The Heart of the Matter: It's a Matter of the Heart

I just got back from a trip to Washington, D.C. during Spring Break. While we were there, we visited a church that only ran around 80 people in attendance. The worship music was put on by fellow members of the congregation ranging from kids to elderly adults. The music wasn't that great, and the service flow was pretty blocky, but there was something there in that church that made those things unimportant. There was something that banished the reservation that accompanies many believers. Even my fellow students were getting into the worship more than usual. The people of that church were really dedicated to their worship. They sang, they worshiped. It wasn't a concert; it wasn't a show; it was an offering of praise to God, and they produced it from their hearts. It was a matter of the heart.

 It was odd to me. Normally when I hear so-called "amateur" music, it turns me off to the message they are trying to communicate, but this was different. I don't think they were concerned with playing the music correctly as they were concerned with praising God. I think they knew that they were in an environment that ought to be able to see past the off-beats and bad pitches to look at the heart of the matter - that they were offering everything they had to God in order to praise him. It was a matter of the heart.

I think there is a considerable lack of this in churches today. A lack of unreserved praise. A lack of fearlessness. A lack of boldness for the gospel. I think a lot of the time, Jesus is quietly removed from the minds of people and replaced with the beauty of the music and the prose of the sermon and the comfortableness of the service. I think many churches get so concerned with making their congregation happy and content that Christ is pushed out and no one notices. People are happily convicted of their sin once a week in service, and go on to live in sin the other 6 days of the week. I've caught myself singing worship songs on autopilot, not really saying the words, and just singing out of habit. Worship isn't about the words, though. It's a matter of the heart.  

A life in Christ was never meant to be solely Pharisaical. There needs to be something deeper than the outward signs of faith. A while ago, I was working with my family in our yard clearing out some tree branches. I remember working on a branch of one of the trees that hangs over our driveway. From the outside, it looked pretty healthy, but when I cut into it, I found a big colony of ants thriving on the rotten inside of the branch. Sadly, I think this picture defines a lot of Christians today. They put all their effort into appearing acceptable, but they are rotting from the inside out. Whether because of apathy, lukewarmness, or hopelessness, a lot of our fellow Christ-followers are secretly unhealthy. Their actions are roses, but their hearts are the thorns. It's a matter of the heart.

I think many of us need to take a good hard look at the way we're living life and really consider which parts of our lives we are willing to surrender to God, because a lot of us have been living our whole lives keeping a few percentage points "off-limits" to God. There is wholeness, beauty, and love offered in the promise of the New Covenant - but in order for us to reap these promises of God, we need to sow faith in Christ into our lives. It is a matter of our hearts. 

The Sanctity of Life

I'm surprised how many Christians I have met who are in support of the legalization of abortion. Some even provide a biblical argument for the killing of these unborn babies. This goes past all my defenses and strikes me right in the heart. How can a Christian possibly support this murder of children? It may be legal, and you may have every right under American law to kill the child inside of your body, but where can I possibly find support in scripture for this doctrine of abortion? The instances of killing children in the Old Testament are called "abominations" (תֹעֲבוֹת in the Hebrew). These kinds of things throughout the Bible are detestable to God, and forever banned from the life of a christian. Just like homosexuality, the killing of children is detestable and forbidden before God. To do תֹעֲבוֹת before God is to do something that goes completely against the nature of God and is wholly abominable. It kills me to see that our society is now taking steps in order to legalize תֹעֲבוֹת and to give its citizens the right to do these things. I honestly don't know how much longer this country can last if it continues in the direction it's going. 

We can get all wrapped up in defending our rights as Americans to do this, and to protect the mother and support her rights as a free woman, but there's a problem with getting all worked up about our rights: When we surrendered our lives to Christ and were baptized into his spirit, we surrendered all of our rights and replaced them with Christ's commands. It doesn't matter if we "have the right" to kill our children; God commanded us not to, so we cannot! Why is this so hard to make clear to people today? We are so concerned with "being our own person" that we completely leave God behind! I may may have the judicial right to sue a man after he hits me with his car, but 1 Corinthians 6  speaks specifically against the usage of rights for lawsuits - therefore, I cannot rightfully sue this man even though he may deserve it and even though I may legally able to do so. It doesn't matter what my rights are - Christ vanquished those rights and replaced them with his commands. 

When I became a Christian, everything in my old life was refitted with Christ, and I now have to judge everything as to whether it is acceptable in God's covenant. When I look at scripture, there is nothing that supports the killing of children in or out of the womb; I find only scripture supporting the sanctity of human life and the beautiful craftsmanship of God within it. Who am I to counteract this working? As in marriage, I cannot undo what God has joined together. If God has created a child, I cannot undo this. That would be an abomination. 

Can we just try to actually practice some humility before God, and accept the fact that we don't have any rights before Him? We are sinners - willful betrayers of God - we don't have any leverage on Him, and we cannot claim any sort of claim to any right. God's grace to us is a gift - not a right. We have absolutely zero reasons for God to forgive us and allow us into His Kingdom. Let's stop arguing for what we deserve and actually work to obey God's commands.   

Graceful Silence

Mini-soapbox time!

Christians, can we try being graceful and gentle with those people who go against our grain, instead of labeling them "idiots" and reigning over our own little ethical hierarchy?

I just don't think the belief that we're right should be standing in opposition to our call to truth and relationships. It's hard to bring people in to our truth when all they see is how low you place them and how high you are.

I believe that grace, truth, and gentleness should characterize the life of every Christ follower, in every aspect. From our waking to our sleeping - from our rising to our lying down. Every word we say, every person we affect needs to be impacted by the Christ-likeness within us.

We can argue it out with the fact that even Jesus got angry when people were working against the truth, or that Jesus was not always "graceful" or "gentle", but it comes down to the fact that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and we are not, though some need much convincing of this sometimes. We are not God, and we don't have all the authority to throw harsh terms and harsher judgments around. God is the avenger - we need to continue on and impact the world.

I think sometimes we need to forget how vehemently we believe our ethics and accept people for who they are, even if they believe things contrary to what we believe and even if we know that we won't teach them the truth. We can't give up, we can't treat them any differently, because we are Christians, and we are all sinners.

Just because we know the truth doesn't mean we are any higher or any better than anyone else. We need to get over ourselves and move on to Christ. I think a lot of people are deferred from Christianity because some of us are so set in their beliefs and so passionate about defending them that we actually hinder the progress of the faith. If I can't speak with grace, it might be better for me to learn to be okay with not speaking out so much...