Jeapordizing the truth of Scripture?

This blog post is in response to my last one about "Walking with God is a matter of the heart" I spent a good time talking about the matters of the heart and how important it is to focus on the heart when dealing with the issue of building "bridges" to bring the gospel to non believers.

I shared some of the points I highlighted on the post with a fellow brother in Christ. He agreed with all that I said, but I noticed his hesitation and so I inquired. His fear with focusing so much with the heart is that it could lead to losing focus on Scripture. I will have to be honest, I needed some time to reflect on this important and justifiable concern. How much of the issues of the heart is too much, steering us away from focusing on the Word of God? Some may argue that the Word of God is powerful and sufficient enough to open the heart to Christ, without having to focus so much on building relationships and working on the matters of the heart. PLEASE NOTE: the power of the Word of God is indescribable, unmeasurable, and without limits!!! The Word of God is always present, but before Scripture comes alive to an unwilling heart, the Word of God must first be demonstrated to a non believer.

After prayer and honest reflection, this is my response.

Think of this analogy. Christ standing at the door of a heart and He is knocking. The non believers heart has a door, but ALSO heavy duty chains on it, a master lock on the knob, and the key is no where to be found. Even if the heart hears the knock, the chains are too many and too twisted to remove. The love, trust and relationship equity invested by a Christian in the non believing heart slowly removes theses chains... one by one.... and what is the actual key to the door? The Holy Spirit! Once the chains are removed (that is our job as Christians!), the Lord uses the Holy Spirit key to finally unlock the door. How can the Word of God and truth of Scripture dwell IN the heart if the door is closed? ONCE the door is finally opened, it is THEN when Scripture resonates there. Maybe I am wrong and maybe as I continue to grow and mature in faith, maybe my perspective will change... But until then, I believe that we need to work with the heart through love, relationships, trust and demonstrating Christ... to remove all the chains and to set the heart FREE! The heart changes, but the Word of God in Scripture never does!!!! So, we do not have to worry about jeopardizing Scripture, because a free heart IN Christ will be able to truly let the Word of God come in and take refuge there for eternity.

Some may argue, the Word of God in Scripture is sufficient and powerful enough to break through the chains and the door.... Hmmmmm Is it not the power of the Holy Spirit that actually "makes" the Word of God in Scripture come alive? Without the Holy Spirit first opening the door of the heart, to a non believer, Scripture in the Bible is merely "Christian doctrine."Yes! The Word of God is powerful indeed!!! but it is the Holy Spirit that makes the Word of God come alive.... so it is love, relationships and Christianity being demonstrated that first slowly removes the callous that is formed on the heart... then the Holy Spirit opens the door and then the Word of God is ignited and dwells in the heart! This is not a step by step process of course! but I am merely trying to paint a simplified picture from my experience.

Believe in this picture. A Christian helps take down these chains as a loyal servant of God... then Jesus unlocks the door with the key of the Holy Spirit and opens the door as He turns back and says "Well done my loyal servant." and He and the power of the Holy Spirit BURST through the door and a life is forever changed. The Kingdom has just added another child of God....and all of heaven shouts with cheers of joy!!!!! What a privilege we have.

I often use the word "SOLDIER" in my posts. That is EXACTLY what scripture calls us. We are Christ's soldiers and ambassadors, so we must expect to face suffering and for the world to hate us. "SHARE IN SUFFERING AS A GOOD SOLDIER OF CHRIST JESUS. NO SOLDIER GETS ENTANGLED IN CIVILIAN PURSUITS, SINCE HIS AIM IS TO PLEASE THE ONE WHO ENLISTED HIM" - 2 TIMOTHY 2:3-4  Love this!! Christ is our commander and we are His soldiers and when we were enlisted in the body of Christ, He expects us to accomplish the mission with FULL endurance and strength. 

I trust and place my hope in this......

Let me see..... I can actually USE SCRIPTURE to prove this point..........

Our walk with God is always a matter of the heart.

God is always concerned with the heart. At times when I do not have words to express my emotions, I simply pray to my Lord, "You know my heart." He knows the sorrows, the bitterness and the joys that take refuge there. Due to sin, if the heart is not purified with the Word of God, like the mind, it can be deceitful, so constantly fill your heart with the Spirit of God through prayer, by imitating Christ at all times and by clinging desperately to the Word of God!!! "THE WORD OF GOD X-RAYS THE HUMAN HEART.... AND IT CONFRONTS THE INNER SELF!" "for out of it are the issues of life"

I don't know about you, but I sure do feel a wonderful sense of comfort and peace knowing that my Lord already knows the cries of my heart and He already knows what I need before I even come to Him concerning it. He is the ALL knowing, ALMIGHTY, Abba! Father! Who loves His children beyond measure!

