Relational Chaos

Relational Chaos
November 6, 2009

Life is really all about relationships. We have relationships with people, with pets, with our world, with God and they are the sum total of our existence. The quality of our lives is measured by the quality of our relationships. Can you relate to these quotes: “Men -you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them”, “If it weren’t for the people this would be a great job”, “Life would be so much better if everyone would just listen to me”, “Beam me up Scotty, their is no intelligent life here”

You get the idea! So we ask, if life is the sum total of my relationships then why are those relationships so messed up or a least why are they so difficult? Why can’t I just stop caring? Why can’t I just go through life without relationships? Why do I have to have the relationships I do have? If all my relationships are bad it can’t be my fault can it? These are the questions that haunt every human being that has had a relationship go bad. The questions we ask are important, but the answers we come up with are more important.

We live in a world that is wondering what a good relationship looks like. How do I have a good friendship, a good marriage, a good family, a good work environment, and a good neighborhood? What does that even look like? Why does it matter? Is this more about me or the person I am trying to have a relationship with?

Here are some principles we will wrestle with over the next few weeks. We were created to be in relationship with people and with God. In Genesis 2 after God had proclaimed His creation to be good, He saw that man was alone and that was not good. So, God created a woman and with the woman came relationship. Man was no longer alone. That first relationship was perfect. Adam and Eve didn’t have conflict; they didn’t have shame or guilt. They were not inherently selfish; they served each other without expectations of payback. Relationships were not meant to be self-serving. What interrupted this perfect relationship? In a word; sin. With sin has come Relational Chaos.

Mankind has taken what God created for good and perverted it so as to exploit relationship for our own benefit. We use relationships to meet our own needs and to gain power. It is our nature to manipulate for our own purposes.

Reflect on your relationships. How hard do you work at them? Why are they important to you? Are you investing in others? Are others investing in you? How do you show others that you value their relationship?

Relational Chaos – a world searching for relationships that work without God.

Closing thoughts on the heart

Closing Thoughts on the Heart
October 30, 2009

Some closing musings on the heart:

First- Guard your heart. Protect your heart from the abuses of this world. Be careful what you let in, make sure it is pure, right, and just. Guarding your heart means you are careful about what you see, what you read and what you hear. You need to guard against the corruption of the heart. Limit your exposure to evil and deception. This requires us to pay attention.

Second – Weed the heart. Remove from your heart anything that produces evil, fear or anxiety. Weeding the heart takes work: it is recognizing what is wrong with our motives, our beliefs and our values. We move from recognition to removal.

Third – Set your heart on things above. After weeding comes replacing previous problems with the heart with true beliefs, good values, and right motives. This requires us to keep our heart engaged with God.

Guarding our hearts is a way to prevent problems. Weeding the heart gets rid of problems. Setting your heart on things above changes the heart.

Two warnings-
the signs of limited or no heart change:
-Defensiveness: This really is a heart killer. This is the most common problem among people. Rather than recognize the need to change the heart we defend its faults. We get irritated when others call us on our heart issues. We find ourselves defending that which has no defense. Feeling defensive? Defend what is pure, true and good and change what isn’t.
-Complacency: Defensiveness may kill a heart, complacency is an indication that the heart may be dead. If you see no need to change anything about your heart, be very scared. This is the great illusion of our own hearts. Self-gratification! I am satisfied with myself and everyone else can just deal with me the way I am. I don’t need to change, everyone else needs to change! This is a dangerous place to be.

We live out of the overflow of our hearts. Do you want your life to be better? Check your heart. Then change your heart. With God’s help your heart can overflow with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, forgiveness etc… Life doesn’t get any better than that.

Heart Change IV

Heart Change IV
October 23, 2009

Heart change is a long term project as we are exposed to the condition of our heart over time. God reveals false beliefs, wrong motives, and stubborn habits to us. Thankfully, He doesn’t reveal them to us all at once; that would be overwhelming. We wrestle with our hearts by making excuses about why we do what we do. This might make us feel better but it doesn’t change anything. When we are confronted with change we are faced with a crisis of the will – do I change or stay the same? The choice either starts a process or leaves our hearts in the same place.

