Entries in heart (11)

Friday
15Jan2010

Restoration is better than 'acceptance' alone...

DateFriday, January 15, 2010 at 9:43AM

A Mountain Search and Rescue unit gets a call that a climber has fallen on Mt. Hood, near Portland Oregon.  The climber's pick axe failed to grab when he attempted to lodge it into a unstable pocket of ice.  There was nothing to stop his fall.  Other climbers found the body, mangled and barely alive, one-thousand feet down from where he started to slide.

When the mountain rescue unit got there, multiple bones were shattered, including the spine, and the climber was bleeding from his ears and nose.   Rescue workers knelt near the bleeding body and spoke reassuringly to it:  "We accept you." 

And then they did nothing else.  To comfort the climber, they again offered, "We accept you.  You are loved and safe now."  But nothing else was done - no attempt to discern the man's vitals or assess his awareness of surroundings.  No attempt to stabilize and transport the body. 

Only, "You are loved and accepted.  It's o.k. now."

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O.k., so I made up the story to demonstrate something.  It is not enough for Christians to see themselves as merely loved and accepted by God's grace.  That's a beautiful thing; but it won't restore a person or give them back the capacity to live well -- There was great damage that needed healing.

God is smarter than that.  He restores us by equipping us with a new and noble heart so that we can relate well, live well, and enjoy this new grace we've been given.  Anything less would be as cruel as the clearly shallow and insufficient 'hope' the mountain rescue unit offered the dying climber. 

What have you been taught about 'grace' and 'acceptance.'  Was it enough?

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Tuesday
08Dec2009

'WHY DESIRE MATTERS IN OUR JOURNEY' -- new podcast

DateTuesday, December 8, 2009 at 10:56AM

Why desire matters in our journey -- Jim tells the story of how his 5-year journey to find a better town for his family and a more sustainable life has now come full circle; and how desire was the glue that held his dreams together when he wanted to give up.  You will also discover that your deep desires matter to God and that he will use them to give you answers and direction.

 

Download Jim's podcasts (The Good and Noble Heart podcasts) on iTunes.

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Thursday
03Dec2009

Seven quotes on 'CALLING'

DateThursday, December 3, 2009 at 11:19AM

Heart and callling are inextricably linked:  you can't know your calling without knowing the deep desires of your heart -- and believing that they are trustworthy.  Within your new heart lie desires God is awakening. Here are some quotes on 'calling:'

 

  • “For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do.  It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.”  -- Albert Einstein

  • “Progress is not created by contented people.”  -- Frank Tyger

  • “Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.”  (Seneca)

  • “The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   -- Frederick Buechner

  • "[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather."   --Frederick Buechner

  • "What I do is me: For that, I came."  -- Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • "What is in you that is so unique, that if you don't live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?"  -- Gary Barkalow, www.thenobleheart.com

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Listen to the podcast:  "A life of desire"

Listen to the podcast:  "Recovering our desire"

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How about you?  Do you have any quotes on calling/purpose you can share?

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Wednesday
25Nov2009

'MISLEADING OURSELVES' - today's podcast with guest Andrew Farley

DateWednesday, November 25, 2009 at 9:52AM

Listen 'live' today as special guest Andrew Farley, author of The Naked Gospel, joins Jim again.  This time they'll talk about the misleading catch-phrases Christians often use -- spiritual language that ends up separating us further from our new hearts and restored identities.  

 

Airs at 11:30 a.m. EST.  on Wednesday, Nov. 25th.
Click here to go to episode page on Blogtalk Radio.

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Wednesday
18Nov2009

HOW 'The Prisoner' raises issues of our own identity

DateWednesday, November 18, 2009 at 1:26PM

"I AM NOT A NUMBER!!"
 