Remember, we can be very religious while we withhold our hearts from true faith and worship of the Lord.

As I reflect on all that I have learned and come to know about my faith and about myself in the last month, I am wonderfully overwhelmed. Although in the process of thought, it "all" seems like an overload of information, it actually is not. I now realize that it all comes down to LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS, THE HEART.... all three stemming from the seed of GOD.

Think about this: What is God's first commandment? To love Him and to Love thy neighbor. To love Him - THAT IS A RELATIONSHIP! To love thy neighbor- THAT IS A RELATIONSHIP! The first commandment is ALL about relationships!!! God Himself is telling us that it is all about relationships! Therefore, when ministering to a Muslim person, we MUST demonstrate the loving Christlike relationship God demands from us!! Then..... how else can a Muslim person ever comprehend a  personal relationship with God (which is such a foreign concept to him/her!!!!)

The BODY OF CHRIST is a spiritual relationship we have as followers of Christ....we are all CONNECTED with the common thread being our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! We are all brothers and sisters in Christ.... and this ETERNAL RELATIONSHIP connects our HEARTS for our love of Christ! Remember that the Lord said, BE A LIGHT TO THE WORLD. The light of Christ SHINES THROUGH OUR HEARTS AS WE EXEMPLIFY THE LOVE OF CHRIST THROUGH RELATIONSHIPS IN THE BODY OF CHRIST. WE MUST POUR OUT THAT LOVE IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH NON BELIEVERS TO ILLUMINATE GODS LOVE.

Let me explain......

Pastor Tim from Graceway recently explained to me in a wonderful and enlightening way that although each one of us represent ourselves to the world through our behaviors and our beliefs and values.......it is actually relationships and our hearts that hold our true essence, where God is most visible.  We often hold a view of someone through their behavior and the values they associate themselves with......yet, giving little value to relationships and the heart of the individual. Proverbs 4:23 says: KEEP THY HEART WITH ALL DILIGENCE; FOR OUT OF IT ARE THE ISSUES OF LIFE" We need to look into the HEART of a person because it is WHERE JESUS STARTS..... the beliefs, values and behaviors of an individual are often hijacked by the flesh, succumbing to the world.... therefore burying the true struggles, pure desires and love that is in the heart. 

Scripture clearly teaches us that the real issues of life are spiritual and are really matters of the heart, the inner man. Did you know that the Bible mentions the heart 963 in the KJV and only mentions the head 360 times and the mind 156 times.... The word "heart" is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 6:5:

"THE LORD SAW THAT THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN WAS GREAT IN THE EARTH, AND THAT EVERY INTENTION OF THE THOUGHT OF HIS HEART WAS ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY"

Notice how specific and how intentional the Word of God is!! "Thought of his heart..." The Law of First Mention (that wherever you find a doctrine, a word or a theme mentioned in the Bible for the first time, that passage can be understood to set the tone for understanding it throughout all of the Bible) states: "Thought of his heart"... not thought of his mind. The first time the Lord talks about the HEART, He connects it with thinking. In the last 10 years, science has finally proved that the heart has the capability to think, yet the Bible states this clearly in Genesis! I don't know about you, but information like that excites me!!

ALSO NOTICE: In Genesis 8:21, it says, ".........The Lord said IN HIS HEART, I will never again curse the ground because of man......" Notice that the Lord's BIG promise to man was made IN HIS HEART!! God's words are intentional, and He could have just said, "The Lord said, I will......." but He made that promise in His heart as a "seal". The heart is sacred, confirmed in Proverbs 7:3, "...write them on the tablet of your HEART." We can obviously see the importance of the theme of the heart in the Bible..... so why is it that in society, we often forget and give little attention to the heart of others, but rather we focus on the external elements of man? God keeps His eyes on our hearts.... shouldn't we do the same? 1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “.........for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” I choose to look into the hearts of those whom have pained me or have caused me to suffer, rather than their external behaviors, actions and worldly/flesh consumed beliefs. Why? Because the heart will show me WHY I must forgive!!  Their hearts will show and confirm to me that my fellow man is seeking and crying out to God just like mine is..........

