WCF 5 November 2023.
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Follow Your Heart!
Follow Your Heart!
“Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
When God created Adam in the Garden of Eden, he formed him from the dust of the earth and breathed into him do that he became “a living soul”(Gen 1).
Everyone of us has a soul and most importantly, everyone of us is created to live in relationship with God. As Augustine of Hippo said “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."
So, we can never be fully satisfied in life if we only live for self and indulge our flesh life! That is only half-living and it does not satisfy because as Blaise Pascall said, all of us have “a God-shaped chasm that only He can fill”!
This is why Jesus was very concerned to talk to people about their souls and to warn them that we cannot “live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”(Mtt 4:4).
- He is making it clear that the essence of lostness is to spend all out time feeding and caring and even indulging the body whilst neglecting the soul! - “what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul”!
- He warns us against the illusion of thinking that “life consists in the abundance of things we possess” saying to the rich but foolish farmer who made provision for his future but was not rich before God – “this night your soul will be demanded of you and whose shall these things be”?
To really enjoy life we need to realise that we can only be truly satisfied in life if we get beyond the obsession of self-fulfilment at the expense of the soul!
The person who knows he is physical and spiritual knows that He must feed the soul for we cannot be truly fulfilled or satisfied in life unless we feed the soul and satisfy it in God!
And this after all is why Jesus came to earth! Jesus came to enable me to live every day in fellowship with God!
Jesus is “Immanuel – God with us”(Mtt 1). When Jesus was leaving this earth He promised us that He would be with us “always”(Mtt 28:20).
Paul tells us that our bodies are a “temple of the Holy Spirit” and He says that the Church is a place in which “God lives by his Spirit”(Eph 2:20). It is so important for our minds to get that! So important in fact that Paul devoted a prayer to it and wrote it down in Ephesians 1:15-23: “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way”.
We need a revelation from the Spirit to know God “better”!
But we also need a longing in our hearts to want to know God better!
Listen to how the Psalmist speaks to His soul? - “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psa 42:5).
Again he says: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God” (Psa 62:5-7).
And again he says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” (Psa 103:1-5)
If we are going to be the me we want to be, then we must have an increasing “soul-longing” for God with a cry that comes from deep within: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psa 41:1). That is a picture not of an awareness of being parched, it is an awareness of being so desperate for water that if I do not find it, I will die!
From deep within the soul cries - Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
So, we must test ourselves here - part of our following our heart and seeking after God is to recongise the disconnect, or the gap between what out heart wants to be and where we are currently in our walk with God:
John Ortberg, in his book The Me That I want To Be; speaks of “gap management” between the “two versions of you. There is the you God made you to be —and there is the you that currently exists.”
One problem with Gap Management can sometimes be that it results in our attempt “to close the gap through our own ingenuity. Some people think if they just try harder, they can close the gap between the me God made them to be and the me that currently exists. They think they are simply not being heroic enough in their spiritual effort. “I’ll read another book. I’ll listen to another talk. I’ll learn some new disciplines. I’ll serve more. I’ll work harder. I’ll try to be nicer to the people in my life.” You hear about someone who gets up at four o’clock in the morning to pray, and you feel guilty because you think you don’t pray enough. So you resolve to do that too, even though you are not a “morning person” —at four o’clock you are dazed and confused and groggy and grumpy, and no one wants to be around you at that time of the morning. Even Jesus doesn’t want to be around you at four in the morning. But you think, Well, this is exhausting and miserable—I certainly don’t like doing it —so it must be God’s will for my life. It must be spiritual. You keep it up for several days or weeks or months, but not forever. Eventually you stop. Then you feel guilty. After enough guilt, you start doing something else. Sometimes we manage the gap by pretending. We learn to fake it. We speak as if we had had deeper spiritual experiences than we really have, as though our sin bothers us more than it really does. We pray as though our voice is throbbing with an emotion that we really have to generate ourselves. Sometimes we play spiritual musical chairs, always searching for a different church or tradition or spirituality that has the magic key. Some people flit from one spiritual experience to another, continually rededicating their lives to God and then falling away, hoping to recapture the emotions they felt when they first met God. Some people quietly, secretly give up. They still hope they will go to heaven when they die, but between now and then they have been disappointed too often to expect change any more. They have gotten used to languishing”.
