Gospel for the Heart

The verses through the end of chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10 of Romans are to me an increasingly clear description of living in relation to God from the heart verses living a religious life while suppressing the heart. I know that this may sound more like me jumping onto my favorite subject and trying to make everything fit or support it, but I don't think that is the case. I really do believe very deeply that the principles that I have been learning from all different sources over the past few years have been coordinated by God's Spirit to reveal this most important reality. There is a dramatic difference between living from our heart, properly engaging our right brain and relating properly to our emotions and our spirit, or living a life focused on external conformity to religious structures, formalities, restrictions and doctrines.

I have been discussing this recently with others and continue to see more insights in this. I believe that it is a mistake to claim that the “mind” and the “heart” are the same thing when referenced in inspired literature. They are not one and the same even though they may be located in very close proximity inside our cranial bones. And while it is very important to restore the proper function of our right brain, what is usually referred to as our heart, it is also not our true design to live controlled by our emotions and simply allowing our feelings to dictate our decisions and plans.

There is much controversy swirling around this subject and most of it seems to take one extreme or the other and paint everyone else as believing the extreme opposite. I believe that God originally created us to have our brains in perfect balance and cooperative relationship. The two sides of the brain have radically different functions and cannot replace the role of the other by being over-dominant. I believe that one of the most noticeable effects of sin is the imbalance and extremes that are seen in the operation of the brain and the problems that that causes.

I also observe that the cooperation and inter-dependence that is seen in a properly functioning brain may be illustrative (or the other way around) of a properly related marriage. When two people who are often leaning in opposite directions as far as personality and emotion/intellect preference get married, they have to learn to not only respect each other's strengths and abilities but they also have to learn to trust those abilities and realize that they do not have everything needed to be a complete whole. Humans were created in the image of God male AND female as a complete unit called human. When they are not united as one in marriage to a person of the opposite gender and learning to integrate their very different abilities and gifts, they cannot be a reflection of the more complete image of God as the unified experience of those who are in a healthy marriage.

I do not say this to in any way make married people seem better or more valuable than unmarried people. I say it to explain what the Bible teaches about the nature of our being created in the image of God. As individual people, male or female, it is completely outside our ability to reflect as fully the image of God as He desires to reveal about Himself in a healthy, dynamic, inter-dependent marriage seeking to reflect His likeness.

I believe that this principle plays out at many different levels, not just in the marriage relationship. As I said before, I believe that the marriage relationship is very similar to a properly functioning brain that has two very different sides that need to learn to relate to each other properly. In addition to the two sides of the brain and marriage there is also the unity that God seeks to bring about in the body of Christ. This is really the ultimate goal that God is working to achieve in the salvation process.

Many of the assumptions and doctrines in Christianity today are reflective of twisted views of that proper relationship and the resulting tensions and difficulties and unnecessary pain caused by these narrow views have caused very serious problems ever since Eve accepted the first lie about God. Typically we have looked at the unbalanced state of affairs throughout history and have used the cultural and Biblical descriptions of this imbalance to justify our own bigoted ideas of dominance and submission, thereby extending their ill effects for yet another generation. The tensions and wars over gender and what healthy roles and relationships are supposed to look like are also reflective of the internal tension between the two halves of our brains and the prejudiced ideas and teachings that we promote in religion as well as in society.

Anywhere you find a religion that is left-brain dominant with much emphasis on intellect over emotions and heart issues, you will also find typically a pattern of male dominance and a strong emphasis on female “submission” with a very biased redefinition of the real meaning of that word. And likewise, it is also possible that where you find a religion or culture with over-emphasis on emotionalism and feelings at the expense of objective truth, you may find more dominant involvement by females with strong influence and the same entrenched bigotry by supporters toward the other extreme as found in the intellectual religions.

As I said before, I believe that God designed the two sides of our brain to be very different. As such, they can only function as originally designed if they properly respect each other and relate to each other's strengths in full cooperation and perfect balance. The resulting health and happiness and peace that is seen as a result is not unlike that observed in very positive and dynamic marriages (which are so rare as to be almost of questionable existence by many).

In this section of Romans I am seeing this issue of imbalance addressed in the religious context by Paul who has been trying to get across the truth in different ways of the need for us to relate to God with our heart. The Christian religion has been perverted to almost exclusively favor left-brain dominance. As a result it has also promoted male dominance which is the natural effect of such thinking. And while God has often looked past the symptom of gender imbalance in favor of first dealing with the mind/heart imbalance, I believe we can see in Jesus' life the example of God's desire for His church, His family who are learning to look, feel and act like Him, to properly relate in this arena. But first He has to address the deeper, causitive problem of the extreme imbalance of a left-brain, intellectual-oriented, externally focused, behavior and performance obsessed concept of religion that most of us believe is what is expected from us. This is one of the main problems that I see being addressed in the book of Romans.