We started on the process last week when we discussed repentance. Heart change is seldom accomplished in one moment of success. I repented and I beat bitterness. You beat it that time but the heart is still trained toward bitterness. This is the idea of creating new habits. This is the idea of changing as a continual, repetitive heart condition. Prejudice or critical or judgmental dispositions are habits of the heart. When we encounter certain types of people we judge them. We compare them to ourselves or others. We demean people or criticize people. All of these behaviors have their origin in the heart and they are rampant in our families, our workplace, and our churches and in our government. We recognize it quickly in others but have a hard time seeing it in ourselves.

This condition of the heart is often defended with the wrong belief that says, “I am a pessimist”, or “I am just a realist” or “somebody has to say it like it is!” These are mere excuses for a condition of the heart that does not have to be your identity. When confronted with these more persistent and identity type conditions they are more difficult to conquer because we see them as part of our identity. So to change our heart in this case would be to change our self perception. This requires a heavy dose of prayer, conviction and perseverance.

When you identify this in your heart you need to identify what you have believed that is not true about yourself and others. Usually, a critical spirit is trying to level the playing field and does this by pointing out what is wrong with others or with organizations. This is not done in a constructive way but in a demeaning or destructive way. The remedy is repentance; the 180 degree turn in this circumstance is to find ways to use the critical eye to build up rather than tear down. Looking for ways to build into people requires a healthy self image and it requires a heart that is about loving others.

The insidious nature of our hearts is to hide our short comings rather than confront them and change them. Pray that God will change your heart but be ready for the need to work at it and you will need to persevere. This requires us to surrender our hearts to God.

Heart Change III

Heart Change III
October 16, 2009

Heart change can be elusive. We have discussed values, motives and beliefs. But the heart must have consistent attention. Changing habits is hard and takes time and discipline. Both are in short supply in most people’s lives. Changing the heart takes an attentive, watchful and perceptive eye. We must discipline ourselves to keep watch over own hearts.

It is one thing to identify the mistakes of the heart, to see our wrong beliefs, or our wrong motives; this is only the beginning of heart change. They are essential to begin the process but they must be joined together with repentance and surrender. These are not happy words, but they are life changing words.

Repentance is the response to a need for change. When the need for heart change is revealed to us by God and the work of the Holy Spirit, we are faced with a crisis of the will. We are faced with a choice. We can ignore it or we can acknowledge it. Obviously, it does us no good to ignore it, so with heart change being our goal, we should acknowledge it. Here is the beginning of the struggle: the heart does not want to change and moves toward the path of least resistance. Our natural tendency then is to ignore the prompting of the Holy Spirit to do any heart change. We say things like, “I guess that is just the way I am”, or “that keeps happening to me” or” I wish I could change that about me”. But, we don’t take the necessary steps to change the heart. We make excuses. Often times, these excuses blame other people or, worse yet, we blame God for the condition of our hearts. You see, bitterness, anger, a critical spirit, apathy, indifference, etc., are all choices and they all can be changed. God did not make you bitter or indifferent nor did anybody else.

So let’s say you get to the place of acknowledgment; you in your heart agree with God that something needs to change in your heart. This is the next step in changing your heart. Let’s say what is wrong with your heart is bitterness, a lack of forgiveness. You say, “I agree with you God. I have a heart filled with bitterness.” The next step is to repent. This means to stop and turn and go in the opposite direction. The remedy for bitterness is forgiveness. That is the 180 degree turn.

Bitterness is usually rooted in 2 false beliefs. The first is: if I forgive someone there will be no justice; the person won’t pay for the things they did to me. The second is: I have a right to hold things against people.

Heart change requires right beliefs about God, ourselves and people. Forgiveness is the essence of our relationship with God. Without His forgiveness we have no chance of a relationship with God. So we need to believe that God forgave us so much that we ought to forgive others. Let Him keep the justice ledger and have Him help us restore our relationship with people who have hurt us.

