you wonder who God is? Who Jesus is? Do you grapple with whether there even is a God, and if there is, if He would even care about you, in midst of the world’s vast population?
“But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing. And they made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.” Zechariah 7:11-12.
We all have a choice. We can either allow our hearts to be softened and choose to follow Christ, or we can be stubborn, allowing our hearts and conscious to be hardened, and suffer the consequences — in this lifetime, and in the lake of fire, after the dead are resurrected at the judgment. I understand what it is to not want this or have anything to do with Christ, but once you have truly tasted the things of God, you will find out what you’ve been missing, and I can guarantee you, this narrow path of following Jesus, is way better than the other. Will the world hate you? Will you be persecuted in some way, because of the choice to make Jesus lord of your life? Most probably. Carefully weigh the cost and consider the price. Jesus is asking you to die to yourself, your will, to follow his. However, consider the price if you do not. The only way to gain true life, is to willingly give up your own, for His sake. It is a decision I consciously make, gladly, every day and know God’s blessing [approval] because of it. We must remind ourselves that the ultimate reward on the day of our Lord’s return is much greater than we can ever begin to imagine ~ to inherit with Abraham the new earth and to reign with Jesus in a kingdom that has no end.
Proverbs 28:13 – 14 says, “He who conceals his sin will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.”
Choose today whom you will serve. Soften your heart and hear with your ears and see with your eyes the beauty of God’s grace.
Hello Angela,
I enjoyed reading your post – thank you.
You said: . . . someone like me, who is crazy about Jesus . . .
That’s an interesting way of describing your attitude towards him. You are obviously a very passionate person (unlike me – a typically staid Englishman!) Can I ask you please what you mean by saying you are crazy about him? Is it an emotional infatuation, like being in love with someone? Or is it more of a deliberate response to what you know about Jesus? I assume you’ve never met him, and you only know about him from reading the Gospels. Why is he that important to you? I guess you’ll reply that he laid down his life for you, but didn’t he do that primarily out of his love and obedience to God? Would you say you are crazy about God too, in view of the fact that God chose to sacrifice His Son for you? Does God’s gracious love thrill you and excite you as much as Jesus? Or are you more grateful to Jesus for your salvation since he sacrified himself, whereas God only sacrified another being (His Son)? Or do you perhaps find it easier to relate to and love a human person whom you can picture in your imagination (Jesus) rather than a vague nebulous ineffable spirit (God) whom we are forbidden to represent visually? Would you say you love Jesus with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength? Or is that going too far? Do you love Jesus as much as you love God? . . . more? . . . less? Or do you find yourself practically unable to differentiate between God and Jesus in your stance, such that whatever you think & feel about one of them is automatically and implicitly a reflection of your thoughts & feelings about the other?
Respectfully,
Phil
Phil ~ I am not sure I can adequately answer your questions, but will make a fair attempt to explain my personal relationship that I have with my God and with my Lord Messiah. Although based on my knowledge and understanding on Scripture, that has come from my years and hours upon hours of study, (using my mind & intellect that God has given me), it does become very personal and involve my emotions, as in a relationship with one’s spouse or father or child. The more one’s knowledge about God and His Son increases, I believe, the more it also increases the depth of relationship one can have with our God and Jesus. God says if you will seek Me, you will find Me. And I believe that.
The Bible also tells us that the word is God’s Spirit, and to renew our minds with the word of God and bring His thoughts into our minds, is to be filled with His Spirit, a most intimate thing. When one begins to know what one is thinking, feeling, what pleases a person or displeases them…you begin to know them. We can know God’s thoughts through the written word about Him. Just as we can get to know Christ, through reading his words and actions. Of course, I have never glimpsed Jesus face to face, but yearn for the day upon his return that I will do just that. Just as Job 19:26 says that in my flesh, I will see God. I will one day see Jesus, and I will one day see God. I am digressing a bit here — but the day I see Jesus is at his return; and the day I will see God, is when Jesus has gotten everything made right, judgment is over, and everyone left is holy, to be able to stand in the presence of our Most Holy God.
