|
|
Need Encouragement?
| |
Ray
|
05/12/2010 13:25 |
Smart lady, her. I've not written them yet, but I will. I asked my prayer partner to go through it with me. He is a ordained doodah whatever. I am hoping he will enlighten me some, but in some ways I hope it feeds him. These pastor types are always so giving and don't have time to be fed as they should.
I was so glad when the old dab museum was resurrected. Thanks, Chet. There were lots of notes there that I like to which I still refer.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/12/2010 13:43 |
Brian read here this week and the new heart jumped out of the ear buds at me:
1 sam 10
9 As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul's heart, and all
these signs were fulfilled that day. 10 When they arrived at Gibeah, a
procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came upon him in power,
and he joined in their prophesying. 11 When all those who had formerly
known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other,
"What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among
the prophets?"
If we don't recognize our new heart, as Saul did not seem to, things get rough. This is not from the good heart teaching, but inspired by it. Plus, I think the text is just freakin amazing. It's kind of that thing when you give your life to Jesus, it's like you are flying/glowing. Then, we look at the enemy and our hearts get squashed.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 13:00 |
The Good Heart
A conversation between John Eldredge (JE), Craig McConnell (CM), and Gary Barkalow (GB). The typist put some section headings marked with underscores when the conversation seemed to change direction in order to
help in looking at the overall picture.
JE:
This topic may be one of the most important topics RH will ever address
and one that needs some light.
Biblical Review:
----------------
JE:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our
likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds
of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over
all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
It's important to start here to remember that the story of man
does not begin with sin. It begins a beauty, a dignity, and
glory; something profound. Sin enters the picture before the
honeymoon is over. Satan tempts and we fall. Man mistrusts
the heart of God and breaks the one command we know of, knowingly,
we choose rebellion, to go our own way and arrange for what we
want in Gen 3. Gen 4 murder with Cain and Able, Gen 6 the sin of
man begins to extend on the earth.
Gen 6: 5Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on
the earth, and that (D)every intent of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually. 6(E)The LORD was sorry that He had made
man on the earth, and He was (F)grieved in His heart.
God brings judgment and starts over with the family of Noah, but it
doesn't get much better. The rest of the OT is one sad story after
another, lying, deception, murder, idolatry, false religion,
infant sacrifice. It's bad all the way up the prophets who God sends
to make it very clear what we are dealing with. We go to Jer 17
5 This is what the LORD says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
10 "I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve."
You don't need a theology degree to know this is true, just watch
the evening news or spend time with your relatives. Something has
gone deeply wrong, deep within us. Our motives and desires down
to our core fell. The beauty from Gen 1 reached a point of tragedy.
You don't need to be a christian to see that something has gone
terribly wrong with mankind at the deepest level and we believe
that to be the heart.
CM:
Wrong at the deepest possible level some would call depraved. Incapable
of living the life they were designed to live, incapable of communing
with God, and incapable of changing their situation.
JE:
Incapable of obeying even simple things like the 10 commandments intended
to make man flourish, but we are incapable of it.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 13:03 |
The prophets on the problem of the heart:
-----------------------------------------
In the prophets we see God offer a solution. God knows all this and he
longs for man to turn back to him at every level of their being. So,
in the prophets God an answer to the deepest human dilema.
Is 53
4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Jer 31
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to [d] them, [e] "
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
Ez 36
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will
remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees
and be careful to keep my laws.
God echos the arrangement he will come and address the core of the
issue. The law could not do it. God says that through his work
in you and the coming messiah, he will work as deeply as needed,
at the human heart to deal with the sin of mankind and his heart.
Matt 1, the angel comes to Joseph:
v20 ...an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
"Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your
wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name
Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins."
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 13:05 |
Our initial understanding of the new covenant:
----------------------------------------------
So, what is this offer? How do we understand this messiah? What
does it mean to be saved from your sins? What has it been like
historically in your life?
GB:
When I became a christian I was aware that all I had done wrong was
forgiven. I was aware something had taken place in me but I didn't
know what it was. I was taught the primary thing was that everything
I had ever done wrong or anything I would do wrong in the future was
forgiven. That was the primary job of Jesus for me, the forgiveness
of my sins.