Once I understood this, I asked myself an honest question: Why do I want to minister to Muslims? Why do I think that the Lord has truly called me to bring His truth to the Muslim heart? So, I wanted to answer this question by thinking from my heart..... and not my mind.

Answer: I WANT TO BRING GOD'S WORD AND TRUTH NOT INTO THE MIND OF A MUSLIM, BUT INTO HIS OR HER HEART. The secret is not to transform their mind, but to transform their heart!!! Remember, you can not argue or debate someone into the kingdom of God..... but you can LOVE them and open their heart into the kingdom of God. I TRULY BELIEVE THAT EVERY MUSLIM HEART (THAT THE FATHER CHOOSES TO DRAW HIS SON TO) IS DESPERATELY "SEEKING" THE LOVE OF GOD. THE MUSLIM HEART IS SEEKING A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND INTIMACY WITH GOD THAT IS NOT PROVIDED IN ISLAM. YET, THE SOCIAL/CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS CHAINS OF ISLAM HOLDS THEM CAPTIVE. As missionaries, our primary role as soldiers of Christ is to break these chains with the power of the Holy Spirit and set the Muslim heart FREE IN CHRIST. This is not a matter of conversion!!! IT IS A MATTER OF THE HEART! And to get to the heart, one must build a bridge through RELATIONSHIPS. I would say that the closest "silver bullet" to open the heart of a Muslim person to Christ is: RELATIONSHIP EQUITY COMBINED WITH THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. When I was first presented the gospel, there were relentless attempts to DEFINE Christianity to me.... which is a matter of the MIND!!! What really brought me down to my knees? It was Christianity DEMONSTRATED to me through RELATIONSHIPS! Which is a matter of the HEART!!!! Hope that makes sense...... :)

Consider this!! Paul too looked at the heart when he went to proclaim the gospel to the world! We can see the importance of first looking into the heart with the example of Apostle Paul's speech to the Greek's in Athens. As he walked around and saw all the idols being worshiped, he was disturbed. However, when he said his speech in the courtyard, he DID NOT proclaim with frustration and anger that they were idol worshipers. Rather, he CHOSE to look into the heart of the Greeks instead of WHAT they were worshiping. He focused on their hearts and recognized the THEIR HEART'S were "seeking" and that their hearts were not satisfied, spiritually empty. They were looking for a God that could satisfy their heart's desires. We need to truly think about this and hope to do the same.

PLEASE NOTE: Only God through His Spirit can draw anyone to Himself. "YOU CAN NOT BUILD THE KINGDOM OF GOD. ONLY GOD CAN. YOU CAN ONLY REFLECT IT THROUGH YOUR WITNESS AND LIFE." Although we plant the seed, God alone can give the growth. "The man who plants, waters and reaps KNOWS NOT HOW the seed sprouts and grows!!!"

 I will use my own story as an example: For almost two years when I was first presented the gospel, I refused to embrace Christ. My mind, my education, and my own intelligence would not allow me to see the light of faith. I had in essence rejected the constraints of Islam and looked in distrust at the face of Western Christianity. Therefore, I was living as my own God. God fully knows us from the inside out. Therefore, He too knew that my stubbornness would be a problem. So, He knew to capture my mind because IT WAS MY MIND THAT WAS REJECTING CHRIST and IT WAS MY MIND THAT WAS NOT ALLOWING MY HEART TO HAVE ANY SAY IN THE MATTER. Therefore, the Lord needed to capture my heart and give it greater strength so that it could LEAD my MIND to His light...... As He set my HEART free with John 17, my MIND also began to be transformed. As missionaries, we must focus on the heart.... igniting the heart for the Lord, then the heart can lead the person's mind to Truth. It is then when all those lingering questions and debates that consume the mind, holding back a person to come to the Lord are answered THROUGH faith... in God's time! Jesus in all His love and mercy comforted my heart and mind, but in different ways because they were thinking differently!