In my mind, there is a very distinct difference in how I relate to God, the Creator of the Universe, and Jesus, His Son. One is THE ALMIGHTY GOD, and the other is His Christ, my lord messiah King, my mediator, my high priest, my entrance into the throne of approaching with confidence and righteousness of the one and only living God. Without Jesus, I would not be inheriting the promises made to Abraham, eternal life, my salvation, my state of blameless and righteousness at the day of his return. I am grateful for that. Yes, he did it out of obedience to His Father and His God, but he also did it out of his love for me.
I am guessing you may be struggling in your mind – how does one worship the one true God, YHWH, and still love another, His Son, Jesus, without calling them both God. I could be wrong, but this is one problem many face. Can we love them both, and not be cheating on God, or feel like we are betraying Him, with love for another? But the Trinitarians really do have the same issue. How can they worship Jesus, who they claim to be God, and the Spirit, who is supposedly God, and also the Father, who is God, without divided loyalties, in addition to having made another God, than the ONE God, YHWH? If you listen closely, they often speak of “God” but are typically referring to the Father alone. I think they erroneously believe that by keeping all three ‘persons’ equal in a one-God format, then they will not have divided loyalties. But, aren’t some Trinitarians almost exclusively all about Jesus, and speak very little of the Father & the Holy Spirit? How is that equal?
Compared to most Bible Scholars, my understanding is a simple, lay person’s opinion on this… I believe God has given us permission to bow down and pay homage to our king, lord messiah, who was anointed with God’s Spirit to act on God’s behalf. Jesus is not the ONE LORD GOD, and never claims to be, yet God has exalted him to a very high place of honor, indeed, and we can love him and be ‘crazy about him’, which would please our God. God’s Spirit, is not a person, but actually His mind & energy behind His works & word which anointed His Son to be this worthy king and sacrificial lamb, God’s plan come to life in flesh and blood.
I don’t make Jesus equal in my mind to the one LORD God, Adonai YHWH, Creator of the Universe…because Jesus is not equal.
I Corinthians 15 gives us a very clear picture that Jesus will still be submitting to God, even at the very end, when he turns the Kingdom over to God. I see God as the ultimate King, and Jesus, his ‘prince’, so to speak, who worships God and is obedient to Him, just as we are. It’s a very clear and distinct order of headship that God provides us. Just as Jesus is the head of the church, who is over my husband, who is over me. 1. God. 2. Jesus 3. the Church 4. My husband 5. Me 6. My children. Authority. A clear line of command that God has established for us, for without this, it would be chaos…even in one’s mind. Definitely something that should be worked out, until you have peace about it. To me, it may be an indicator that there is still murky water in defining your understanding of who God and who Jesus really are, perhaps? Hope my feeble, long-winded explanation helps you just a bit!
Hi Phil and Angela
Hope you don’t mind me butting in here, as your question was posed to Angela.
Here are a few observations I have made. With regards to our relationship with our Father Yahweh, I think it is quite appropriate to compare it with our relationship with our natural/biological father (assuming, of course, that was a normal, healthy relationship!) Just as we grow, starting as babies where our dad’s would care for our most basic needs, then as we grow encouraging us to feed and cloth ourselves (because he knows that’s best for us, and that we want to). Then as teenagers, reasoning with our rebelliousness, and as adult, having deep, religious discussions with us, and so on, until we age or become infirm, then perhaps our need reverts to the baby stage.
What I’m trying to say is, is that for each of us, that relationship will be entirely different. It also depends on our character. Phil, you say you are a “typically staid Englishman”. ( I am a typically staid English woman )Therefore, your relation with your biological dad is probably rather proper, but that doesn’t mean you love him less, and he knows it! The same with our Heavenly Father- He knows you, and your personality, just as He knows each and every one of us (isn’t that wonderful!)
