Calluses of the Heart

We don't want to crash and burn, we don't want to spectacularly implode, we watch out for the outright denials.  But the Bible seems to suggest that a gradual drift or hardening is a bigger danger to us than simply waking up one morning and abandoning our faith.

To talk about it in heart terms the biggest danger isn't that one day we will just stop loving it is rather that the gradual callusing of our heart will lead us to a day when we realise we just don't love anymore and haven't for some time.

Calluses build up on the hands through hard work, spend a couple of weeks working in a garden, or laying bricks, or shovelling sand and you'll develop hard, thick layers of skin that can take punishment without pain, work without blistering and weeping.  I'm increasingly aware that can happen to my heart. 

Rejections, failures, mistakes, people leaving church, people moving away, people drifting away, friendships that just meander, bereavement, loss can all lead to heart calluses developing.  And over time almost without you realising it you don't love people anymore - you almost can't, you heart is covered with thick protective pads where the pain has rubbed and created scar tissue.  And the biggest danger of it all is that it is so gradual, so creeping, so unseen that we will rarely know it has happened until it has.

We won't realise because we can continue with the outward actions, we can still be in church, still be leading worship, even still be preaching, all the while our hearts are callusing and hardening inside of us.

But God calls us to taste and see that he is good, to rest in him and his character and his love and redemption.  God gives us a new heart and continues working by his spirit removing the calluses, flaking off the calcification, making it soft.  That is not an easy or painless process, but it is a lifelong process.

How is your heart?

How people change

For some time I've been reading Timothy Land and Paul Tripps book 'How people change'. Some years ago I heard Paul Tripp lecture at Northern Cornhill for the day and he was exceptional, when I then needed to think pastorally about certain situations and hurts I ordered this book.

I have been taking it slowly partly due to time constraints but also because I want to allow the lessons to distill and take time to think through how I put them into action. The book is based on the premise that we all live with a gospel gap. If we do not live with a gospel shaped, Christ confident and change committed Christianity, that hole will get filled with other things.

They also point out that we are prone to underestimating our sin but also our identity in Christ it is these two things that they are seeking to challenge us on in the book. They also constantly remind us that we are not defined by our struggle with sin but by our identity in Christ.

The stand out chapter so far has been chapter 5 'Change is a community project' It takes on our individualistic interpretation of the bible and what God is doing in us, constantly refocusing on the fact we are reconciled not just to God but to one another, that we are called to intimately connect with our brothers and sisters and that our help is found in Christ but also in Christ's people.

I've been struck particularly in this chapter by the challenge to allow others to minister to me more often rather than just having one way ministry friendships. I am not saved or defined by my ministry or ministering but by being in Christ, and Christ and his people have been given to encourage my growth in grace.

I'm looking forward to reading some more of their rigorous and perceptive dissection of my heart.

Preaching

"Dealing with the matters of the heart should be our default position - it should naturally arise from our sermons, not be found despite them. To the extent that our preaching has lost the affectionate relational aspect of the gospel, our lives let the vitality of true piety seep out, leaving behind a cold mechanistic life style. To put it bluntly - a sermon that does not stir up a deeper love for Jesus is not a Christian sermon. It may have many excellent features and could possibly be a good lecture, but it is nonetheless a failure as a sermon."
Pete Sanlon