Your heart has likely said things today that you would not wish to repeat. I know mine has. My heart tells me that all of reality ought to serve my desires. My heart likes to think the best of me and worst of others, unless those others happen to think well of me—then they are wonderful people. But if they don’t think well of me, or even if they just disagree with me, well then, something must be wrong with them. And while my heart is pondering my virtues and others’ errors, it can suddenly find some immoral or horribly angry thought very attractive.
no one lies to us more than our own hearts. No one. If our hearts are compasses, they are Jack Sparrow compasses. 1 They don’t tell us the truth; they just tell us what we want. If our hearts are guides, they are Gothels. 2 They are not benevolent; they are pathologically selfish. In fact, if we do what our hearts tell us to do, we will pervert and impoverish every desire, every beauty, every person, every wonder, and every joy. Our hearts want to consume these things for our own self-glory and self-indulgence.
Genesis has an interesting structure. It zooms over the creation account (about 3 percent of the book) like a rocket, soars over the millennia between Adam and Abraham (about 15 percent—dropping speed and altitude over Noah) like a jet, and cruises over Abraham (21 percent), Isaac (8 percent), and Jacob (23 percent) like a helicopter, hovering here and there. Then it sort of drives down the road of Joseph’s life, devoting to it nearly 30 percent of its content. God
Stressed vines produce good wines. This phenomenon of nature is also a parable for how God produces rich, complex, intense faith in his children. Because when it comes to faith, God loves good wine. All you
Your vinedresser (John 15:1) has planted you in a unique vineyard with uniquely stressful conditions because he intends for you to produce a uniquely fine, flavorful faith wine. And he will tend to your every real need (Phil. 4:19). If
my pathologically selfish sin nature, which assumes all of reality should serve my preferences and grumbles against anything that doesn’t. The truth is, when I grumble, I have lost touch with reality.
Grumbling is a gauge of the human soul. It gauges our gaze on grace. It tells us that we’re not seeing grace.
WHAT WE REALLY LOVE and trust aren’t truly seen until we are tested by loss. This is essentially the point that Satan made when talking to God about Job.
What are the satanic strongholds that spiritually imprison people, the strongholds that we seek to destroy? Arguments and opinions. Where is the battle raging? In our thoughts. Arguments are not merely strongholds; they are weapons of mass destruction. Adam and Eve
Moods don’t come out of nowhere. When we are angry, discouraged, depressed, anxious, self-pitying, fearful, or irritable, it is likely because we are believing something very specific. To battle sin is to battle unbelief—or destroy arguments. And in order to battle unbelief effectively, we must press doubts and temptations into specific arguments. What specifically is being asserted or promised to us? Only then can we destroy the enemy’s false arguments with true ones. The
Through temptation, condemnation, intimidation, discouragement, disappointment, doubt, illness, weakness, weariness, and appeals to our pride and shame, the spiritual powers of evil seek to keep us off-balanced, confused, and turned around. For
Hell wages a war of distortion. It seeks to make the most destructive things look tantalizingly desirable. It seeks to make the most wonderful things look unbearably boring. It seeks to make the most trustworthy things look unreliable. It seeks to make the one true fountain of joy look like a dry well, and a broken cistern look like a spring of refreshment. Hell makes even hell look entertaining. Hell
God designed your emotions to be gauges, not guides. They’re meant to report to you, not rule you. The pattern of your emotions (not every caffeine-induced or sleep-deprived one!) will give you a reading on where your hope is, because they are wired into what you believe and value—and how much. That’s why emotions such as delight (Ps. 37:4), affection (Rom. 12:10), fear (Luke 12:5), anger (Ps. 37:8), and joy (Ps. 5:11) are so important in the Bible. They reveal what your heart loves, trusts, and fears. At Desiring God we like to say, “Pleasure is the measure of your treasure,” because the emotion of pleasure is a gauge that tells you what you love. But because our emotions are wired into our fallen nature as well as into our regenerated nature, sin and Satan have access to them and will use them to try to manipulate us to act faithlessly. That’s why our emotional responses to temptation can seem like imperatives (you must do) rather than indicatives (here’s what you’re being told). Just remember, that’s deceit. Emotions aren’t imperatives; they’re not your boss. They’re indicatives; they’re reports. That’s why Paul wrote, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Rom. 6:12). So get
God has other purposes for us in the discipline of daily Bible meditation and prayer. Here are a few: Soul Exercise
Soul Shaping
Bible Copiousness
Fight Training
Sight Training (2
Delight Cultivation
If the words of the Wall Street Journal or World magazine or Wired magazine or David Brooks or David Letterman or David McCullough or John Mayer or John Steinbeck or John Calvin or Richard Dawkins or Richard Branson or Richard Baxter or Bono or Bach or blogs dwell in you more richly than the word of Christ, you’re poor. You might be impressive at a dinner party or around a conference table or at small group. But you’re poor. You’re storing up dust.
You don’t need to be in the know.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Don’t neglect it. Listen to his word. Soak in his word. Memorize his word. Eat and chew it slowly. Don’t stop it from benefitting you. Neglect the TV, blogs, social networks, video games, theaters, magazines, books, hobbies, chores, and pursuits that keep you from the Vault.
Be Quick to Listen, Slow to Correct, and Take Heart These texts also remind us that godly people sometimes feel and express these intense emotions. And often what they need from us in that moment is not an immediate remedial theological course. What they need is a fellow groaner who will sit in silence with them and, when it’s helpful, point them to the empathetic saints of Scripture who felt similar things and found God faithful after all. Your
We must live with leaders who disappoint us and fellow members who see the world differently. Besides their irritating temperamental idiosyncrasies, they have different interests, ministry priorities, educational philosophies, and musical preferences than we do. “Doing life” with them doesn’t end up looking or feeling like the community of our dreams—the idealized abstract imaginary community in our head. Perhaps we need a change, to find a different church where we can really thrive. Perhaps. If the defects of the church community include things like ethical or doctrinal unfaithfulness, a change may be exactly what is needed for us to thrive. But if
THERE IS A HOMELESSNESS that is distinctly Christian, because a Christian is no longer of this world, even though he or she remains in the world (John 17:14–15).