It takes effort to change the heart.

Heart Change II

Heart Change II
October 9, 2009

Heart change can be elusive. The question of values was where we started last week. We asked the question, what are my core beliefs, my core values? Why do I do what I do? That speaks to motive, and ultimately, we cannot change the heart if we do not change our motives. But where do we go from there?

The next area that I would challenge you to think through is: has my heart been deceived by any lies? Do I believe anything that could be considered a half-truth or even a cultural lie that works against absolute truth? How do we identify false beliefs?

First, we must admit that we all have some false beliefs. We have assimilated them into our lives through learned experiences. We learn them from our families, from our teachers, from our churches, from our entertainment, etc…. The most difficult ones to shake are the ones we were taught by people we respected and then, through a life experience, they appear to be validated.
An example of this is: your parents teach you that you need to stay on the good side of God. Make sure you don’t make Him angry with you because He can make life really hard for you. So, you do some things that you believe get you on the wrong side of God and then He starts punishing you and your life is nothing but a series of bad circumstances. Your conclusion: yep, I blew it; I could not stay on the good side of God and now He is punishing me. Therefore, the solution is trying to get back on the good side of God so He will stop punishing me. So life becomes a battle with God. We live out of the overflow of the heart and if the heart believes that God is punishing me or that I have to behave to be on the good side of God we start to try and do things that God never intended.

We all have these kinds of false beliefs about ourselves and about God. The false belief that we can work ourselves into the good graces of God and work our way out of them is a false belief. The truth is that we cannot do anything to get on the good side of God. We must accept His free gift in Jesus – forgiveness, adoption into His family, eternal life, etc…. After we have been bought by the blood of Jesus, we are always on the good side of God by His grace. So now, the overflow of the heart is not just how do I behave so God will love me and bless me? It is now that God has done this unbelievable act of benevolence for me I want to live my life to please Him.

Our life is no longer a battle with God over good works. It is a life that is lived in appreciation for what God has done for me. No matter what happens in this life, this truth governs my heart: God loved me enough to die for me. Heart changing!!

Heart change 1

Heart Change 1
October 2, 2009

The heart is filled with learned values. We have all been learning a set of core beliefs from the moment we were born. Most of the time this set of core beliefs goes unspoken; they are seldom written down, but they are powerful motivators in our lives. We just do what we do and we don’t really ask why we do what we do, we just do…. What we do is the product of our belief system.

I believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven so I try to help as many people as possible understand and believe what I believe. It changes the way I live, it changes the way I think, it changes the way I drive, it changes the way I raise my kids….. You see, there is a core belief at my center. You have core beliefs at your center. They shape the attitudes of the heart.

In order to change the heart, one must change one’s beliefs. I believe that people can change their behavior through different life experiences and through educational opportunities. A person who has a heart attack is told to quit smoking and drinking. They need to change their behavior if they want to live. So they change their behavior. Their life circumstance along with education has changed their outward behavior. But have their core beliefs changed? Have they had a heart change? Probably not. The learned value that trumps smoking and drinking is self preservation; people are afraid to die.

Ask yourself, “What are your core beliefs; what are my learned values?” People who grew up in the Great Depression have different beliefs about money and excess than those who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. Where you were raised shapes your values: New York City versus Nebraska. Who your parents are shapes your beliefs: if you had a positive family experience you have a tendency to adopt the beliefs of the family. Obviously, if you had a negative family experience you will have a tendency to look for a new belief system. So ask yourself, “what is in my heart; what is my core belief system?” It isn’t as important to know how you got your core values as it is to know what they are, because once you know what they are you can start to change them.

What you can do at this point is start answering the question, “Why do I do what I do?” I have a core belief that is expressed in a particular behavior. This is how we see the overflow of the heart in our everyday life; but we don’t know why unless we answer questions about our own beliefs and core values. Then we need to start transforming our core beliefs.