Its vitally important that “we come to understand that we cannot bridge this gap by our efforts or good behavior. We cannot earn God’s love and forgiveness; it comes only by God’s grace. Salvation is given by the grace of God, achieved through the power of God, offered through the Spirit of God, and made secure by the promise of God”.
So yes there is a gap between the me, whose heart longs to seek after God and the me that that falls short every day - the “current me” and “sanctified me” but that does not change the longing, nor, “God’s plan...for my daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit.”
So when I sin and mess up, and lament the fact that I am not the person I am meant to be, I remember that I am not what I was because I am saved not by penitence or holiness but saved by grace, through the precious blood of Christ and all I need to do is to return to that fountain for sin and uncleanness (1 John 1:9-2:3).
And this can lead to authentic seeking after God!
Take the example of the Psalmist in Psa 63:1 “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Why is he in such a desert place? It doesn’t really matter in one sense because the desert is a place of dryness and danger and it stands as a metaphor for the spiritual dryness in which I cannot be satisfied, where my thirst cannot be quenched and where my only hope of restoration is God!
In the language of Psalm 84: 1-2 “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
To follow my heart and seeking after God is to acknowledge that even though there is much about me that is undesirable; there is something deep within me that longs for God and can only be satsfied in Him!
Bishop Irenaeus proclaimed: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.”
Jesus Himself said “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
And Paul summarised the Christian life in this way – “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17) and so he prayed for those Roman Christians – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).
THIS IS POSSIBLE! BUT IF IT IS POSSIBLE, WHY AM I NOT EXPERIENCING IT TO THE DEGREE THAT I LONG TO? WHAT PREVENTS ME FROM SEEKING GOD AND DISCOVERING GOD IN THE WAY THE NET HOLDS OUT TO ME? AND WHAT CAN I DO TO BE THE PERSON THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE, BY THE GRACE OF GOD?
IN SEEKING GOD LEARN TO...
I. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR MIND!
“Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
This reveals a spirit of determination as he reveals the content of his heart and gives thought to it in his mind. He is in need and he wants mercy and grace to help him in his time of need and he sets his intention of seeking God’s face!
Every day we battle with negative, unspiritual thoughts which seek to impose their worldview on us. We have then to battle for our mind and allow God’s thoughts to permeate our thinking so that we might not be conformed to the world but transformed by the Word!
Mahatma Ghandi said “A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes” and in so speaking, he echoes the truth of the Bible about the mind! The Christian is not to “not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”(Rom 12:2).
So, if we are to be the person God intends us to be we must learn to monitor the Mind
Make sure your thought patterns are directed by the Bible - “The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”(Rom 8)!
Don’t allow your mind to dwell on negative things either about yourself or others. Ask God to help you put to death bitter thoughts; anxious thoughts; selfish thoughts - “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”(Philippians 4:4-9).
Be intentional about this - listless and mindless thinking or constant, rumination is not good! Let your prayer be: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” Paul encouraged us to “set your minds on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God”
John Ortberg includes a homourous story to show the importance of thinking well. He records an excerpt from a dog’s diary and a cat’s diary :
Excerpts from a Dog’s Diary:
8:00 am—Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am—A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am—A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am—Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm—Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm—Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm—Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm—Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm—Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm—Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm—Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
Excerpts from a Cat’s Diary:
Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre, little dangling objects. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.
“Two creatures, identical circumstances, but totally different experiences. What is the difference? It is a way of thinking. Gratitude is one mindset; entitlement is another. John Milton wrote in his epic poem Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
May my mind be a heaven and not a hell. May it be set on God so that time for Him becomes a priority!
Let me illustrate what I mean, I use a SatNav and it generally is a really useful device – I find that if I type in an address and a postcode it guides me from door to door. This authoritative, female voice says “turn right”; turn left” go 5 miles down this road, etc, and I get there! I have had to learn to overcome my distrust of it and follow its directions and if I do, I arrive at my destination. But guess what? Sometimes I IGNORE IT and on one occasion when on holiday, I got horribly lost or I ended up going round the long way! BUT here’s the good thing about a Satnav! it doesn’t shout at me or warn me that if I take a wrong route again, it will refuse to give me anymore advice! It just says, patiently “recalculating” and no matter how wilful and foolish I am and how many times I go astray it still patiently says recaluculating – What a lesson in grace that is! God speaks to us and still we ignore Him or mistrust Him or mess up and grace says, “Don’t worry well recaluculate that and start again from where you are”!