However, Paul has made it clear all throughout this book that it is not just religious addicts and left-brain junkies who are emotionally alienated from their loving Creator. Repeatedly he has addressed first one group and then the other as he points out the various problems and symptoms of both the openly God-rejecting “unbelievers” and the religious junkies. Both groups have very confused and misinformed ideas of what it looks like to live in right relationship to God and to those around them. Both have been infected with many lies and viruses that have deeply corrupted their internal “files” the beliefs that they hold deep in their hearts. And while the external choices they have made as a result of those internal lies may look very different, the real cause of all this dysfunction are lies about God and about ourselves that in both cases are nearly identical.

This is why Paul addresses both groups in this book. At the heart level everyone has very messed up ideas about God and about our own worth in His eyes. When it is more clearly seen what these root lies are and that they are embedded much more in the heart side of our being than the intellectual side, then the solution of salvation begins to make much more sense. For salvation is not a formula as many of us have been led to believe. Salvation is not a legal maneuver or slight of hand by which Jesus manages to get sinners into paradise. Salvation is not even a solution for a tension between the vengeful desires of an angry God-Father and a loving Son who is trying to placate and appease His wrath. Salvation is something radically different than nearly anyone as assumed or dared to believe.

In the book of Romans Paul is strenuously trying to get people to understand the truth about salvation, both classes of sinners. He makes this clear very early on the the book when he states unequivocally that the gospel – the good news, the real truth about God – is the real power that brings about what is known as salvation. Salvation is literally the results that naturally begin to appear in the lives of everyone who believes the good news and believes and embraces the truth that God is much better than anyone had ever dared to imagine. Salvation, as I have noted before, comes from the word which means to heal, to restore to an unbroken condition. It is the bringing back of humans to the original design and function of joy and intimacy for which they were created. And this happens as a result of experiencing the transformational power of the real truth about God IN THE HEART.

Intellectual religion has created a substitute for heart spirituality by attempting to achieve the external attributes of salvation while failing to engage the heart and emotions and spirit which were designed to be the real cause of those results. That is very much like trying to pin fake fruit and fake leaves on a tree and claiming success in agriculture. And while that is patently absurd to us in the physical realm we continue to hammer away at our silly attempts to approximate the fruits of the Spirit by using only our left brain and suppressing of the dysfunctional emotions that continue to warn us of unresolved problems in our right brain and heart. Religion as we commonly know it is very afraid and incapable of dealing with real heart issues and so we usually ignore, deny, repress or scorn these symptoms and apply more force and discipline or other formulas to try to deal with these natural symptoms.

God does not desire us to live with unresolved pain and internal conflicts, particularly from embedded lies in the right side of our brain which cause the most problems. He has provided ways for us to unmask those lies buried in past memories and receive complete healing, not intellectually but experientially at the heart and emotional level. In fact, every time we feel stirred up emotionally it is an open door through which we may enter into a healing opportunity and allow God to bring truth and light into a dark area of our past. Those who are willing to allow God to do this and participate in this process are finding amazing freedom from compulsive behaviors, complete peace and calm in formerly devastating and paralyzing memories, and freedom that is permanent. This freedom results in what some call maintenance-free victory where they no longer need to struggle against temptations associated with the effects of that memory. This is truly the freedom that the Son of God is eager to bring into our lives when we are willing to admit that the real problems preventing us from experiencing closeness to God (righteousness) lie in our heart/right brain and have to be dealt with very differently than intellectual lies that are found in our left brain.

Paul's deep passion, the intense desire of his heart was to see his own church, the Jews who were so set on pleasing God through performance and external piety, come to a realization of their tragic mistake and turn to God with their hearts instead of reliance on their intellect. Paul says, For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. (Romans 10:2 NIV) I like the way that another translation renders it. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. (Romans 10:2 NRSV)

Did the Jews really lack knowledge about God? Come on, now, they had the most advanced “knowledge” about God in the whole world. But what I see here is not a reference to intellectual knowledge that was lacking but a heart knowledge, the kind of “knowing” that Adam had with his wife that made her pregnant. That kind of knowledge is an emotional intimacy, and right brain, heart bonding that can never be substituted on an intellectual level.

The very next verse reinforces this truth and refers us back to chapter one where Paul talks about the righteousness of God in relation to the power of the gospel. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness. (Romans 10:3 NRSV)

Here it becomes even more clear upon taking a closer look again at Romans chapter 1 that both religious zealots and God-rejecting enthusiasts are motivated by the same root lies about God. Neither class is willing to believe the truth about the goodness of God or submit to the transformational power that that “knowledge” will have in their heart. The first class go about attempting to satisfy the cravings through increasing levels of rebellion and open sin and the second class go about trying to impress God and those around them with as counterfeit righteousness they try to fabricate with their formulas and performance.

