Hebrews 3:12-13
Be careful...make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while its still "today", so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. (NLT)
Do you have someone in your life who speaks truth? Who encourages and spurs you toward Christ and His likeness? Who cares for you and in doing so speaks into areas in your life where they see could use some encouragement or work? Who will walk with you in your journey of faith?
I think of our need for community and the need to have others spur us onward toward the completion of the race set before us.
Jeremiah 17:9 reads "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?"
Proverbs 28:26 reads "Those who trust in themselves (heart) are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe."
Wisdom is the word of God...the living, breathing, relevant word of God which is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. It is our bread and our sustenance and we can't live without it. When we base our motives on our heart feelings, we can easily be strayed off course and onto paths which may feel good, but are far from the best for us and lead us to destruction.
I listened to my heart once and began to base my identity on how I felt, rather than the word of God. I began silencing out solid, mature believers and trusted my heart feelings! This led me to the path of identifying myself as a gay man who believed because I felt this way my, my sexuality was set and I controlled it.
How many of us make decisions based on the sole merit of our feelings? When I proposed to my wife I had definite feelings for her or I wouldn't have married her. But I also knew that God was calling me to marry her and that I had total peace as I knew this was ordained by Him. Do my feelings change on a day to day basis as I live out married life? You bet. Some days it's easy to love well and to get along and we find our groove! But there are days when it's slugging through difficult communication, misinterpretations, sleep deprivation, and child rearing. In those times, I need to know that I have a solid foundation of covenant, commitment, perseverance, faith and I find that these are wise pieces of truths that I find in the word of God and go beyond a feeling. It's a mindset of being committed regardless of how I feel.
I need Jesus desperately everyday to walk this out and I need my family the body of Christ to do this as well. I need trusted brothers and sisters to speak truth to me if they see me dabbling in things I shouldn't. I need these broken vessels to encourage me and spur me toward the goal set before me. When I begin to veer off the path...who's there to help me? If I have no one, I will merrily go this way and that.
So whose in your corner? Who knows you and your heart and your life? Who has authority to speak truth in love to you, even if it makes you boil inside, yet you know it's truth? Who are you submitted to?
Find a good person, not a perfect person (because there isn't one), to be that person who will challenge you and who you can challenge, and thank God for them. Pray that God brings people into your life who won't just allow you to feel good, but will challenge your 'feelings' and spur you toward holiness and the race set before you. It's not easy and each one of us can be easily strayed by appeasing things that tug at our heart.