God speaks to us and directs us through the Holy Spirit in us. We have “the mind of Christ” so let’s enter into the mind of Christ allowing His thoughts and His voice to direct us each and every day!
The Spirit longs to flow in our minds all the time so we have to make time available to take time to read God’s word and listen to God’s voice!
At any moment you can turn your mind to God. The Holy Spirit is flowing, wanting to renew your mind all the time God wants you to get your mind on the Spirit, not the flesh (Rom 8:5-11).
you are created to feed the soul and have your mind set on God who loves you as a Father loves His child and says to you through His Son “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Mtt 6:25-33).
God want to pour His grace is us so that we might know Him better and He invites us, with all our spiritual thirst: “If anyone is thirsty, let Him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:38)
IN SEEKING GOD LEARN TO...
II. DISCIPLINE YOUR BODY!
“Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
Not only does the Psalmist INTEND to seek the face of God, He actually physicially takes steps to do so!
What would it mean for the Psalmist to physically do this? Well it would mean going to a place of worship to sing and to pray, with others to build God-centred relationships with whom you can meet regularly to pray and encourage one another. Read and meditate of Scripture daily(Psalm 1), asking God to open the eyes of your heart and teach you (Ps. 119:18), so as you take to heart what is read until it tanslates into action. It would also include daily prayer and sometimes fasting, in a quiet, undistracted place, pouring out your heart to God and reminding God of His promises to you. Also, crucially asking God for His tangible presence; seeking Him until you find Him and you begin to experience Him Psalm 27:4 “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”
Clearly this takes effort - to seek the face of God is not to be interpreted as sitting back and expecting it to be easy - 1 Chronicles 22:19 “Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Arise and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.” And again that well known scripture of 2 Chronicles 7:14, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” and Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning”(Dallas Willard). Jesus calls us to “come apart” to rest and to pray. He encourages us to “fast and pray”. The demands of working for God can be terrifically tiring and challenging and we cannot do it without carrying out these spiritual discipliens and being “filled with the Spirit”(Gal 5:18)
Also, by disciplining the body, I don’t just simply mean, encouraging you to make physical effort but also to see your body as “a temple of the Holy Spirit” and a gift of God to be looked after as best you can - physical exercise; a good diet and good sleep and enough relaxation to accompany the many hours of work you put in each week; moderation in all things, etc. The body with its appetites and desires is to come under the “self control” of the Spirit.
Remember that God created “evening and morning” where we could balance out our day with work, rest and play!
Remember also that God created a weekly “Sabbath Day” from all work so that we can rest and to learn from Jesus who when tired slept; when in danger of being overwhelmed, went to a secret place to be alone with His Father to be in extended solitude and silence and prayer.
Busyness and hurriedness can be the enemy of our souls. Jesus called His disciples to “be with Him” under the “easy yoke” of His care for us. When we are “weary and heavy laden” we are to let Him carry our burden for discipleship is about being with Jesus; becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did!
One word of caution however! Religion can easily become all ritual, even when it is disciplined - The Pharisees were very disciplined in the spiritual life and in spiritual exercises but it was vacuous and empty because it was not motivated by a desire for God!
“What matters most is not what you accomplish; it is who you become” (Ortberg). So part of redeeming my time so that I can make God the priority in my life is to use my time for spiritual formation and transformation! Our life on earth is one of spiritual formation – “transformed into the image of His Son”(Rom 8:29) As Paul told the Galatians, he was “labouring till Christ is formed is you”! That took up his time and his energy!
IN SEEKING GOD LEARN TO...
III. DEPEND ON THE HOLY SPIRIT:
Jesus told Nicodemus that “flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the Spirit!