When anyone is willing to accept that it is their heart that needs healing truth, that the real wall between humans and God is not just wrong information but embedded lies about God and themselves buried deep under their emotions in the right brain, then they will see that no amount of law-keeping or achievements on their part will have any use in restoring their hearts into relationship with their Creator. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4 NRSV)

Again, it is not intellectual belief that Paul is talking about here so much as a belief that comes about when we engage our heart, our right brain and our spirit at an emotional level parallel to a proper intellectual understanding of the truth about God. It is embracing at the heart level the revelation about God as revealed not only in the life and death of Jesus but in a current revelation by His Spirit to us of the deep compassion and love that Jesus feels for us right now. When we experience that kind of bonding and healing in the presence of Jesus it will be the end of our focus on the law as a means of trying to get right with God. We will enjoy the righteousness that comes naturally as a result of experiencing the power that enters into our hearts upon believing the gospel, the truly good news about how God feels about us.

For I have no feeling of shame about the good news, because it is the power of God giving salvation to everyone who has faith... (Romans 1:16 BBE)

(next in series)

Cell Phone Opportunity

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4 NRSV)

Let it be all joy to you, my brothers, when you undergo tests of every sort; Because you have the knowledge that the testing of your faith gives you the power of going on in hope; But let this power have its full effect, so that you may be made complete, needing nothing. (James 1:2-4 BBE)

I am becoming more and more aware that God allows certain things to take place simply to get my attention and give me opportunity to practice things that maybe are slipping from my mind – like gratitude and total dependence on Him in faith. I have noticed over the past few years that it is not unusual for me to misplace something, say a tool while I am working, and begin to experience the frustration of desperately needing it but being unable to locate it, sometimes even right under my nose.

Now I'm sure many people would find it strange that I would consider that anything unusual at all. Many people lose things and get frustrated, especially when they start getting older. But God almost seems to hide things from me at times because, I am convinced, He wants to remind me of who I want to be in control or priority in my daily living. When I feel that intense impulse to become frustrated and increasingly angry over not being able to have and do what I want, I realize that I am facing a choice as to how I will relate to this situation, really a choice about who is going to be my God.

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, (NIV) speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; singing, and singing praises in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always concerning all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father. (Ephesians 5:18-20 WEB)

There have been any number of times when I am looking for something and it almost feels like it is being deliberately hidden from me in order to get me to reevaluate the condition of my spirit. What makes me think this is true is because quite often after I submit and cooperate with the gentle prompting of the Spirit in my heart to release my intensity, stop my frantic searching, let go of my anxiety and choose to relax in the care of my Father, that quite often I almost immediately find what I was looking for. That has happened so frequently that it makes me very suspicious that it is not simply a coincidence; Someone is behind these events who has my peace and growth as part of their concern for me.

I am learning to view these events from a different perspective, which is part of the training that I have asked God to do in my life. Of course there is always the temptation to fall into the trap of formula thinking which would lead me to believe that I can somehow manipulate the Almighty into getting me what I want if I just conform to what He wants. But what I try to remember is that He is much more interested in deepening His intimate relationship with me than He is in performing miracles for my convenience or comfort. And real relationships are never based on repeatable, predictable formulas.

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. (Colossians 3:12-17 NAS95)

These little exercises in faith have been helping reshape my perspective of reality, which I am sure there are intended to do. They also have a very helpful role in transforming my inner view of how God feels about me and how dependent I really am on Him for everything. In fact, whenever these opportunities occur I am learning to take them as a word of caution and quickly look inside to see how my unsettled feelings and anxious heart are clouding the truth about God's love for me. It is one thing to go around talking about God's care and concern for even the little things in my life and it is another to actually apply those ideas to real-life problems when my emotions begin clamoring in fear that I have to fix my own problems.

What I am learning is that succumbing to anxiety and fear without turning my emotions over to God while intellectually believing in Him, is a sign of atheism. It is exposing the effects of Satan's big Lie about God that is deeply ingrained in all of our hearts; that God does not really care about me as much as He says and that ultimately it is up to me to take care of myself. When I choose to allow worry to stay in my heart and entertain emotions of anxiety and fretting without challenging them in the light of God's presence, I am in essence denying that I have a loving Father who is interested in even the smallest details of my life. That includes all the little joys and delights that I experience as well as all the little or big problems and irritations. He wants me to share everything with Him and to share back and forth like real friends do.

Well, as you might suspect, I had another one of those opportunities the last couple days. We had the wonderful privilege of having friends and family at our house for Thanksgiving weekend. These were friends that we had barely met and were just getting to know but it was very enjoyable and nurturing for us. Of course we were very sad to see them leave as they could only stay for about a day and a half. The next day our daughters also had to leave and we were left with a big empty house again and feeling rather abandoned and alone. I know that this is normal but it still does not feel good.

