Listen to your heart?

** This is part 4 of my series on Christian cliches. They’re meant for good but end up doing more harm in the long run**

I know the question sounds counter intuitive in a culture where many motivational gurus and life coaches are saying,

“Above all things trust your heart.”

while the Bible says,

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” – Jeremiah 17:9

Who is right?

The problem with listening to your heart is we are forgetting that you are your own worst enemy. You have within you a voice that is dearer than the voice of God or any angel or man. This voice can comfort and convince you against any teaching or warning. This voice is with you twenty-four hours a day, and it always tells you what you want to hear and what to believe. It helps you make most decisions and if you continually listen to it you are a fool and will be led down a horrible path.

Your heart has a strong opinion on any and every subject, whether you know anything about said subject or not. Your heart reacts in an instant against criticism or reproofs, and it controls you with passionate desire for something it wants. Your heart can lull you to sleep about matters it says are unimportant, and it can keep you from sleeping out of envy or hate. It is your internal set of desires and needs that affects your decision-making. This is not your conscience it is your anti-conscience. It is not the Holy Spirit but the antithesis of it, please do not get them confused. Unfortunately this is the set of passions that drives most men and women.

Do what your heart tells you is a creed believed by millions today. It is one of the great cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in many movies and songs and television programs and stories. We have to have a higher standard of authority than our heart, a higher standard of authority than mere opinion, and that is the Word of God.

Instead of trying to accommodate the Word of God to our changing culture, we need to accommodate our culture to the unchanging Word of God.

**Over the next few weeks I would love to address other Christian cliches, if there are some that you’ve wondered about please let me know in the comments below and I will try to address them in the upcoming weeks.**

God helps those who help themselves?

** This is part 3 of my series on Christian cliches. They’re meant for good but end up doing more harm in the long run**

God helps those who help themselves?

Does He?

Really?

As you can see in this video, Stephen Colbert takes Bill O’Reilly to task for wrongly attributing this [sad] cliche (amongst other things) to Jesus, yet he is not alone. In February of 2000 George Barna did a poll asking if “The Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves” and the results were eye-opening:

53% of Americans agree strongly [that is could be found in the Bible]
22% agree somewhat
7% disagree somewhat
14% disagree strongly
5% stated they don’t know

Of “born-again” Christians 68% agreed, and 81% of non “born-again” Christians agreed with the statement. Despite being of non-Biblical origin, the phrase topped a poll of the most widely known Bible verses. Seventy-five percent (75%) of American teens said they believed that it was the central message of the Bible.

The problem with this belief is that is directly conflicts with the Bible’s view of God’s kindness towards people, none of whom deserve it – “grace”. It suggests a spiritual self-reliance inconsistent with the God of the Bible. The essence of this cliche is that if you work hard and take care of your own business, God will intervene where necessary. In other words, do your job and God will do his. While we have responsibilities as those who bear the image of God, God is NOT OBLIGATED to intervene in our lives or act in prescribed ways, simply because we did our part. God does not owe us….anything! He is not in our debt; we are in His.

Let me be clear – THIS IS NOT IN SCRIPTURE. People treat it like it is, but it’s not. Benjamin Franklin penned this in the Farmers’ Almanac in 1757 and it can be found from other non biblical sources even earlier. God does not help those who can help themselves, simply because no one can help do so. We cannot save ourselves from our bondage to sin, nor from the wrath of God, so He does. Our own power fails us when we rely on it, rather than God. To believe that God helps those who help themselves, is not only foolish, but it’s proud. Pride motivates the belief that we can do everything by our own gusto and go-to attitude. That we can pick ourselves up by our spiritual & moral bootstraps, but, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”. This is hard for us here in the U.S. but we must learn to work through God’s grace and not our own works.

God will never give you more than you can handle?

** This is part 2 or my series on Christian cliches. They’re meant for good but end up doing more harm in the long run**

You hear it all the time, you see it written on Facebook status updates and tweeted printed on everything. Honestly, this phrase is thrown around a lot, and I do mean a lot. Many people use this line to try to encourage a friend or family member whenever times are tough. While it’s absolutely essential that we do everything we can to build up and encourage people who are experiencing trials and adversity, we need to make sure that what we encourage them with is the truth.

This phrase sounds very positive and affirming, but you will not find “God won’t give you more than you can handle” anywhere within the pages of the Bible. It simply doesn’t exist.

It actually comes from a common misquote 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says:

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

When applied properly this verse very affirming, but it does not say that God will not “give you more than you can handle.” It’s talking about temptation only – that we will not be tempted beyond what we can endure.

Over and over again in the Bible, we see men and women who are given far more than they can handle. The prophet Jeremiah is a great example; he was charged with preaching repentance to the people of Israel, a calling that caused him to be beaten, plotted against and rejected by everyone, even his own family. Emotionally, that was far more than he could handle (as we see in his many laments).