AMC TV Chanel's mini-series, The Prisoner stars Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings-X-Men) and Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line-The Passion of the Christ):

From the series synopsis:

A man, known as Six, finds himself inexplicably trapped in The Village with no memory of how he arrived. As he explores his environment, he discovers that his fellow inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. Not knowing whom to trust, Six is driven by the need to discover the truth behind The Village, the reason for his being there, and most importantly --  how he can escape.

 

The struggle for our hearts will always involve the issue of identity in some way.  "Who are you?"  is the question the Devil used to distract and tempt Jesus himself: 

  • "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."  (Matt. 4:3)
  • "If you are the son of God, ...throw yourself down."  (Matt. 4:6)

And the Enemy, through the insults of the crowd tempts him, "Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!"

If we don't know the answer to the question, "Who are you?"  we will fall for anything.

The attack comes against identity.  Your identity.  What is in you that the Enemy or the world would snuff out?  You are not ordinary.  There's no such thing in the Kingdom.  So what is the noteworthy glory you have been given that the world needs?   God is in the process of unveiling your unique self to the world. It is his good pleasure.

[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.   --Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

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What did you think of The Prisoner mini-series?

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Thursday
24Sep2009

Staying with the message of the new heart

DateThursday, September 24, 2009 at 11:30AM

Quite frankly, it's difficult to believe I have a good heart sometimes. The evidence against it seems too strong.

Lately, there's been almost an unseen pull downwards, a drain-circling suck towards hopeless futility.  That dark undertow almost got me to draw some fatal conclusions about my own heart.  That pull is towards shame:

I've blown it with my kids a lot lately;  not given myself to my wife as she needs.  I'm actually craving the goodness of Jesus and his choices, begging him to give me his own maturity.  (If you think holiness is hard, try out your favorite addiction or uncontrolled craving for a while.  That's harder to live with.)

In these moments, we have two choices:  fatalism or freedom:

  • Fatalism says:  I am the sum of my failures.  My heart cannot be good -- just look at the evidence against it.
  • Freedom says:  My heart is my hope.  I am a new creation (my heart is now supernaturally restored by Christ.)  Despite the external evidence, there is a new internal reality.  My failures are no longer the truest me.  (Even the apostle Paul says this - Romans 7:20)

 

  • You can't go by your failures.
  • You can't go by what others think of you.

  • You may not even be able to go by what you've been told by church leaders in the past.

Stay with the truth:  your heart is good now.  Jesus made it so.
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To understand your new heart more, Recover Your Good Heart -- Living free from religious guilt and the shame of not good-enough unpacks what Scripture says about your new heart.

Or you can start with the FREE e-book I wrote:  click here.

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Tuesday
08Sep2009

Emotions -- friend or foe? You may be surprised.

DateTuesday, September 8, 2009 at 1:08PM

Emotions can't be trusted.

Strong emotions will lead you into sin.

Believing the right things is more important than feelings.

Just do your duty, whether you feel something or not.

Love is a 'verb.'

Reason and the intellect are more trustworthy than the heart.

What do you think of these typical typical responses to emotions and their place in the Christian life? Are these statements true? 

I've discovered a book called, Feel -- the power of listening to your heart, by Matthew Elliott.  His claim is that much of what the Christian community has taught about emotions, is in fact, not biblical.  The Church has bought into secular psychology and philosophy rather than a biblical position on the place of emotion in our lives.  It's actually a bit surprising.

The author claims,
I realized this idea [the suspicion and villification of emotion] was the prevailing Christian view of emotions - and this "Christian" view was essentially platonic [from Plato], a secular perspective in line with the view of Descartes, [William ]James, and - if you can believe it - none other than Charles Darwin."  p.20

What have you been told about emotions and their place in the Christian life?

I'll be following up this conversation on emotions in upcoming posts.

AuthorJim Robbins | Comment2 Comments |
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Thursday
18Jun2009

New podcast - special guest Joel Brueseke, Graceroots.org

DateThursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:00PM

A deeper look at grace.