The next day as I got ready to go into town I began to look around for my cell phone to take with me. As you can guess, I could not find it anywhere. I remembered placing it on the piano near the front door where I usually keep it so I can notice it on the way out, but it was nowhere to be found. I searched all around my bedroom, the living room, even the cars and the office but to no avail.

I then called our friends and asked them to look through their things to see if they might accidentally have picked it up in their things when they left but they assured me they had not seen it. Now the emotions of fear begin to pick up and the scenarios begin to play in my imagination. The fear about the expense of replacing a phone I have just recently purchased conjured up anxieties over finances and I even wondered if maybe someone might have found it and was running up high phone bills for me. It is amazing how elaborate our fears can fabricate all sorts of potential problems out of so few facts.

Last night after work I stopped by a little cafe´ to download some updates and large files onto my laptop. I ended up staying later than I expected and wished I had my phone to let my wife know why I was late. But there was no phone to use and my anxiety again began to assert itself. It was beginning to permeate all through my mind and heart as I drove home in spite of all my efforts to avoid those fears and discount those scenarios. I realized that I needed to face this issue head-on and deal much more firmly with my increasingly out-of-control emotions. I had a choice to handle this myself, even with a little help from the Supernatural, or I would have to turn it over completely to God to the point where I would let go completely of my ownership of the problem.

Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. (Hebrews 13:15 NAS95)

It was at this point as I discussed this problem with God while I was driving that I remembered what is so easy for me to forget – the power of thankfulness. At first it did not really come to my attention though. I just began focusing on the goodness of God and consciously choosing to thank God for His various characteristics and attributes. Over the past few years I have found this to be the only really effective solution for oppressive fear that threatens to suffocate me emotionally and drive me into despair. It feels almost irrational to just focus my attention on God and the good things about Him when I have enormous problems screaming in my head to be resolved; never mind that I do not have the wherewithal to fix them, they demand to be the center of my attention. Maybe that is one of the symptoms of idol worship – paying attention to what makes me afraid instead of deliberately refocusing on the One who is greater than all my fears.

At any rate, I continued to force my mind to dwell on the various things about God that I could think of and let my mind ponder each one of them and let them sink into my emotions. As I continued to keep myself in this state of mind I could not help but notice a very obvious change in my feelings, both emotionally and physically. I then began to remember how amazingly powerful the spirit of thanksgiving is to effect reality and that participating in this activity, which is the very atmosphere that fills the rest of the universe outside this polluted planet, allows the power of God to transform my spirit and gives Him permission to do things in my life that He has been eager to do all along.

As I filled my mind and heart with continuing praise and gratitude for God's goodness, His grace and mercy, His unfailing love and compassion as well as the blessings that I enjoy, I felt my fears fading away fast and I could release my anxiety in exchange for the peace that passes all understanding. It was no longer my problem to find my phone or pay potential expenses or... I told God these were His problems now and put them on Him completely. I chose to embrace His presence and simply soak in His care and love for me no matter what my circumstances looked like. I once again entered into His rest.

When I got home I told my wife that we needed to ask our daughter if she had seen the phone. She was the only one we had not asked yet who had been at our house. Immediately my wife said the phone had been found. When I asked her who had found it she sheepishly told me that she had found it in her own purse. She had picked it up and taken it with her when she went into town with the girls the last night they stayed here and then of course forgot all about it.

Of course that was good to hear. But it did not have the effect of relieving me of all my fear and anxiety as would be expected, for that had already been fully dealt with just a few minutes before. To me it seemed much more like a smile from God and an affirmation that I was growing in my trust and love for Him and that He knows what He is doing and can be trusted. It was not so much a reward for my trust as it was another lesson that my heart can remember when even bigger fears try to intimidate me and displace my faith which they are certain to attempt.

At times I become intensely aware of how little I indulge in real gratitude. I have written about it before and at times have been very aware that there is unlimited power at my fingertips (or more likely lips) that is just waiting to be unleashed in my life if I would just remember to live in the atmosphere of heaven which is gratitude and continuous praise. But I know how little I remember that and how easy it is to stay in my ruts which are so familiar. I want to live on a higher plane of existence than what is considered average. I want to learn to live in reference to what is considered “normal” in heaven instead of what is considered “normal” here on earth. But God is faithful and He is finishing the work that He started in me, for it is God who is at work in me, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

Spin or Insight?

As I continue to ponder over the last few paragraphs of Romans 9, I still feel that there is much to understand here. There are a number of very important and main points of enlightenment that Paul wants to convey to us and I don't want to be put off by the clutter that has gathered through centuries of wrong assumptions and repeated translations through filters of prejudice. The light is still in here even though it may have become more difficult to discern easily.

