I find it interesting writing these newsletters. I don’t find it interesting because I think people will necessarily read them. I don’t find them interesting because of any ‘over-confidence’ that I’m absolutely right or profound. What interests me the most is a little phrase that keeps echoing in my mind as I write them: ‘I didn’t know I knew that.’ I’ve described to Jane over the years that writing them is kind of like building a house. Sometimes when I’m driving, sometimes when I’m reading, or sometimes when I’m eating dinner, a phrase will pop into my mind, and (I’ll use the word obviously here) I obviously know that’s the beginning of the next letter. In effect, that’s the next thing I’m going to write about and the next thing that I’m about to discover. Simply put, while writing, I will sometimes find things that I had not put into words before or not expressed before.
Those moments are the first plank to start the construction. First, the frame, next the weather wrap, then the siding, then the shingles, then the window and doors, each being added a moment at a time. As each statement appears on my computer, I understand more of how the house will look when finished. I’m right now in the first few minutes of writing this letter and I have this one plank, one thought, and just lying off to the side of my mind I have 5 more boards ready to be added. On the computer, its beginning is usually 4-5 lines typed with huge spaces in between each of them. I usually start with one thought and write down the others as kind of a script of purposes for the letter, statements I know I want to express. I first write one line, and then write something in front of it and something after it. The turn-key part happens after about two or three times sitting down and adding a little paint and trim. I always ask Jane to read them before I have them printed. I just want to make sure the house colors are appropriate. I mean, my final walk-through is the color that I hope the letter expresses. Attitude might be another word to use for color.
When we started WBVN, we built it on one little idea. That idea was that believers possess something that they maybe ‘didn’t know they knew’ inside their hearts. (That’s plank #1). On any given day, if you simply observe believers, you may not necessarily see what’s contained inside their hearts. The Bible says that the Spirit of God lives in believers. While we all, on any given day, may not recognize that, it’s true just the same. I remember the first couple of conversations I had with friends regarding doing a listener-supported station was about how our confidence was in what believers carried around with them. If they could become aware of, and act out of, the things in their hearts (plank #2), WBVN would be fine depending upon ‘believer support.’ Believers’ heart attitudes are critical to discovering just how dependable and faithful the Spirit of God is to Heal, Counsel, and Save them; to be an everyday, moment-to-moment Companion.
Fact, God was always with Israel, but for thousands of years they either ignored that or misunderstood Him. We can do that today as well. He is with us, will we do as Israel or tune into Him. The consequences of not doing that can be pretty harsh, as it was for Israel. And while we can choose to act just as Israel acted, we can’t choose the consequences of doing so. The consequences for not listening, not being faithful, are built into the Creation (as Adam and Eve discovered very quickly).
I was talking to a psychologist Christian friend the other day and we were discussing how our world system today doesn’t recognize people’s triune nature. Today, you are simply body or brain. God is three: Father, Son and Spirit. We are made in His image and similarly consist of: body, soul and spirit. The worldly, especially in its attempt to discount and eliminate God, drop spirit from any conversation about human beings possessing such a thing. They will put all behavior, and symptoms for behavior, in either the physical or brain (mind, will and emotions) boxes. I mentioned in a recent newsletter of my concern with the seemingly subtle effort to make the Gospel a mind conversion, getting your thinking right, and no mention of a Spirit-changed heart. Bible certainly confirms the opportunity for our soul to be changed and converted, not by mental persuasion but by Spirit. Some have referred to it as the ‘me,’ ‘myself.’ The Spirit of God can eventually change the soul-life. God Life is superior; God is powerful enough to change the ‘me’ (plank #3). Much of my sensitivity today is caused by being so aware that we can get a worldly church whose gospel is we simply change our thinking (brain computer) into nice people, (plank #4) over the reality of the need for a Savior to change a heart of stone. (2 Cor. 3:3)
In the Garden, Eve and Adam were tempted by their brain (mind, will, emotions). It was their ‘me’ soul that responded to that moment. Result: consuming the fruit of a tree, not the tree of Life but of another tree. They had their mind persuaded away from the God that they walked with, talked with, and initially trusted. Today, most of our problems are not caused because God’s far off in Heaven, rather they come from what Steve Wiggins (Big Tent Revival) sang in his song, ‘18 Inches Journey.’ I have a pastor friend who hands out plastic coins that suggest the same with the inscription about 14 inches from the brain to the heart.
Imagine what it must have been like when Saul on the road to Damascus discovered Jesus, not in his brain but in his heart. Saul, the perfect persecutor of Christ. Saul was trouble with a capital T- until he discovered a new heart. That was not a physical change, not a difference in his mental thinking, not a political change: there was a heart change. Saul became new, became Paul, a new creature with that spiritual change.
In my personal experience, many times my mind has had a different opinion than what my heart knows to be true. I remember years ago talking to a friend who was as far out in left field as he could be. Living a life totally opposed to what we knew to be true in God’s Word. I talked to him for two hours and expressing the Love of God for Him from God. At the very same time, my brain wanted to tell him, what a scoundrel he was, how foolish he had been, how tragic he had made other people’s lives. But there I sat for two hours saying what I knew was in my heart, while my head wanted to take a different road.
I’ve written before of how much I like the Scripture that I’ll refer to as ‘the sower’ parable. It is a story significant enough to be mentioned in three Gospels: Mathew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. Paraphrased, I’ll summarize it like this: The sower (my preference: Jesus) spread seed into the ground of our hearts with his life, death and resurrection, acknowledged that by: ‘It is finished.’ This seed was not laid out in nice rows such as in a garden but was broadcast, on many kinds of ground. In doing so, some of that seed fell by the roadside. Birds stole those and they never matured. Some fell on stony rock where the sun scorched them and they withered and died. Some lay among thorns and were choked out. However, some fell on good (literally beautiful) ground and bore fruit, some produced as much as a hundredfold, some not so much but still multiplied the Gospel in their and other people’s lives. (Another good seed gardening lesson is found in Mark 4:8.) In Jesus’ resurrection, immeasurable seed was cast, some never matured, it withered; however, much fruit all over the world resulted, and some of that 100 fold, some 60, some 30.
Paul made a pretty profound statement, twice actually, in 1 Corinthians (3:16 and 6:19). Believers are described as temples in those scriptures, believers are the dwelling place, house of the Spirit of God. That seed that’s within believers, gardened, when cast onto tilled ground, when moisture is applied, when fertilized by the Word of God, will bear much fruit, some 100 fold, some less. Gardened means, read the Word, discuss the Gospel, practice the Gospel, seeking after His Kingdom, and yes, you might even listen to some Christian music occasionally to help center in on Christ within you.
Christians must hold on to, have confidence in, and preach that seed will continue to sprout, that there will still be fruit produced, and that heart changes are possible through the Spirit still today.