Paul states in Romans 12:2a, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Change comes when the heart is transformed and we stop conforming to the pattern of this world. Be a nonconformist!

Hope is connected to the Heart

Hope is connected to the Heart
September 25, 2009

Hope has some mystical qualities to it. It seems to ebb and flow with the circumstances of life. Hope is what every sports fan has for their team as the new season starts. A chance gives us hope. Hope is that idea that something good is going to happen. We expect it. Hope is tied to expectations. Our hopes ride high when our expectations are large. Our hopes are a flickering candle in a heavy gale when our expectations are low. Therefore, we try to manage our hope so as to minimize the crash of lofty expectations. We are told and taught to be realistic, don’t place unreal expectations on anything or anyone and this will reduce the amount of disappointments in life. But it is really hard to manage hope because hope flows from the heart.

If hope is the expectation of something good, then the absence or lack of hope is the expectation of nothing good. Hope is drained from the heart when the heart sees nothing good coming in the future. We lose hope when fear grips the heart. Fear of what is to come is the killer of hope. If fear is the quick killer of hope then apathy is the slow executioner. Both steal from us what is to be a distinguishing trait of a follower of Jesus. Peter puts it this way, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”

How is it that we have hope? Hope is the byproduct of faith. So where does God come into play? What are some promises that give you hope? Hebrews 5 tells us that God will never leave us or forsake us. John says, “No one can snatch us out of God’s hand.” Those promises settle my heart.

Hope is generated from a heart that trusts something good is going to happen. That is why hope for the Christian is so tied to eternal life. Our hope is not just in this life but in the next. That is the ultimate expectation of something good. But that hope is rooted in the promises of God and it is cultivated in the circumstances of this life.

Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Our hope is rooted in God because He is always faithful and this cements our hope. Our hope is crafted in our hearts through the work of God. In Romans 5 Paul writes, “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Hopeful? God has poured out his love into our hearts – hope has to overflow.

Curing the Heart

Human behavior can be controlled by religion, but the heart is much more independent. Behavior can be altered by guilt, shame, pleasure, happiness, fear and consequences. Our hearts are too often shaped by our life circumstances and our emotional ups and downs. Our hearts need to be shaped by truth. We often try to manage our hearts through means that were meant to manage behaviors, like disciplines and accountability (both good, but not intrinsic) The key to shaping our hearts is our willingness to self-examine our motives. In other words: we need to ask ourselves the hard question “Why am I do what I am doing?”

Some of the most common answers to why is: “I don’t know.” “I never thought about it.” “I have always done it this way.” “I am afraid to do it any other way.” “I felt like it.” “It made me feel good.” “It was my duty.” One of the problems with managing or better yet changing our hearts is that it requires some effort on our behalf. If the presupposition is true that we live out of the overflow of our hearts then we need to be aware of what is overflowing from our hearts because the overflow will overpower reason, it will overpower logic, it will over power religion, it will overpower right and wrong. I believe motive lies in our hearts for everything we do. Solomon wrote “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters” we need to explore those deep waters. The problem with exploring deep waters is it is time intensive, we may find things we don’t like, it may require us to change.

When a person ventures into the depths of their heart they need to heed the words of Jeremiah who wrote “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ” We are moving into an area where self deception is common. We look for a human cure rather than a spiritual cure. So rather than taming the heart through behavioral modification we should be looking to cure the heart with the truth and heart change will be spurred on by the Holy Spirit.

The truth and the Holy Spirit work in tandem to cure the heart. Our heart is inundated with lies that are heard from the world, from ourselves and from our enemy. If we do not know the truth we have no defense, we are vulnerable to believe the lies. If we don’t know the truth the heart responds as you would expect a heart to respond: self defense, self preservation, self grandeur, self centered. The heart is inherently selfish. When we act selfish the Spirit then convicts us and we must examine our hearts. You see the heart responds to whatever it believes is true. We must get our hearts to surrender to the truth and the Holy Spirit. There is no other way to cure a human heart. How will you know the condition of your heart: Your life will produce the answer: peace, patience, self control, joy, love,….. You get it. How’s your heart?