One thing that has made me look more carefully is when I compare Paul's “translation” of Isaiah 10:23 with how the Bible reads that same verse from the Old Testament. At first glance they hardly seem to be referring to the same concept. It is almost to the point where Paul could be accused of rewriting Isaiah to say what he wants it to say. Or is it a case where Paul perceived what God was really saying in Isaiah and the translators failed to carry its true meaning into the English words they used in our current Bibles? I find repeatedly that the pervasive assumptions about God being an angry deity needing to be placated and appeased leak into much of how translators interpret many of the texts in the Bible. There seem to be very few people willing to challenge those assumptions but instead spend much time and effort building complex rationalizations to explain why God is arbitrary or mad or supposedly does things inconsistent with His own character.

Here is the passage from Isaiah that Paul quoted from in Romans followed by how Paul phrased those same thoughts. I added an extra verse at the beginning of the Isaiah quote for some important context.

Now in that day the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness. For a complete destruction, one that is decreed, the Lord GOD of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land. (Isaiah 10:20-23)

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, "THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE SONS OF ISRAEL BE LIKE THE SAND OF THE SEA, IT IS THE REMNANT THAT WILL BE SAVED; FOR THE LORD WILL EXECUTE HIS WORD ON THE EARTH, THOROUGHLY AND QUICKLY." (Romans 9:27-28)

The way these two passages read seems to me to convey quite different concepts that are nearly unrecognizable to each other in the last verse quoted. Is Paul simply trying to put his spin on this text and forcing it to say something he wants to see there, or does he have a better version of Scripture than we have to work from? Or maybe the Holy Spirit that inspired Paul to write large portions of the Bible opened to his mind to what that same Spirit inspired Isaiah to convey originally and Paul simply made it clearer in his quoting of it.

I find today that whenever someone wants to go back and examine the “original” (as far as reasonably possible this far distant from the actual originals) text and “second-guess” the assumptions of the translators, there is sometimes a feeling of scorn on the part of some academia and a discounting of insights put forward by anyone daring to question the collective decisions of the “experts”. This is not to say that there is complete agreement among the translations or that good insights cannot be gained by checking out a number of translations on any given verse. But I have been more and more amazed at how much is simply dropped or glossed over in nearly every translation of the Bible due to apparent discomfort with either the intensity of intimacy revealed in the original languages, or the words the translators choose reflect too many of the deeply ingrained lies about God embedded in the psyche of the human race.

What is really amazing is that in spite of the inherent problems faced by the writers of the Bible of condensing the thoughts and feelings of God and men into words and then further muddling things by converting them into different languages with all the inherent pitfalls that that entails, God's light is so powerful and His love so intense that in spite of all these problems the Holy Spirit can still pull the truth out of these various versions and apply it to the hearts of anyone willing to be open and guided by the true Spirit of God.

I went back and looked up some of the original words from Isaiah that are quoted here to see what I might find. Again, I am working with an untrained mind that has never taken a day of Greek or Hebrew and that is relying wholly on using the somewhat faulty or at least limited resource of Strong's research. I freely admit that there is much more outside of my present ability to see here. But even with my very limited ability and resources I can see that there are always alternative ways of phrasing passages when I look at the definitions of each word from the earlier text. The various potential meanings of each word usually contain alternatives that if applied in the translating of the passage would give it quite a different flavor.

The one main criteria that I use for looking at the various options in a word's meaning is the growing knowledge I am gaining about the real truth about what God is like and how He feels toward us. I find that if I use that framework as a filter or paradigm from which to select which part of a definition to use in a text that there is always very exciting things to be learned and much clearer ways to express the thoughts contained in many verses. I believe that Paul's version of Isaiah 10:23 is a perfect example of this very thing.

There are a lot of things I notice in these verses that I don't have time right now to explore. I would like to point out that the original words used for “destruction” in the last two verses quoted from Isaiah are not the same word in Hebrew. The second reference especially seems to convey the idea of “completion” more than destruction and I think that is supported by Paul's version of this verse. He quotes that as “executing His word on the earth thoroughly”, which is how he sees the meaning of the word from Hebrew translated “destruction”. This is a classic case of the danger of our blindly accepting notions of an angry, destructive God that can so easily be deduced from reading certain passages of Scripture without exploring deeper. We need to look beyond the surface and compare what we are reading with the much clearer revelation about what God is like in the life and teachings of Jesus, the perfect demonstration of what God is really like.

There is one more thing I would like to note before I quit. The first verse in the Isaiah quote has a very interesting and insightful truth. We know that the emotional relationship between an abuse victim and the abuser after an extended period of time becomes one of dependency by the victim on the abuser. It seems bizarre and ridiculous, but it is how our brains are wired. Even when the victim becomes free physically from the abuser and may be angry and resentful about the previous abuse they experienced, they are ironically still enslaved to their own anger and bitterness if they do not embrace the healing power of real forgiveness.

