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With the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. (Romans 10:10)
I see here another strong indicator of the need for anyone trying to share the gospel with others to be actively living with their own heart open before God, not just focused on giving out information. First of all, I think it is extremely important that they comprehend the true heart-nature of the gospel message and are actively engaged in the work of transformation in their own heart. This is not something that can be substituted in any way with more head knowledge or even being able to say all the right words and believe the right facts about the importance of the heart. It has to be a work that makes their own heart open, honest and the motivator of their own life in submission to the Holy Spirit. They need to be aware of the kind of spirit that is in them at all times and need to know how to do heart work with other people.
Jesus is the perfect example of a heart worker. He was always very careful to pay much more attention to the signals of people's hearts than He was listening to their words. He always worked with the utmost gentleness and unselfish love and was not focused on spreading doctrinal truth as much as enticing hearts into a trusting, loving relationship by revealing a new picture of God. Most evangelism today is focused on presenting facts and trying to push people into changing their intellectual beliefs about certain doctrines. Others focus on having an emotional high in a church environment and then draw people into coming back to repeatably receive an emotional fix several times a week. But none of these constitute the real gospel that Jesus came to announce.
Paul is making it more clear here that the gospel is an issue that is primarily dealing with heart problems and must be always focused on the heart more than the intellect alone. But for people with hurting, broken hearts that do not know the truth about how God really feels about them, there needs to come a revelation at the heart level of the real God that can be trusted to respect, care for and heal their heart. When they realize that such a God really exists and is not the angry God that has been foisted on them in the past; that God is not like their dysfunctional parents or religious leaders or anyone else who has used and abused them, then they will be more in a position to respond with real faith.
Paul says here that there is a sequence that has to take place. For a person's heart to respond to a loving Father and give Him permission to launch His remedial work in their life by calling on Him, they have to first grasp a sense of the trustworthiness of that God before they can invite Him into their heart and believe that He has their best interest in mind. For them to be able to come to that place of heart-understanding and belief they must hear about this trustworthy God, especially at the heart level which is where their belief must originate to be effective. For them to hear the real truth about this loving, empowering, healing God there must be a person who not only knows this truth but must convey it in such a way as to reach the hearts of people more than just conveying information to their minds. And for such a presenter to be able to live from his heart and be able to be effective without losing perspective or becoming burned out, that person must be connected very intimately at the heart level with a group of “senders” who not only hold that person accountable to stay open at the heart level but are there for the “preacher” of good heart news to support, encourage and inspire as well as share the heartaches and pain that will inevitably be a part of that person's ministry. They will be there as a reliable support team to minister to his heart and keep his heart open and on track in his own healing journey.
But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:16-17 NRSV)
Floyd - Josh here.
ReplyDeleteThis is good stuff. Thanks very much for putting it together. I still think you should put this stuff into a book of some sort - perhaps a small "monograph" that could be handed out person to person, that would supplement the work of an evangelist.
A mission agency you might be interested in (not adventist) is World Harvest Mission. They are unusual in that they do both cross-cultural missions and domestic discipleship ministry, all centered around the gospel - as far as I can tell, the real gospel.
They are on the web.
But you are right about evangelism, telling the good news coming FROM the teller's heart, which to be really effective is supported by a community of heart-living brothers and sisters. And then it can communicate "at 60 cycles per second", by word and deed, to the heart of other people.
Also. I think there is a simplicity in living from the heart. Inviting the Spirit into the situations of life, into those moments when you say "Yaaaiiikes! I don't know what I'm doing here! This feels really awful!" and start to unconsciously slam down the emotional gates and pull in the shutters and lose the heart connection. First closing off, then starting to shoot and snipe and send artillery shells at the "attacker" - even "Christian" artillery - like "Do you know God loves you?" or "Do you go to church?" How quickly it can turn - and the words may be the same, but the heart is in or it's out and the result depends on whether His heart, in and through our hearts, remains in the conversation, in the relationship. Only let us open our hearts to His heart and live life with great hope and compassion!
Thanks for continuing to write. I really appreciate it. Sorry that it's not working out to do otherwise at the moment. But He will help us!
Josh.