JE:
Same here, when I became a christian twenty-seven year ago I understood
the work of Christ through his holy life and his death for me on the
cross, was that his blood covers my sins, the traditional theory of the
atonement. I am forgiven. His sacrificial death makes a propitiation
makes a substitution offering, a covering for my life. For many
years that was the extent of my understanding of salvation, I am
forgiven.
CM:
I was not raised in a religious home. The first time I heard of
salvation was at an evangelistic meeting when I walked forward and
a guy said, "Do you want to accept Jesus as your lord and savior?"
I replied, "Yah." It was that simple. Later I began to understand
more, but the initial experience was that of deliverance or freedom
from drugs and just suddenly feeling alive. The words I was given
as a young believer was that I was now going to heaven and everything
I'd done was forgiven, very similar to your experience. It was
a gospel of forgiveness.
GB:
I remember the analogy given in the early days in college when
I became a christian was that I had a lot of debt in my life and
all the debt has been forgiven. I have a blank slate and the idea
was to try not to get into much debt from now on, that Jesus can
forgive small debts. The future is about the idea that Jesus will
erase small debts in you life.
JE:
(in other words) Try and keep a clean slate.
I don't want to minimize or give the impression that at RH we
minimize the beauty, the power, or the cost of the atonement. The
work of Christ to cancel our debt, to forgive our sins, to purchase
us for God, as it says in Rev 14:4
These are the ones who (Q)follow
the Lamb wherever He goes These have been (R)purchased from among
men (S)as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.
All of that is true, but it is only part of what it means for Jesus
to save his people from their sins, because back in the OT we have
this promise that in addition to forgiving our sins he was also going
to do some radical surgery, some removing of this heart of stone, this
stubborn, belligerent, prideful, arrogant heart and give us a new heart,
a new spirit within us.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 13:11 |
The New Spirit:
---------------
Romans 6, Paul is trying to explain the gospel, but also defend what he
calls his gospel. There were those that were concerned that it contained
absolute and total forgiveness of all sin and that would lead to people
living in greater sin. I'm off the hook, I can just live however I want
and everything is covered. There was concern that people would
take off and do all sorts of wild things.
Rom 1:1 1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that
grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live
in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore
buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,
we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will
certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we
know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of
sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves
to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live
with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead,
he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The
death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives,
he lives to God.
Here's the key verse:
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God
in Christ Jesus.
Paul in Romans, 11 Cor, Gal, and other places is trying to explain,
yes, you are forgiven through the work of Christ, but something
more is happened as well, something remarkable. You now have the
life of Christ inside of you. You are free now not to sin. Consider
yourselves alive to God, consider yourselves a new creation.
11 Cor 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
Gal 5:15 Neither circumcision nor uncircumsision means anything;
what counts is a new creation.
Something has changed about man, and this is pretty widely agreed
on by the church, certainly in the protestant church, that there is
this new creature, a life we can have in Christ, that we can have
victory in our lives. We can begin to follow God and obey him.
This idea that something has taken place within us making us new
people.
GB:
I said when I became a christian in college and coming from a
non-religious background that forgiveness was huge for me, but
I was aware that something had changed in me and I didn't know
what. I had no background to even draw a description of what it
was. I knew when I heard verses like this that I needed to
become a new person in my behavior. I'm forgiven, now ack like
you you forgiven. Be a better person, act better, behave better
which really became very discouraging because that felt like the
old life just with a pardon, now. I kept thinking, I know something
changed when I became a christian, but what I'm being told is that
it's probably not true. Going back to the verse you site, I felt
more like the truth was that I'm still alive to sin, but I'm also
alive to God and that felt terrible. The contrast of my sin knowing
God and feeling helpless but to sin, by what I was being told was
a dilemma I didn't know how to solve.
JE:
You hear it in people's language. "I'm just a sinner, saved by grace."
Paul is trying to say, "No, you are something more, now." Yes, you have
the capacity to sin, but now you are actually alive to God, a new
creation in Christ.
CM:
I had that, like many, initial encounter with God. The beauty of
forgiveness energized me. I was worshiping him, praising him, and
thanking him for all he had done in forgiving me. There was a zeal
to walk with him and be the man described in the bible and the pulpit,
but after a time wondering what's wrong. How come what seems to
be normative to the christian life in the bible is not normative
in my life. I haven't met people having known Christ and having
come to him don't want that live that sin-free life. They want the
freedom, they want the life that's described there. The dilemma is
how? How can I get it? There isn't a shortage in most Christian's
hearts and lives of desire, but they fall short and get discouraged
with what seems to be either something deeply wrong with them or
a lacking in them or an impotence in the gospel to change them.