This is a real but very controversial truth of the mind and the universe, just a real as gravity. If we refuse to forgive (and we really need to learn what that really means which is not very common) we are still in bondage to the one who holds a spell over our hearts and minds. But in this verse God is foretelling the truth that those who accept their role as His children and experience redemption will be free of that psychological phenomenon through their true reliance on the Almighty Redeemer Himself, the ultimate example of forgiveness. Unfortunately it is also true that only a small number, a remnant, will be willing to enter into this transformed relationship and enjoy the intimacy with God's heart that we were all designed to live in.

This is the context of what Paul is trying to get across in Romans 9 and the surrounding passages. In fact he tries to make it very clear in the last few verses of this chapter. He emphatically declares that we do not come into harmony with God (righteousness) by working hard on getting there but through a relationship with the One who came to reveal God to us – Jesus our Savior. If we refuse to see and believe the love of God in Jesus then He becomes the stumbling stone which blocks us from receiving real life and all the good things associated with eternal life in God's presence.

He who believes in Him will not be disappointed. (Romans 9:33)

(next in series)

Removing the Viruses

Today is our 30^th wedding anniversary. Of course we both have to work today, but we are glad that God has held us together for all of these years. Like most other people we have a great deal of problems that we wish were not in our lives, but we are committed to pursuing our healing process and trying to deepen our relationship with each other.

I suspect that much of my problem is because I approach solving problems too often with my left brain which is the only way I feel competent to do it. I feel terribly insecure and inexperienced using my right brain and so I remain stuck but very frustrated because I don't like being stuck.

We are both feeling the rather intense emptiness of our home after watching 9 people leave over the past 24 hours. Two of our daughters just left last night and I am noticing how awkward and uncomfortable I feel. I am trying to stay aware of my feelings and remain in a better state of mind in maturity instead of just succumbing to my feelings and immersing myself in some escape activity. Even this kind of writing holds potential to help me avoid facing myself if I am not careful.

On the other hand, I feel that if I remain aware of my feelings and connected to God and stay in a mode of being responsible for my feelings then I have an opportunity to go through this emotion differently than I often do and could learn valuable lessons that may not have to be repeated so many times in the future. It is an opportunity to grow and move another step in maturity and stretch my container for wisdom or my capacity for real joy. The Bible says to rejoice when I go through trials/tests that are designed to help me mature more and tone up my emotional and spiritual muscles.

I watched the first video last night from a set by Craig Hill called Wonderful Counselor. He used a very good illustration of a computer to describe the difference between our mind and heart. This morning after waking up my mind began to ponder this much more and a lot more details are beginning to emerge.

I also am trying to understand better how to effectively deepen our relationship. While we have always chosen to never consider any alternative to staying married we have also not enjoyed the depth and richness to the extent that we know should be a part of our relationship. I know that I had a great deal of baggage and spiritual confusion that I brought into this relationship and I realize that my wife had her share as well. That is certainly not unusual, but it is what God wants to heal in His desire for our marriage to reflect more completely the wonderful relationship that is enjoyed by the Trinity in heaven. I want to go much deeper in my own healing journey and learn what it means and what it looks like to truly live from my heart and to nurture and cherish and feed the heart of my wife like God desires to do for me.

As I thought about how our brain functions as illustrated by the computer analogy, some insights began to emerge. In Craig's illustration our brain is like the hard drive in a computer that is segmented into two sides separated by a firewall. The two sides of our brain – mind and heart – in many respects are like parallel recorders that store all the experiences we have in life. But because they view reality so very differently, what they perceive and record in the same experience are vastly different and sometimes almost unrecognizable by the other.

The left brain, the most familiar part to most of us, records the information, the data and facts and maybe pictures along with how they relate to our beliefs and ideals. It has intellectual opinions about those memories and indexes them according to some system of which I am not quite yet sure about.

The right brain, or the heart, also records information, possibly much more information than the left brain, during each experience that we pass through. But unlike the left brain, the right stores it according to how it makes us feel. The memories are indexed by the emotion associated with that memory. This part of our brain also has opinions about experiences but they are emotion-based opinions and are often not rational or explainable. Even more important, included in our emotional opinion about an experience is information relating to our perceived identity and value at a very deep level that is usually sub-conscious. But the compilation of these identity opinions from our various emotional experiences create a very deep sense of who we really think we are whether or not it coincides with the beliefs about ourself in the left brain.

It seems to me that the left and right brain have parallel or mirror functions that approximate each other and potentially can compliment each other when they are not in severe conflict about their opinions. Both sides store information about the same memories, though from very different perspectives. Both sides have opinions about our identity, though much of the time they are also quite different. And both sides seem to have something that is called our will, though they may be exercised or stimulated in different ways. That is why when we go to exercise our will we are sometimes confused with the effectiveness or outcome.

I think that ideally our will has roots in both sides of our brain (sort of like the description of the Tree of Life in heaven with roots on both sides of the River of Life). We are quite familiar with the exercise of our will intellectually and cognitively. But we are also often aware of a seeming sabotage of our will by some mysterious impulses that weaken and divert it from what our mind desires to do. This is because the part of our will that draws its strength from our right brain or heart is not in alignment with what our left brain or mind has decided it wants to do.