It is obvious then to realize as Westerners that it is ALL ABOUT BUILDING A REALTIONSHIP WITH A MUSLIM PERSON IN ORDER TO KNOW THE HEART..... SEPARATE FROM THE MIND BECAUSE THE MUSLIM MIND HAS BEEN TAUGHT TO REJECT THE GOOD NEWS, AND HE OR SHE WILL REJECT CHRIST FIRST WITH THE MIND!!! KNOW THE STRUGGLE WITHIN THAT SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL'S HEART.... AND THEN EXPLAIN HOW JESUS CAN AND WILL RESOLVE AND GIVE COMFORT TO THAT STRUGGLE!!!! Know the Muslim heart!!  "Since the heart is so important to what we think, say, and do, we each need to regularly do open heart surgery with the scalpel of the Word under the guiding hand of the great physician, the Lord Jesus. We accomplish this through the teaching, guiding, convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. Like a sharp two-edged sword, the Word divides the inner man asunder to reveal the true condition and needs of our hearts" (http://bible.org/article/guarding-heart )

"Christianity and the promises of the Bible are matters of trust, and trust is a matter of the heart" (And remember, trust comes from building a solid "relationship")

We may worship our Lord with words, thoughts from the mind, or hymns, but OUR HEARTS MAY WORSHIP THE LORD WITHOUT WORDS.

FOR MORE ON THE "MATTER OF THE HEART", GO TO  http://bible.org/article/guarding-heart

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4).

We each live our lives with our own measure of uncertainties and tragedies. To compare mine with yours and vice versa would not be fair and the emotional burden can not be compared. The source of each of our pains differ, but the desperate cries for God to heal the afflicted wounds echos the same, pleading for God's mercy.

I can not imagine nor do I allow my mind to ponder the anguish of a woman's heart who watches her husband....the love of her life, her protector, and her best friend, face the uncertainty of cancer. I watch this burden upon my two sisters in Christ. I watch unwavering love and strength.

I can not imagine nor do I allow my mind to ponder what the state of a daughter's heart would be if she were to helplessly watch her mother slowly wither away into death's arms. I witnessed this today. I witnessed unwavering love and strength.

I can not imagine nor do I allow my mind to ponder what the state of a husband's heart would be if he were to powerlessly face his wife slowly wither away into death's mercy. I witnessed this today. I witnessed unwavering love and strength.

Where is the hope? Well, the Bible says, "Our hope lies beyond the grave" (Proverbs 11:17)

In a matter of a few days, through the unfortunate and heart sinking realities that face my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I wonder..... Is God trying to speak to me through this? Does it take me seeing a fellow Christian suffering more than I, to realize that my situation is not that bad? Yet, I must be careful to not deny or minimize my own pain and suffering in relation to another. I must acknowledge and look at my pain in the eye. I must accept it. I must find God's hope and purpose in it. I must seek peace and strength in Christ. I must REMEMBER the absolute suffering, betrayal and rejection that Christ endured!!!! So, for HIS sake, I will rejoice when I face trials knowing that it will draw me closer to Him; throwing me into the loving arms of my merciful Lord. We are little children, and our Father in heaven keeps near to the brokenhearted and He reaches down and grabs His children when they begin to sink in sorrows deep waters.

Pastor Jeff Adams made a comment today during his sermon that resonated with me deeply: If there is something that is holding you back from truly giving yourself to God, let it go. I believe that it can also include "someone."  At ALL times, the focus of a spiritual life should be on the kingdom!!! Once I can keep my attention firmly fixated on my eternal place in the kingdom of heaven, then "other" matters that have the potential to steer my focus away will no longer cast a shadow over my spiritual walk with the Lord.

For the last month, I prayed for God to prepare and guard my heart. I not just prayed, I begged. He is so faithful.  He showed me not only what real suffering is through the struggles that my friends are facing, but more importantly, He allowed me to witness what REAL Love is through them. Now I know that my tears are being wasted on earthly love, not a spiritual love that only comes from the presence of God.

I am beyond grateful. I am beyond blessed. My Lord continues to shine His love and protection upon me in the most powerful and obvious of ways, especially when the heart throbs. He is always near....... Although my soul is embittered and I was pricked in the heart, my lips will not speak deceit and "I will walk with integrity of heart..." (Psalm 101:2)

God spoke to me yesterday through this Bible verse: "He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries." (Psalm 112:7-8) Thank you for preparing me Lord.

Thank you Lord for being my eternal shield, my rock, my protector, my redeemer..... my love. Under your wings Lord is where I will take refuge because "His faithfulness is a shield and buckler" (Psalm 91:4)

"I know in part then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known"

My thoughts and prayers are with my brothers and sisters in Christ who are battling a fight against cancer. We are prayer warriors and we will be lifting you up in prayer. God and His timing are INTENTIONAL, and every joy and suffering serves to draw us closer to Him..... to show us that we are DESPERATELY NEEDY OF HIM.  We desperately need you Lord, for I can not do anything apart from you!


Praise to our splendid, magnificent and merciful Lord.