So He doesn’t expect you to love as “crazy” as Angela, who has a more passionate personality. I hope this helps, I could go on, but I think I’m getting boring…
Fiona
Hi Angela,
Thank you for your long reply which was extremely interesting. I certainly don’t have it all straight in my mind yet about the right way to relate to God the Father and Jesus respectively. I acknowledge they are not identical ontologically or functionally, but in practice I find I don’t rtreat them very differently. For example, theoretically I pray to God the Father through Jesus as the only mediator between God and man. But I sometimes address my prayers to one of them (“Dear God” or “Dear Father”) while other times I address my prayers to the other one (“Dear Lord” or “Dear Jesus”) – and in every case, to all intents & purposes, it’s as if I am speaking to the same one person. I subconsciously suppose that anything I pray to one is automatically and implicitly addressed to the other, but I am not conscious of speaking to different persons but only to the one true God. If I see the prayer being answered, I don’t bother to identify whether it was specifically God or Jesus who answered the prayer, because in a sense it was both of them acting together – God acting through Jesus – but where Jesus is more than just an instrument in God’s hand (as 1 Thess.3:11 and 2 Thess.2:16 imply). When I say thank you to them I don’t feel it necessary to thank each of them individually because when I thank one of them specifically, I reckon it constitutes an expression of thanks to both of them equally. Thanking one is tantamount to thanking the other. I would feel it impossible to thank one without the thanksgiving automatically rebounding to the other’s credit too. And yet doctrinally I do not regard God the Father and Jesus as different names for the same being.
Recently I have been studying how the early church treated Jesus. It seems to me they behaved towards him as though he were their god. (I’m not here talking about their understanding of the metaphysical nature of Jesus but about how their faith worked out in practice.) For example, they relinquished all that they had for his sake (Luke 14:33; Phil.3:8), they endured any affliction for his sake (Luke 9:23; Phil.1:29), and lost their lives for his sake (Matthew 10:39; Acts 21:13). They did not make these sacrifices merely as an incidental way to please God, nor did they merely use Jesus as a channel through whom to convey their worship to God – but they made these sacrifices out of personal love & adoration for Jesus himself. Jesus was a (or the?) focus and object of their personal devotion. They regarded themselves as being joined in spirit to Jesus (1 Cor.6:17), married monogamously to him (2 Cor.11:2), and dwelling in him (Col.1:2). They confided in Jesus as their mentor (Heb.12:2). Their overriding aim in life was to know Jesus better, resemble him more, and experience his love fully (Eph.3:18-19; 4:13; Phil.3:8). Their motivation for living was their awareness of Christ’s love for them (2 Cor.5:14). They feared Christ and dreaded displeasing him in any way (1 Cor.10:22; 2 Cor.5:11; Eph.5:21). They submitted to Jesus as the supreme authority over them (Mat.28:18; 1 Pet.3:15). They served Jesus as his slaves, being devoted exclusively to him, and everything they did was done as if for him (Rom.12:11; 14:8; Col.3:17; 3:23). They depended on Jesus for help in their earthly circumstances (2 Cor.12:9; Phil.2:24; 1 Thess.3:11), and resorted to him for relief when they were troubled or frightened (Mat.11:28-29; John 14:1; 14:27). They depended on Jesus to transform them spiritually and morally (Rom.14:4; Eph.5:29; 1 Thess.3:12-13, Heb.12:2). They thanked Jesus as the author of their eternal life, not just as the instrument by which God gave them eternal life (Romans 5:15; 1 Tim.1:13-16; Jude 21). It was Jesus who provided them with purpose, meaning, fulfilment, and satisfaction in life (John 4:14; 6:35; Acts 9:15-16; 1 Tim.1:12). They prayed to Jesus and sang hymns to him (Acts 7:59; 2 Cor.12:8; Eph.5:19). Paul summarized the entire Christian experience as conditioned by the person of Jesus: Christ is our life (Col.3:4), Christ’s life subsumes our own (Gal.2:20), and for us to live is Christ (Phil.1:21). Or to quote you own words, they were crazy about Jesus!
