Pastor’s Thoughts: Leading Your Heart (by J. David McConnell)
Leading Your Heart
A few weeks ago my wife and I went to see the movie Fireproof. Many of our friends had seen it and highly recommended that we go. Overall, the movie was fantastic. I must say that the acting…well, no one in it will win an academy award. But…it was well put together, with a good script and a cast of people that you were fond of by the time it was over.
The story, of course, made the movie. I don’t cry at movies, actually I don’t cry a lot ever…but I will say that I came close. The guy in front of us was dishing out napkins to his wife in huge quantities, and then turned around and gave my wife some as well. Thankfully, I didn’t have to take any from him (which would have required that I surrender my manhood card immediately). Interestingly enough, it wasn’t so much the scripted words that made me emotional. As I sat there and watched this movie, and the deep love being portrayed from a man to his wife – I realized how much God really loves us. I know, you are thinking ‘wow, what a deep thought: God loves us.’ But just seeing someone love someone else so much that it physically hurts them and to realize the only way we can have that capacity is because God gives it to us, and then to realize how imperfect we are and that we are not capable of loving anyone even a fraction of how much God loves…well, I was overcome. Oh, How He Loves Us.
Anyway, let me get to the point of this blog. A friend of mine had told me about a particular line in the movie that really impacted him and when I heard it, I was equally struck. The line went something like this: ‘we don’t follow our hearts, we lead our hearts’. I was thinking about how often we make decisions based on emotion, or how we feel. It might be a relationship decision, a financial decision, a decision on where we should worship or whether we should go to worship at all. We decide whether or not we should forgive someone, or whether we should serve God or tell others about Christ. This list goes on and on…but I can’t tell you how many times I have seen someone making what I felt like was a bad decision, while saying ‘I feel like this is the right thing to do’.
My own life is the same, as I have often based decisions on how I feel. As a matter of fact, a lot of my sin is based on doing what I feel like doing, instead of what is right by God. In the past year and a half, I can’t tell you how many times I ‘knew’ what I wanted to do in ministry and what I felt like God wanted me to do. Only to find out that it wasn’t God’s plan. I am so thankful for doors God has shut, that I would have walked through based on how I felt at the time. The problem is our hearts are born corrupt and with an inclination to evil (see Genesis 8:21), so sometimes following our hearts is not the right thing. Even with good intentions (wanting to follow God is a good thing) feelings can be deceptive. Our hearts, our feelings, are susceptible to deceit and temptation. We have to be aware of that fact.
So, this would lead to a question of how do we live out our lives? How do we make decisions, both big and small and trust that we are doing the right things? How can we know God’s will for our lives and what he wants us to do? Well, I think we can find a lot of direction on that in Philippians 2 (v. 12-13): work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Within these verses, Paul is not teaching us that salvation comes from works, but rather he is encouraging the readers to put their salvation into action. In other words we are to ‘work it out’ referring to living out what we are taught and what we know to be true. We are to do this ‘with fear and trembling’ meaning that we are to live our lives understanding we are totally and completely dependent upon God; we can accomplish nothing for Christ apart from the power of God within us. And that is the beauty of what Paul reveals to us, that it is God who works within us (our hearts and minds) to mold our desires (will) into His desires for our lives. At the same time He empowers us to accomplish what He gives us to do.
We really want God to e-mail us, or write in the sky what His plans for us are; what it is that He wants us to do in life. But, the picture we see most often is that we get up day by day by day and we do our best to live out our salvation. We pursue God through prayer, His word and by our actions (putting His word into practice in our lives). And as we do this – step by step and day by day – we trust that God is working in us to lead us where He wants us to go and that He will not let us make a mistake. If we are totally dependent upon Him for everything and we pray for direction and wisdom, God is faithful to lead us and bring us to the places and the tasks He has planned for us.
This is a far cry from decision-making that is based on how we feel. The life that Paul implores us to live is a life desperate for God, desperate for Him to mold and change our hearts to match His will for us. And we are kept from bad decisions or incorrect choices, by the power of our Savior. He is more than capable of bringing us where we need to be, the safest place in the world, directly in the middle of God’s will.
For HIS Glory
David McConnell
Family Pastor
families@agapepinson.com
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