JE:
And that is very discouraging.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 13:19 |
That is a far as I have gotten as of today, which is really only a long problem statement, but it did get my attention and I hope yours, also. Have you been doing "sin management" since you saw the Lord?
Next up we look at Jesus on the matter.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 19:37 |
Did God come through?
---------------------
We have this promise that God is going to take the rescue of man
to the heart. That we're not going to take another pass at
shaping up human behavior. Not more law, not more pressure. Rather
something that Paul refers to as a new creature, this life in
christ. Does the work of christ reach the human heart? In some
ways we're asking did God fulfill his promise to us in Jer 31 and
Ez 36?
We go to the teachings of Jesus on the heart and look at a few
passages that I think some people will find astonishing and frankly
very hopeful.
24:45
Luke 6:43 "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor
does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44Each tree is recognized by its
own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from
briers. 45The good man brings good things out of the good stored
up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the
evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart
his mouth speaks.
Jesus is saying there is a bearing of good fruit and it comes from
the heart.
Luke 8:15 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble
and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering
produce a crop.
What kind of heart? Not the depraved heart of Jer 17:9 wicked and
depraved?
GB:
The Message version says:
15"But the seed in the good earth—these are the good-hearts who
seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until
there's a harvest.
If it were not there in the text is sounds like heresy.
CM:
same thing in the NKJ, 15 But the ones that fell on the good ground
are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart,
keep it and bear fruit with patience.
JE:
You see the same thing in the teachings of Paul and the emerging
church in Acts 15. The controversy is that Paul and Barnabas are
bringing the gospel to the gentiles, but not requiring the keeping
of the Jewish law including circumcision.
5 But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying,
“It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep
the law of Moses.” 6 Now the apostles and elders came together to
consider this matter. 7 And when there had been much dispute, Peter
rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good
while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should
hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 So God, who knows the
heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as
He did to us, 9 and made no distinction between us and them, purifying
their hearts by faith.
God has done some work in the human heart corresponding to what Jesus
was refering to in Luke.
Paul tries to explain some of the theology in Romans. He is a Jew
and a Pharisee of Pharisees, astute in the law and the OT. Rom 2:
28A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision
merely outward and physical. 29No, a man is a Jew if he is one
inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the
Spirit...
He's explaining that this new creature comes from the work of God
in the human heart.
Later Paul is writing to his disciple, Timothy,
1 Tim 1:5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure
heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
2 Tim 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness,
faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out
of a pure heart.
|
| |
Ray
|
05/18/2010 19:40 |
The question:
-------------
I just want to say to the listener, I know this sounds new and maybe
contrary to what you have been taught. Most Christians I talked to
have Jer 17 drilled into them, that the heart is deceitfully wicked.
I want to say that that is true before a person comes to Christ, before
the salvation and work that God promised in the OT and fulfilled in
Christ comes to them. But when salvation comes to them Jesus refers
to some category of people as having a good and noble heart. Jesus,
Peter, and Paul teach the good, pure heart. Peter says in Acts
that God purified their hearts by faith. People who seek and call
out to God from a pure heart and he explains in Romans that it takes
place because of the work of Christ.
What we are trying to say that the work of Christ reaches the human
heart. Far more is involved in salvation than only forgiveness.
Forgiveness is beautiful, precious, it's stunning, it's enough to
make us worship Christ forever, but there is more.
What I want to point out is that doesn't this make sense. God knows
the problem is the human heart. He watched the history of mankind
unfold. By Gen 6 he was so grieved by the heart of man and in the
rest of the OT are pleas for us to turn to him from the heart.
Repent from the heart, rend your heart. So wouldn't it make sense
that God in his effort to save mankind in his offer of salvation
of man, wouldn't He address that? Wouldn't there be more than just,
you are forgiven, but try not to sin again, but I know you will?
Wouldn't he go for the heart as he promised to do?
|
| |
Ray
|
05/19/2010 13:17 |
Looks like they are still giving away the audio download. Found this on facebook if you are interested in listening:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Eldredge-and-Ransomed-Heart-Ministries/55698524239#!/pages/John-Eldredge-and-Ransomed-Heart-Ministries/55698524239?v=app_2347471856
|
(page
1
2)
|