Looking at the above evidence cumulatively and weighing it as a whole, it is impossible, in my view, to deny that the early Christians worshipped Jesus. Whatever they thought about who Jesus was metaphysically and how it was possible for them to remain monotheists while behaving so extravagantly towards Jesus of Nazareth, their everyday practice honoured Jesus on a par with God the Father. What else does it mean to worship but to do what the early Christians did to Jesus? Worshipping someone as god is not a matter of calling that person “God” or bowing down to that person but of living & dying for that person’s sake. If I were to behave towards anyone in the same way the early Christians behaved towards Jesus, I would be guilty of committing idolatry and putting another god before/besides Yahweh.
I have been asking myself recently what exactly does it mean to love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. Amongst other things it surely includes putting God at the centre of everything so that pleasing Him is the primary motivating force driving me on in everything I do. Why do I bother to get up out of bed in the mornings? If it isn’t primarily to serve and glorify God, then I am committing idolatry. According to the NT it seems to me that God the Father is perfectly happy for us to let Jesus fill this central role in our lives, not merely as God’s agent acting in loco Deus but as the personal recipient of our worship, and inexplicably this does not detract from God’s glory but enhances it, as much as if we were addressing our worship directly to God Himself.
I ask myself, what is the difference between actually being God on the one hand, and on the other hand not being God yet being granted all of God’s authority & prerogatives? Such a person might just as well be God. There isn’t any significant difference from our point of view whether Jesus is ontologically God or just an agent authorised and empowered to act as God. Either way we would have to treat him as God. I tend to think the 4th century theologians who framed the doctrine of the trinity were trying to answer questions about the metaphysics of Jesus which the NT writers never asked or attempted to answer. The NT does not attempt to define God’s nature but describes how God has acted in Christ to redeem the universe. Discussion about God’s nature came later in the first few centuries when theologians had to battle against heretical teachings and were forced to define biblical doctrines systematically and coherently. Discussion shifted from the NT’s emphasis on the salvific activity of God to an analysis of the nature of God’s being. For the same reason even unitarianism is not taught in the NT as an explicit and systematic framework. Like trinitarians, unitarians have to derive their doctrine from what the bible implies about the natures of God and Jesus. I believe both Arius and Athanasias were delving into territory that the NT doesn’t explicitly cover. (And in my opinion neither the various trinitiarian theories nor the biblical unitarian viewpoint are an adequate, accurate, or complete answer to the question of who Jesus is and what his metaphysical connection is to God the Father.)
Hi Fiona,
I welcome your input – thank you! Although I addressed my message to Angela, I am very interested to hear from anyone with a considered opinion. I agree with you there is a difference between how much we love someone and how demonstrably we express our love to that person. The latter will depend on our individual personality and is not necessarily proportional to the depth or sincerity of our love.
Sincerely,
Phil
Hi Phil,
Hope you don’t mind me butting in either. I consider myself crazy over Jesus but it was just something that grew throughout the years.
I started out with the same questions. What does it mean to love God with all heart, soul, mind and strength. How do you approach God? How to relate to him? If I am not giving anything to him, does that mean that I am committing idolatry? If I am not as passionate as the other person, does that mean I love him less?
Here’s something that allowed me to grow in love.. it’s knowing deep from the heart-level that He unconditionally, irrevocably, loves me. And that He is committed to me – in turning all of my disappointments to glory, all of the bad things in my life into something good, all of my lukewarmness, all of the pain and the sickness, all of my questioning and longing and searching into experiences of finding Him.
And I don’t have to do anything AT ALL to earn His love – it is just given freely. I love Him because He first loved me.
And I hope and pray that you can get to experience that love – more of THAT love if you have already experienced it before…
all the love, all the serving, all of the worship, all of it just comes out from the overflow of the love that He has already poured out in me.
Ruth,
You said, “Here’s something that allowed me to grow in love.. it’s knowing deep from the heart-level that He unconditionally, irrevocably, loves me. And that He is committed to me – in turning all of my disappointments to glory, all of the bad things in my life into something good, all of my lukewarmness, all of the pain and the sickness, all of my questioning and longing and searching into experiences of finding Him.”
That was beautifully put. Realizing that God loved us first does help us to grow in love toward him, and toward others. By the way welcome to KR!!!