The Apostle Paul is probably one of the most powerful examples of this truth found in Scripture. Paul doesn’t tell us these things to boast in how he took all this suffering and adversity like a man—he does it so that we might know that God will always give us more than we can handle. He ”boasts of the things that show my weakness” because those things show his (and our) dependency on the power and mercy of God.

When you say that God will never give you more than you can handle, I pray you can see that the focus is on you and not Him. God will break you so that you will learn to rely completely on Him. So let’s please stop peddling this lie as it only serves to hurt more than help.

Focusing on First things

With the Presidential campaigns ramping up and everyone seemingly running to there respective corners to point fingers at the other guy and I wonder how we continually miss the point. June 28, 2012 is a day that will go down historically without much of a fight but that day you might have thought the world ended. That was the day the the Supreme Court of the U.S. rendered its decision on President Obama’s healthcare mandates. Some screamed “It’s the end of liberty!” while others ” It’s the beginning of freedom!” and really either way you sliced it, the court’s ruling was momentous, but does it really change reality? People will continue to be born and die daily. You can argue whether the rate will increase or decrease here in the U.S. but that is just reality. What surprised me is “Christ-followers” publicly showed more care and concern about Chief Justice John Roberts’ conservative credentials more that we do about Christ’s Kingdom advancing in our local context. We consistently seem to have more concern for the things of this world and not any focus on the first things.
That last statement is one that has plagued my mind as I try to write sermon and shepherd people of our church I want focus on the 1st things of Christ and His kingdom. I wonder if this is true for you also. Think about it as you listen to this Sunday night sermon.

**Update: I will be preaching this upcoming Sunday morning August 26, 2012 at our 9:15a and 10:45a (CST) services. Please click here follow to watch the whole service live at those times**

Does time [really] heal all wounds?

God saved me almost 10 years ago now and through that time many things have shaped my walk with Him. One of these things is periodically writing a letter or note to someone from my past letting them know who I am now, an apology for past actions and sometimes seeking forgiveness. Most of you did not know me in that time in my life but I wronged many people, especially women, as I lashed out against God and His people. Over and over as I write these notes I keep wondering whether I will receive a response and when I do they are usually surprising.

One of the times I received a response it caused a multitude of emotions. First, surprise then astonishment, and finally, anger/ frustration. Within the letter were many supportive and encouraging things, also (as usual) a skating of the issue at hand. This time the statement they said that threw me off was “Time heals all wounds, right?”. Honestly, it was the final straw the myriad of [Christian] cliches that I have encountered. These cliches are structured to give a quick answer to “help” the situation without truly addressing it.

Time heals all wounds? This phrase couldn’t be further from the truth. What if you haven’t actually forgiven the person or sought forgiveness. Another phrase that runs congruent to this one is “Forgive and forget”. The idea was first recorded by a 4 century BC Greek writer named Menander and it really has not changed since that time. The problem is that in reality, the human brain does not have the capacity to forget.

What if you were raped?
Molested?
Abused?
Cheated on?
You fill in the blank ________________________

Forgiveness is a decision of the will. Since God commands us to forgive, we must make a conscious choice to forgive. Therefor we are to [actively] forgive. This means that we forgive much like our Father in heaven who forgive us perpetually. Christ death on the cross was not just efficient for the current sins but sufficient for us all for all time. We are not God or even a god and to suggest that time or forgetting the wrong is a catalyst for healing is silly. In one sense, it is impossible to truly forget sins that have been committed against us because we cannot selectively “delete” events from our memory. We have these ideas in our society to help each other out and give solace. Yet these sayings create more pain that relief. Bury a hurt, a pain, a wrong, use time to hopefully heal or forget the wrong and it will fester and come back much worse than you can ever imagine. Don’t believe me? Ask any psychologist, or psychiatrist and they will tell you how our society is withering under the weight of our choice to believe these lies. I love you each but this is not the way to extend Christ likeness to each other, there is a better way.

Some encouragement to start your week

Why do we sleep through church where we worship the God of the universe but we can stay awake for a 3 hour movie?
Why is it hard to pray when the God of the universe said He will listen but find it easy to curse, gossip, or slander others?
Why do many 0f us never pick up the Bible but can discuss the latest Non-fiction or fiction book on the market in depth?
Why are we able to worship celebrities, sports, families, and every other idol in our lives but not God?
Why are we able to post all types of ridiculous things on our social network sites but can’t post scripture or honor God in our words and action in the public square?

“Do you believe that what you believe is really real? Because if you really believe that what you believe is real, then Christians will change the world.”

– Dr. Del Tackett, the Truth Project

I know that there are many more questions that I could have asked but I just wanted to ask some questions to hopefully change the trajectory for your week. These questions are just scraping the surface of our idols but I hope that begin to open our eyes to the difference between what we say and do.

Listen to your heart?

God helps those who help themselves?

God will never give you more than you can handle?

Focusing on First things

Does time [really] heal all wounds?

Some encouragement to start your week

Soma Community Church

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