I can't begin to tell you how blessed I continue to be by the preaching of Andy Stanley. We have decided to listen to one of his sermons each night that we are home. I would challenge you at least once a week to forgo watching one of the many TV programs that you watch and watch Andy and listen to what he has to say about God's Word. I guarantee you that it will do you a lot more good than anything else you planned to watch. You can find him by just googling him or by following these links:
www.northpoint.tv
www.northpoint.org
(For some reason I couldn't activate these links.)
We have been listening to his series called Your Move. It is all about the questions you need to ask yourself when facing big decisions, especially big decisions that you didn't expect to have to be making.
The first question to ask is "Why are you REALLY making this choice?" Andy proceeds to explain how good all people are at selling themselves on ideas when we really want to. He said that lots of people want to follow their hearts. But that is dangerous because Jeremiah 17:9 says "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" Our culture and the media often celebrate people who follow their heart. But we must be careful, and as parents we need to address this with our children. Andy says that our hearts are not just dishonest; our hearts are deceitful. Our heart is purposely trying to mix a little truth with some lies so that we will follow it.
The next question Andy says we need to ask when facing big decisions is "What story do we want to tell with our lives?" Every time we come to a decisive point in our lives we are faced with the choice of telling a good story, or telling a bad story. We looked at the life of Joseph. He was put in terrible situations over and over in his life and each time these things happened he chose to trust God, to do his best in the storm. Joseph told a great story with his life.
Every season of our life will eventually be boiled down to a few sentences, probably a couple of paragraphs at the most. Each time we face a trial we get to choose how that trial will be remembered in our lives. How I need to remember this in my life right now!
So wherever you are, whatever season of life you find yourself in...
tell a good story.
This is what I have always been taught about our hearts but I learned from John Eldridge in Wild at Heart that we may need to rethink this. The unregenerate heart is deceitful but when we come in relationship with Christ, He removes our dead, deceitful heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that beats for Him. (Ezek 36; Jer 31) It is also where Christ resides.(Eph 3) This is the beauty of the New Covenant over the Old: "Christ in us, the hope of glory." It is our flesh that needs to die and our minds that need renewed that cause us trouble. That being said, I get the point: there is a part of us that can't be trusted. It is sometimes hard to distinguish between heart, mind and flesh but I would trust my heart that has been changed over my mind and flesh that still war against me.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments. Obviously you understand where I'm coming from.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about it being hard to distinguish between heart, mind and flesh.