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Prone To Wander Myth

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 What if your heart is no longer 'prone to wander?'  What if God is more interested in releasing a noble goodness He's already placed within you, rather than pressuring you to be more 'holy?'  Discover the book by Jim Robbins.

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Entries in worship songs (2)

Wednesday
May302012

Be careful what you sing: How hymns and worship songs don't always tell the truth

For years,  I've wished Christian worship leaders and song publishers had a board of theological advisors that really understood the implications of our new-hearted identity in Christ.  Everything teaches, especially those things we repeat.   Sunday after Sunday.

We become not only what we worship but how we worship. 

Take the lyrics of two well-known worship songs:

 "Change My Heart, Oh God"

Change my heart oh God,
Make it ever true.
Change my heart oh God,
May I be like You.  

 

"Come, Thou Font of Every Blessing"

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;

 

Myth:  Your heart, Christian, is still suspect and can't be trusted.  Your core desires and your will are still in opposition to God's plans.  You are 'prone to wander.'  God is patient with people like you, but disappointed in your progress. 

Your heart is an unruly and stubborn child:  Therefore, God needs to continue a work in your heart in order to get you to the place where you can love as he wants you to.


Reality
:  You no longer have a wandering, "divided heart," because Jesus removed that diseased heart that was in opposition to God.  In its place, resides a powerful, clean and obedient heart that loves what God loves, desires what God desires, and is just as good and noble as the heart Jesus himself possessed.

 

Your heart is no longer your enemy.  It is now your ally. 

............................................................................................................

To learn more about the widespread Scriptural basis for your good and noble heart, you can get my book, "Recover Your Good Heart:  Living Free from Religious Guilt and the Shame of Not Good-Enough."    The book has been especially helpful for people who are tired of being told they're never enough for God.

It's time to trust what God has already given you.

 

 

Wednesday
Jan122011

False humility doesn't do God ... or you any good.

Once again, I ran across the phrase, "More of you, less of me" in another popular Christian artist's worship song.  The sentiment is noble, but misguided, and it denies the true nobility of our new nature.  But didn't John the Baptizer say just the same thing: "He must become greater; I must become less.” ? [John 3:30]

Context would be helpful -- it always is:  some Jews were questioning John the Baptizer as to why Jesus and his disciples seem to be attracting converts away from John.  ["...here he (Jesus) is baptizing, and all are going to him."]  In other words, "Aren't you worried, John, that this other guy is stealing your followers?"

But John isn't rattled by this at all, for he knows what his role in the Story is:  "This is the assigned moment for him [Jesus] to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines."  -- from The Message

John's humility is not a devaluation or deflation of his worth:  It's a realization that his role in the mission is coming to an end, or at least taking a different shape.

So when worship leaders, song writers, or Christian pundists claim, "I must decrease, for he must increase" we need to ask:  "Decrease in what?  Grow less ... in what?" 

God is not asking you to get out of his way.  He's not going to walk around you so that he can go where he really wants to do, without you being in the way.  He's not asking you to recoil and retreat from your true, good and noble heart.   You are not a hinderance to him.

If anything, he may ask you to retreat from pride [ yet he recognizes that pride is no longer in your heart anyway.  It may be lodged in your 'flesh' but not in your new heart].  Remember, it's not in our nature to be prone to wander or selfish any longer -- even Paul declares this:  "It is not I, but sin living in me."   [If you came down with a horrible virus, you wouldn't think you were the virus, or that the virus now defined you.]

True humility comes only when you are content with your new God-given noblility.  Denying your God-crafted brilliance and splendor would be like the night's canopy of stars asking their Maker, "Please dull our light -- we would prefer to be dirtied, dingy and grey."   Or a swan asking God to break its wing for fear of being too beautiful.

You can't "reflect the Lord's likeness with ever-increasing drabness."  The proper thing is to shimmer.