The following is a response from a good friend to a question I posed to him.  The question was:  “What have you been told about your heart–even after becoming a Christian?”  Here’s my friend’s response:
“As I look back at my years as a Christian, I am sorry to say that now I see clearly that I have been actually held back in my Christian walk, because I have been receiving the message that my heart is still bad, still wicked.  As a result, my expectations for the “abundant life” of which Jesus spoke, have been nil! Because of what was said on Sunday mornings, I expected to sin regularly!”
There are many Christians who would agree with you if you told them Jesus has made their hearts new, that they are “new creations.”  Yet, their expectation is that they’ll continue to sin regularly and there’s not much they can do about it, except to rehearse the cycle of failure and shame.  They still believe they are predisposed towards wandering and disobedience, and not towards goodness.  –Inclined towards rebellion and self-will, and not towards the new implanted and surprising Spirit-wrought vitality and holiness that is now within them.  Why?
Because they have been given a distortion of the Gospel for so long that anything that challenges that entrenched distortion is seen as suspect.  Familiarity breeds contempt for fresh insight, even the kind that could lead to the very life they long for in Jesus.
We need to start having expectations that are aligned with our new heart, indulging our new appetites and desires for goodness that we now possess..

Don’t most of us think that the fruit of the Spirit is something we need to attain to, desire more fervently, and try harder to produce? –Something we don’t have much of at all? Or, we have a bit of this one or that, and scarcely others on the list?

• “God, help me to be more patient with my children.”

• “God, my life feels pretty joy-less. I want more of your joy.”

• “God, help me to be more kind to ___________.”

In each case, the assumption is that we either don’t have the particular fruit or that we have so little of it that we fear we’re disappointing God. But what if this isn’t the case? Since Jesus goes directly after the heart when he rescues the person, we should begin to assume some very different things about ourselves:

• We have new hearts. …and God only gives what is most like himself. Good, pure, radiant, vibrant. - That’s what our heart is like even now, despite the fact that this new goodness may appear obscured.

• Your new heart now wants what Jesus himself wanted. You want to live in his goodness. (It’s a much better alternative to the cycle of addiction and shame.)

• Because you have a new heart, you now possess the character of Christ, already. And this is called the “fruit of the Spirit.”

• This fruit is already within you …substantially, though you may be unaware of it.

• What God wants to do through his Spirit is to nourish and release that fruit in increasing measure.

To discover more about your new heart, read excerpts from Jim’s new book, Recover Your Good Heart. Click here.

REVIEW:
An eye-opening and encouraging offer of hope for those of us who have tried, through our own efforts, to be a “good” Christian and have known the shame and guilt of failing.

Recover Your Good Heart helps us recover the rest of the truth of the Gospel (that God changed us and placed in us a piece of Himself, His heart, upon salvation) and teaches us that we can live from this goodness and not from our old ways.

A much-needed message for new and long-time Christians alike. - C.D.R, Connecticut
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REVIEW:
If you have ever been to church and left feeling empty, condemned, tired, or not good enough; this is an essential read. As Christians we sometimes forget God’s promises of forgiveness and feel as though we have to do things to earn God’s love. Well, we don’t! Neither do we have to work to “be better”. God gave us a good heart. This book is an up-lifting read that uses scripture and Biblical truth to show us the goodness of our hearts accomplished by God’s work and that we are fully approved and accepted by him.

Recover Your Good Heart will reveal Biblical truths to you and encourage you to live from your heart. I cannot recommend it more. — Meredith M., Tampa

If all goes well, my new book — Recover Your Good Heart — should be ready for purchase within a week. I’ll keep you posted and will announce its release here.

I don’t want to have a derivative life: No mimicry of other’s personal aspirations; no living from someone else’s script. A vicarious life is a borrowed life. I want to offer the weight of my own heart and the artistry that proceeds from there in ways that are not driven by sales outcomes, market expectations, or religious sub-cultures. I must be me. That is the nature of incarnation - the self-revelation of God through a Body of bodies who can only represent him faithfully if they are themselves.

As the Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, “What I do is me: For that, I came.” As Gary Barkalow of Ransomed Heart Ministries asks us, “What is in you that is so unique, that if you don’t live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?”

The recent podcast of the Kindlings Muse, hosted by Dick Staub, features a round-table discussion with three artists from different disciplines, discussing what it means to live one’s authentic life as an artist/writer/musician/film producer, and the inherent struggles and joys that come with this path. Click here for podcast.