It is the Holy Spirit who creates and produces the God life in us! - Galatians 5:16-26, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
Watchman Nee said: “Do you know, my friends, that the Spirit within you is very God? Oh that our eyes were opened to see the greatness of God's gift! Oh that we might realize the vastness of the resources secreted in our own hearts! I could shout with joy as I think, "The Spirit who dwells within me is no mere influence, but a living Person; He is very God. The infinite God is within my heart!" I am at a loss to convey to you the blessedness of this discovery, that the Holy Spirit dwelling within my heart is a Person…..I am only an earthen vessel, but in that earthen vessel I carry a treasure of unspeakable worth, even the Lord of glory. All the worry and fret of God's children would end if their eyes were opened to see the greatness of the treasure hid in their hearts. Do you know, there are resources enough in your own heart to meet the demand of every circumstance in which you will ever find yourself? Do you know there is power enough there to move the city in which you live? Do you know there is power enough to shake the universe? Let me tell you once more - I say it with the utmost reverence: You have been born again of the Spirit of God - you carry God in your heart!” (The Normal Christian Life – The Holy Spirit ch. 8).
Conclusion:
Follow Your Heart! - “Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
Deitrich Bonhoeffer who so bravely struggled against the Nazi’s in the cause of Christ and His Church, wrote a poem in his prison cell, a month before he was executed in 1945. It’s hauntingly beautiful….:
"Who am I?
They often tell me I would step from my cell's confinement calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire from his country house.
Who am I?
They often tell me I would talk to my warden freely, and friendly, and clearly, as though it were mine to command.
Who am I?
They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune calmly, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of,
or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, longing, and sick, like a bird in a cage struggling for breath,
as though hands were compressing my throat;
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds;
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness;
trembling with anger at evils and petty humiliations;
tossing in expectation of great events;
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance;
weary and empty at praying, at thinking;
faint and ready to say farewell to it all.
Who am I?
This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once, a hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woe begone weakling?
Or is something within me
still like a beaten army fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I?
They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am,
Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine."
I guess we are all aware of the conflict within at times. We long for God - at times! Inconsistenly and unfaithfully. Lord you know!
But not withstanding our failure in this regard, tye great thing about being in loving fellowship with God and with one another is that we can live openly and honestly with all of our failings, disappointments and fears as well as being pleased for one another to see those those aspects of our personality and accomplishments that make people pleased to see us and get to know us!
But neither do I want to be complacent in my seeking of God. I don;t want to live in the past remebrance of it, but in the present reality of seking God! Henry David Thoreau once said, “when I came to die, [I would] discover that I had not lived.”
And this is especially the case becase God has promised us SO MUCH MORE than we currently are experienceing! When Jesus spoke to His disciples about life in the Spirit He likened it to “rivers of living water” - John 7:37-39 - “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified). - “The King James Bible states it this way: “Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” The belly is the deepest place inside you — the place where you get anxious or afraid, where you feel hollow or empty when you are disappointed. The Greek word is koilia, and we speak of getting colitis when rivers of stress run in our belly. Scientists say we have a reptile brain —a “brain in the gut” —that is, neurons in the digestive system that produce feelings of well-being or threat deeper than we can put into words. It is in that very deepest place that Jesus says he will produce vitality. This life is not something we produce; it exists independently of us. It is the Spirit of God. If we turn to any book in the New Testament, we see a picture of amazing life offered by Jesus through the Spirit.” (John Ortberg)
Rivers are often used in Scripture as a metaphor or picture of abundant life; of God-blessed, spiritual life. So, the Garden of Eden, had a river running through it. Heaven has a river running through it and by it grows trees which bear fruit every month and the leaves there are for “the healing of the nations”!(Rev 22:1,2)
When a river flows, life flourishes. When a river dries up, life dies. So it is with us in the Christian life. God wants us to live in the flow of the Spirit - “To live in the flow of the Spirit means doing what Jesus says. I will mess up a lot. I am going to need his power. I know that, but I form the intention. I say to him, “God, with your help, as best I can, I will do what you say. I will give you my life, my time, my obedience.” (John Ortberg)
“Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8).
Is that what you want? What I want? - “Your deepest longing should be to be alive with God, to become the person God made you to be, and to be used to help God’s world flourish. That is the life available to you every moment. It is the life found in Jesus, the man on the cross, who mastered sin in his death and mastered death in a tomb and who now dispenses life with unrivaled authority. It is available to you in this very moment, no matter what your situation. God is at work in this hour, and his purpose is to shape you to be not only his servant, but his friend. Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. Blessed are you” (John Ortberg).