We often react to this problem by trying to force our left brain decisions onto our behavior by simply bypassing our right brain since it does not seem to want to cooperate. We come up with all sorts of behavior modification techniques to force ourselves to live according to our left brain ideals, most of which tend to more and more isolate our heart and right brain from its proper place in being the power source for real living.

We were originally designed by God to live from our heart, not primarily from our head or left brain. The passion for life which is the fuel that we are designed to operate on, is based in the right brain and is the only fuel that will successfully connect our hearts in the kind of bonds with other hearts that cannot be broken. But sin has found an insidious way of defeating this marvelous synergistic setup that God created. It breaks into our heart, especially in our formative years, and implants virus programs in the form of lies that are embedded into very emotion-intensive memories in our right brain. This usually takes place during events full of emotion or trauma and often through abuse or abandonment.

The effect of this is that every time we experience anything that arouses a similar emotion for the rest of our life, that virus program is activated and quickly replicates itself into the storage of each new experience and memory. Thus in every succeeding memory there is a chain of lies hidden in the right brain that distort our self-perception as well as our perception of what God is like. These virus-lies provoke very strong negative emotions that display themselves externally in various ways that are very disruptive to our relationships and the life that God wants for us. They also create an atmosphere of blame so that the real identity of the virus can be avoided. This blame can either be directed at others who we perceive are the cause of our negative emotions or they can be turned inward to reinforce our feelings of low self-worth.

The typical protocol for dealing with these lies is to run a virus-check program and see what viruses show up. But the problem is that when the left brain runs a virus check it only has access to the left brain half of those memories and so the virus scan can only check the left brain database. If we have been working diligently to clean out our cognitive belief system and get a correct information in our left brain we will often come up with a clean slate after a virus check and think that we don't have a problem. But at the same time we also cannot avoid the fact that each time we are faced with an event that touches that trigger that the effects of a virus become quite evident. So it becomes very discouraging to repeatedly run virus checks over and over only to come up with little or nothing that apparently needs fixing.

Because these lies are in the right brain memories and seldom found in left brain memories, they are completely immune to extraction even when they may be identified and partially exposed through left brain tools. We can try all we want to delete them or mask them or counteract their effects in our lives, but they will still remain to torture us and make fools of us every time we enter another experience that elicits that emotion.

At this point we often resort to either giving up and declaring that we are a hopeless case and just giving ourselves over to wherever our emotions take us, or we launch into applying all sorts of patching programs to try to fix or discipline our external symptoms so they do not appear so objectionable. As Craig Hill puts it, we believe that the problem lies in the application programs instead of the deeper systems so we work very hard to get updates and fixes for each individual program that malfunctions believing that the problem is isolated to those particular applications. This may make us look and function better for a time, but it is only temporary and is not the answer that God wants to supply for us.

The only real solution to our problem, which really lies at the root of our sin problem, is to be healed from the lies that are deeply embedded in our hearts that cause us to pervert our natural responses and cause us to feel and act in distorted, sinful ways in reaction to incoming experiences and stimuli. It does no good to follow the common religious approaches of labeling the external reactions as the base sin problem and struggling through all sorts of ways to manage, suppress, self-discipline or even live in denial of these symptoms. The core problem is the lies that remain embedded in our right brain memories that work to twist and distort our perceptions of our real identity and work even more to darken our picture of how God feels about us. These virus-lies in our right brain are out of reach of any attempts by left brain virus programs to eliminate and dislodge them.

I have observed that a growing number of ministries throughout the world are learning that the only real and effective solution for this problem is to bring our hearts into the presence of the original Designer of our computer and allow Him to run a proprietary virus program on our right brain hard drive, bringing to our consciousness the identity of these embedded lies. He only does this with our full permission for He is very jealous of our freedom to choose what we want for our own life. For real love can only exist in the atmosphere of complete freedom, and what God wants most is our unforced love in response to His love for us.

When we allow Him full access to our right brain/heart, the most vulnerable and frightening part of our brain, He is faithful to always reveal where the root problem lies. If we are then willing to recognize, acknowledge the presence of these lies and take responsibility, He again awaits our permission and request to take the next step of removing and replacing them. If we submit to His authority and give Him our permission He will then extricate the lie and replace it with what is called “experiential” truth, or truth that is perfectly designed to fit into that place in our right brain memory that was previously occupied by the lie. In reality it is the very truth that was supposed to be there in the first place but was preempted by the insertion of the lie through deception, abuse or violence.

