A Sickness Desiring Heart

I was hearing the whispers, but they were just beyond reach. Curiosity had me though, in my early morning state curiosity seemed to be the necessary food to get the mind rolling for the day. Even though it was still dark, I had grown very skilled in the art of "light-less room navigation". It is uncanny how with just a few minutes of disciplined mental notes, an unfamiliar location can become familiar for an unlit walk.

{“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"Jeremiah 17:9 The most slippery and insidious thing about the unregenerate heart of man is that is irreparably sick and it doesn't want to get better. It actually thrives on being sick: who has the will power to begin to know it? Staying too close to this heart creates a codependency of a continual desire for discrediting our God Story... it buys bad news, it invests in tragedy, and is incurably ill as it hardens its way through life keeping us at an unhealthy distance from God. Remedy? God does not offer a healing, because He offers a replacement – a new heart … but still a heart of flesh - Ezekiel 36:26,27.}

I had only taken a few steps to find what had been just beyond my ability to hear with any accuracy (actually my toes found it). A gooey and gross meeting of my toes with this object in the dark had me leaping in a backwards direction by reflex. “Man! What in the world?” Immediately my mind began to flash – dead animals, road kill, chunky vomit ...I was totally “creep-ed” out! But by now I could hear a little more clearly ...the little voice that sounded like mine, but like it was coming through a cell phone speaker .. “Help me, I am nothing but a failure, I am trash, nobody cares about me, nobody loves me, God cares about everyone else but me, I am ashamed to live openly for Jesus”.

When I flipped on the light I found a most despicable gruesome image of me, but stripped of any beauty and goodness. There was a murky colored orb with tubes of syrup-like liquid flowing to and from this image of me. This image of me was clinging onto this orb ever so tightly. I stared and wondered , “why was this orb held so tightly?”

Inside the orb were horrifying images: images of sordid evil, murders, adulteries, fornication, stench, pornography, thefts, false witness and slander, all kinds of blasphemies. And this image of me rubbed the orb and kept mumbling, “make me sick, oh, please make me sick”. I was starting to understand why no healing was offered and how a new heart was the only remedy.

But wait a minute! I have a new heart! Not only a New heart, but all things new … New Spirit, New Life, New Mind, New Hope ...(we could go on); the Gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ Our LORD. Why am I still influenced by this “sick” heart of stone?

If we “Walk in the Light, as He is in the light” we have continual fellowship and His Blood's constant cleansing (I John 1:7). I found myself preparing for "light-less room navigation", when I should have been more focused on "Light-filled Kingdom Navigation". “Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105 --- Is just one of the 176 verses in Psalm 119 that teach the dynamics of the necessity of the Word of God to give us victory in the moments when the “sickness desiring heart” wants to speak discouragement, despair, and distance from our God into our lives. Our New Heart needs daily connection to God's Word for victory over this malady.

The battle against this heart begins with a simple prayer of admission to the fact that we are distant and ashamed to allow the God Story to shine from our life. (At the end of 175 verses expounding on the life positioned close to God's Word – the Psalmist like us admitted: ) “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; I do not forget Thy commandments.” Psalm 119:176 Are we hearing  and believing the counsel of “Failure”? Listen again to the One who seeks to deliver you out of darkness into His glorious life of light.

HLFA,

Jeff

Still Holding Stones?

There they stood, fallen and broken. Not wanting to be pitied by those righteous enough to throw stones, who were still corporately deciding who should cast the first stone and when. The sin and the result of their fall was obvious and confessed for cleansing (I John 1:9); but there were still those who thought that they had the right keep their forgiveness in a gold treasure chest, and only administer it in their time.{“Everybody has to work out forgiveness in their own time” seems to be the mantra that often times is held- close by those who want to punish others for their own past sins. Possibly the way they were treated during the time of their restoration was less than Christ-like. So let's not seek fresh oil and abundant grace to help in time of need. Let's dare not get close to God for advice and power to love the fallen. - This is an extremely sarcastic section.} For those of you who ache because of being caught as fallen or you have been caught in the shrapnel and finding it difficult to forgive, read on prayerfully.

Dare not look at this scene too awfully long … our eyes may tear up and ears blur for the bright treble of the sound of the declaration. “Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice”. Micah 6:1 With one of the 6 senses known as hearing … listen, just listen to what the LORD says … right here and right now, listen to what He says: Stand up, address our complaint before the mountains (the strong foundation of Righteous Vision), and let the hills (smaller truths) hear our voice … Stand UP … Speak UP … Speak out!

Micah 6:2 – “Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD'S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with His people, and He will plead with Israel” (“Those who say God Prevails – Jesus Saves”). Are we starting to get the picture yet? Stand up ...Speak up … Speak out – The things that we hold in our heart against God are called controversy (Oh, and we thought we were mad at the fallen brother or sister) … Don't hold on to it, be honest, it is God with whom we have an issue ...(Casting all our care upon Him because He cares for us) …

Micah 6:3 – “O My people, what have I done unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me!” What a challenge from our LORD of Lords! Stand up (take a stand, mean it)--- Speak up (quit our mumbling in directions of uselessness) --- Speak out (Make our voice heard, from out of the multitudes)... Answer the question! – What has He done to us, to wear us out? Go ahead and form a testimony in our favor. BUT BEFORE WE DO … remember what he has done for each of us:

Micah 6:4-5 - He brought us up out of the Land of Dual Trenches where servants never win. He gave us leadership to teach us … the Word, the Worship and the Tenderness of a Song. But O painfully remember how imitators of righteousness brought nothing but devastation to the heads of our homes, and gave us a false sense of being the masters of determining what was right and wrong, … only to find that guilt has continued to chase us from “the east to the west” - making it hard for us to see that He has put our sins from Him as far as the East is from the West.

Micah 6:6-7 – Why do we feel our pitiful sacrificial offerings get God's attention? Will God be pleased with an immense pile of bloody sacrificed livestock, and rivers of spent burning carcinogenic oil? Shall we obscenely offer our children, even our firstborn to pay for the sin of our soul? BUT DO WE DO THESE THINGS IN DIFFERENT FORMS BECAUSE WE THINK GOD EXPECTS IT, OR because we are terrified by the concept that God wants a daily passionate relationship with us that constantly keeps us in eternity's flux of the ministry of reconciliation?

This is the controversy – God doesn't want stuff, HE wants our devotion, HE wants us … and here is God's declaration of how: Micah 6:8 - “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Thy God?” Are you obedient to this three-fold glorious requirement?

HLFA,

Jeff