Is it possible for humans to see the heart like God sees it? We can open up our bodies and view the physical human heart, repair it, and even replace it with a different heart, even an artificial heart. But what about the metaphorical heart? Our motivation, will, desires, emotions, fears, beliefs? God knows all about that heart. Do we see our hearts like God does?
No, not exactly like God sees the heart, but we can try. We can and should have a focus on the heart. Other’s hearts, and our own.
But how do we give proper attention to our hearts?
Consider David. In this Life of David blog series, we’ve finally met David. David is one of many Scriptural examples of God’s unlikely choices. David is the youngest in the family. Throughout Scripture, God so frequently chooses the unlikely, that we come to expect it to be likely that God will choose the unlikely. If you read a story in the Bible, the likely choice will be the person on the margins, the oppressed, the poor. That’s another reason why we do not look at the outward appearance.
You are loved by God, valuable to God, and he sees in you what the world doesn’t see. When you have a heart for God, and you are filled by the Spirit, you are the perfect candidate. It’s not about your degree, your ethnicity, your lineage, your stature, your money, your body. When it comes to the mission of God’s Kingdom, it’s about your heart and the empowerment of the Spirit.
So give attention to your heart. Nurture a heart that beats for God.
One of the most important attitudes for a disciple of Jesus is a healthy, honest self-awareness. We disciples are eager to learn our weak spots, desiring to learn how to grow more like Jesus. Jesus completely overcame what some people call the PLM syndrome.
Have you heard of PLM? It’s the “People Like Me” syndrome, in which we tend to gravitate toward people like us. We feel people like us are normal, and others who are not like us seem to be abnormal. Over time, our friend groups tend to resemble us, think like us, and live like us.
But read through the Gospels and notice how often Jesus intentionally reaches out to people not like him. Tax collectors, women, Pharisees, the sick, the poor. Not to mention the fact that the theology of the incarnation is God taking on human flesh. Jesus is God who became something totally different, he became like us!
Let me tale you a cautionary tale of people who had a debilitating case of PLM. In the 1960s my church’s mother church, Grace Evangelical Congregational Church on Shippen and Locust Streets in the city of Lancaster, was booming. Over 1000 people. They had people coming downtown for worship from East Lampeter, so in 1968 they planted my congregation, Faith Church, in East Lampeter. They had a wonderful vision for reaching a different community.
But over the next few decades, their community started changing. People of color moved into the neighbor and whites moved out. But those whites still drove into the city for worship at their building on Shippen and Locust. Soon they started putting No Tresspassing signs on the property. Grace EC slowly experienced a dwindling. They had PLM, People Like Me syndrome, looking at outward appearance, and not reaching out in love with the Good News of Jesus, to people who looked different from them. About 10 years ago, Grace EC Church ceased to exist.
Now East Lampeter is changing. Will we look at the outward appearance? Will we succumb to PLM? Or will we look at the heart? To see others’ hearts, we will need to first examine our own.
Photo by DESIGNECOLOGIST on Unsplash
Note: I will be on vacation for a week. Blog posts will resume when I return!
Engaging Scripture 