Life from the heart

Life from the Heart
September 11, 2009

There is a universal principle that transcends all cultures. Human beings live out of the overflow of their hearts. No matter the driving forces in a given culture, what is evident is the condition of the heart. If a culture values children we see it in the value of families and the joy of children. If children are not valued they become disposable and a burden. We see this in hearts of the parents. We see it in the countenance of the families. What we see in each culture is the overflow of the heart based on values, based on cultural norms and worship. Not religion or religious activity, but worship – the act of adoring or showing affection to what is most important to me. What I give my time, resources and energy to is an outward demonstration of my heart. So we live there.

We all live life out of a set of values that is reflected in how we live. We see this in what is most important to us, or what we are good at, or what we feel we have to do. Your job may serve to pay the bills and it is something you have to do to pay for what is really important to you. But, you would prefer to do something else. Or, your job may fill an important value in your life, it gives you status, it is something you love to do, it gives you purpose; it does more than pay the bills, it expresses a part of your heart.
Your family may get a large portion of your time because they are very valuable to you. Your hobbies may get your time and energy because they capture your heart. You get it. You live out of the overflow of your heart and your life reflects what your heart values.

Our culture allows us an amazing look into the vast array of possibilities of where the heart can go if left unrestrained. The heart unbridled leads us into the path of self fulfillment as our highest and most important value. Our culture would call this self actualization. A culture that sets the individual up as the final authority of what is valuable sets itself up for self idolization. From the heart of self idolization comes self glorification. What does that look like? Does it mean that our happiness takes precedent over others’ happiness? Does it mean that I take credit for everything I can? Does it mean that I deserve something more than what I have?

This is where the Christian life takes a different turn:
Philippians 2:3-5, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus ….”

We actually become counter culture. The overflow of our heart should reflect the heart of God.

Selective hearing

Selective Hearing
September 4, 2009

Did you ever meet someone with selective hearing? You know, the person who can’t hear until you say something you don’t want them to hear, or they only hear the part of the conversation that either matters to them or gives them permission to do something that is questionable? My grandpa had selective hearing; he heard what he wanted to hear and conveniently did not hear what he didn’t want to hear. It was frustrating for the communicator.

I believe we live in a culture of selective hearing. Or we live in a culture that has come to the conclusion that rules don’t apply to them and especially if they can claim ignorance, i.e. “I didn’t hear you!”, as though that makes them unaccountable. Better yet, what if they can change what they hear into what they want it to say? Cultural shifts happen this way. For example: men and women don’t live together before they get married; men and women really shouldn’t live together before they get married; men and women can live together before they get married; men and women do live together before they get married; it is wise for men and women to live together before they get married. How do we move from a “don’t” to a cultural norm?

It happens one word at a time. It happens by not paying attention to what is happening. It happens with selective hearing and worldly wisdom. In Galatians 6, the apostle Paul reminds us of an indisputable fact of life, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” We run into trouble when we think this universal principle does not apply to us. What we sow out of our hearts ultimately reaps a harvest in our lives.

Selfishness reaps – alone
Selflessness reaps- friends
Fear reaps – anxiety
Secure reaps – peace
Materialism reaps – disillusioned
Gospel reaps – eternal reward

Worldly wisdom says look out for yourself. Godly wisdom says let God be your defender.
Worldly wisdom says get whatever you can out of this world. Godly wisdom says give your life away.
Worldly wisdom says this world is all there is. Godly wisdom says store up your riches in heaven.

Who are we listening to? How do you know who you are listening to? Do you embrace worldly wisdom and shun godly wisdom? Do you have selective hearing? Do you sort through godly wisdom and keep what sounds good and throw out what doesn’t “feel” right? Do you compare godly wisdom with worldly wisdom? Take which one sounds better?

This is where the heart gets in the way. Has your heart ever gotten in the way of godly wisdom? We live out of the overflow of our hearts and our hearts often give us selective hearing.