Joel Brueseke is the founder of graceroots.org and has recently created a graceroots community on Ning network. He's a guy that gets the message of Jesus and understands the message of the new heart.
This is my interview with him. 

 

AuthorJim Robbins | Comment2 Comments |
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Tuesday
26May2009

A Kingdom of nobles

DateTuesday, May 26, 2009 at 5:01PM

“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo.
Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”

– C.S. Lewis

As ironic as it is, Christians (those who participate in a Kingdom) have largely lost the concept of  nobility.

Perhaps the notion of nobility got lost when the the last knights and ladies of the Middle Ages died off. Or perhaps we've lost the idea of nobility because we've lost a part of the Gospel itself.  What I mean is this:  In our attempts to be 'authentic' to each other, the world and to God, we've not only recognized the depths of our sin, we've decided that our selves are synonymous with those foul places.

Yet Scripture has stated otherwise:

"But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart."
-- Luke 8:15

Something better now defines us:  something stronger, regal and resplendent.  This transformation wasn't a mere brushing-up, nor a tinkering with the old in order to improve it.  It was something wholly different:  a bestowing of a fundamentally different nature -- supernatural supplanting natural.

Does the idea of Christian nobility sound too prideful for us? Are we so used to living in the mud of false humility that we cannot receive the more substantial redemption he is offering?

In C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, the children who become allies of the great Lion discover what they were meant for all along, as Aslan renames them in order to reveal their true natures:

And Aslan gave the children each a new name:

  • Peter will be known now as, "King Peter the Magnificent."
  • Susan will be called, "Queen Susan the Gentle."
  • Edmund will be known as, "King Edmund the Just."
  • Lucy will be called, "Queen Lucy the Valiant."
Whitney Young once said, "The truth is that there is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self." Through the strong rescue of Jesus, you are no longer this "former self" -- no matter how things appear to you. As C.S. Lewis reminds us,
“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”

That is to say, your new and noble glory surpasses the goodness and character of Adam and Eve -- before they fell.  Through his transforming rescue in you, our Lord has out-done himself again. 

AuthorJim Robbins | Comment2 Comments |
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Monday
18May2009

For the sake of the Story 

DateMonday, May 18, 2009 at 12:27PM

Since all the world is but a story,
it were well for thee to buy
the more enduring story rather than
the story that is less enduring.

(The Judgement of St. Columba of Scotland)

Here's another reason it's critical to get your heart back -- your good and noble heart: your contribution to the Grand Tale depends upon it. If you see yourself primarily as a mess -- a sinful and sorry creature whom God has to graciously tolerate -- you won't be offering your true self. And your true self is exactly what is needed.

You need the resources of your transformed heart to love well, live well, and fight well. Jesus has given you his own heart -- not a heart simply like his -- but his own heart. For the sake of the Story, take it. Nourish it. Live from it. Allow God's Spirit to awaken it.

Since this unfolding Story is about the God who is always up to something new, he will choose the new creation -- that is, your transformed heart -- as the means to advance his plot.

Without either knowing your heart is now good, or choosing it today and each day, you will remain disoriented and disconnected -- to both your grand and unveiled glory, and to the world's need for you to live from your restored and super-natural heart.  Allow this new super-natural goodness to radiate outwards, transforming you with the ever-increasing life and enticing goodness Jesus enjoyed.

The Story needs you. Not simply the forgiven you. But the unveiled you.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s
glory, are being transformed into his likeness with
ever-increasing glory; which comes from the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18

 

AuthorJim Robbins | Comment2 Comments |
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Friday
27Mar2009

New Facebook Group

DateFriday, March 27, 2009 at 12:46PM

I've created a new Group on Facebook called, THE GOOD & NOBLE HEART; for those who have discovered that the offer of Jesus is far more than forgiveness. "Grace" is the gift of a new, good, and noble heart. The Gospel is about the heart.  

Some great discussions are taking place! 
Check it out here.

AuthorJim Robbins | CommentPost a Comment |
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