When that deepest root lie is replaced with truth a most startling thing happens in our right brain. Not only does that memory now contain peace and calm as the emotions associated with that formerly painful memory, but all the other memories that were infected with the same virus throughout all of our life are now suddenly free from the replicated virus and are also filled with peace and calm. Furthermore, from now on whenever we experience circumstances that formerly ignited the triggers linked to this virus we find to our joy and amazement that those triggers are no longer in operation and the compulsive emotions and reactions that we are so familiar with are no longer in control of our life. When the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!

This is the type of ministry that I want to be involved in and that I want to experience much more myself. There are many variations of this to be found in different ministries in place today. Some of them are specialized for certain situations like marriages, individuals or certain classes of problems. But the underlying principle is the same if they are operating faithful to what God has designed for our salvation.

Salvation comes from a Latin word which means to heal, to make whole again. What I have just described is God's method for making us whole again so that we can return to our original design of reflecting the image of God Himself. The more healing we experience in this way the more our lives will naturally exude the perfume of God's beauty and loveliness. As our lives become more attractive and whole more people will become hungry to experience the healing and restoration what we are experiencing. God's reputation will be glorified and He will be able to bring healing to even more lives. That is what true evangelism is supposed to be about; I believe that this is what true, effective evangelism should look like.

I want to see more clearly what my Father is doing and learn to imitate and cooperate with whatever that is (John 5:19). Living from my heart by watching for what God is doing with the eyes of my heart precludes or propels me far beyond a life based on formulas and multiplied, rigid rules. It does not mean that rules and principles not longer apply or are no longer true, but it means that the driving force of my life will be the increasing presence of the passion of God burning like a fire in my bones and the guiding force of my life will be the leading of the Holy Spirit that will always lead me in harmony with the Law, which is simply an external, left brain description of what life will look like when we live like God from our heart.

To Pursue or Not Pursue

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, "BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED." (Romans 9:30-33)

These statements, like many others in this chapter, produce some intense questions in my mind that I ask God to explain to me. I find that when I face my questions that want to arise out of my uneasiness instead of looking for quick pat canned answers that the results are much more enriching.

The surface reading of these verses seem to somewhat imply again that maybe God is arbitrary like so many claim Him to be based on their reading of this chapter. But what I am starting to see more clearly here is a good example of the difference between living from the heart or living focused on the externals in a left-brain religion. Even in my own experience I have noticed that many of the people who feel genuine and real to me (a spirit-perceived thing) are often not necessarily very religious. Of course I have grown up in a culture where that is immediately labeled as dangerous and suspicious, but I now realize that much of that thinking comes from a fear-based religion and is not in harmony with the Spirit of God's kingdom.

The real children of God, as Paul makes quite clear earlier in this chapter, are not defined by the group or family they belong to but by their internal relationship and response to the voice of God in their soul. And the external results of listening to those inner promptings will often look very different than the prescribed external performances that religious people demand to be seen in the life. Here Paul is once again stepping on the toes of prejudice of all religious people in stating openly that those who are found to have “righteousness” – whatever that is – are not necessarily those who appear to be the most religious. Because what we have been trained to view as correct external behavior and religious correctness is riddled with subtle deceptions that keep us from seeing people the way God sees them.

As I look at these verses some semantic questions come up as usual for me to explore. I notice that both descriptions here – the ones describing Gentiles and Jews – talk about pursuing. But the Gentiles do not pursue and yet they actually get results that the Jews, who do pursue, were working very hard to achieve but fail to enjoy. This is another good example of God's upside-down kingdom according to the way we view things. But in fact it is our perspective that is actually upside-down which makes us only think that God's ways are seemingly reversed. It is our own paradigms that have to be changed and our own assumptions and prejudices that need to be released before we can begin to enjoy the synchronization with God and His people that we were designed to enjoy.

Another question that arises again for me relates to the real definition of the word “righteousness”. This has been a lifelong question that refuses to be satisfied easily. There are far too many simplistic and confusing explanations out there about this word and I insist on keeping my mind open to understand more clearly what the Bible really means when it uses this word. It has been one of the most confusing and almost obscure words for me all of my life partly because, I suspect, it has been abused so badly and particularly because the living examples of people who supposedly demonstrated it in their lives produced such mixed messages to the right brain.

Looking at these verses with my formula-happy left brain (which is not always a counter-productive exercise) I notice that there are certain ingredients in both of these descriptions but that show up in different ways in each “equation”. There is the element of “pursuit”. Then there is the results of that pursuit, though the word is different for each which I find very significant. Maybe that is a description of the outcome of the formula. Then there is the elements of “righteousness” and “faith”. I notice that there is an extra ingredient in one of the equations – “law” and “works”. What that extra element seems to result in is the production of something called a “stumbling stone” which prevents them from fully grasping the very thing they are working so hard to get. By implication it is stated that they experience the emotion of “disappointment” as a result.

So how do all of these pieces fit together? Well, I am again out of time, but if you would like to comment or participate feel welcome to join me in my journey through Romans.

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