Questions… questions…. so many questions.
What will God ask us at the end of the age?
Will He ask us about how great our church services were?
How awesome were our times of worship?
How gifted were our musicians?
How eloquent were our preachers?
When I look at the life of Christ, especially the way He addressed the Pharisee’s, I see that He was much more interested in things that were done in secret. The condition of the heart was His primary focus. He wasn’t impressed with the acts that were done for all to see, but He was constantly drawn towards the moments that were lived out in secret before God.
How is my private relationship with Him lived out?
Is my faith expressed primarily in public view?
What is my heart doing within me… the thoughts that no one hears?
Most of us hunger for an intimate life with the Lord found in the private place of our own heart. But we seem to search for it in public places. We search for it in conferences, in teachings, or at church on Sunday mornings.
What we search for – we will find in the secret place.
Many years ago Bob Jones had a vision. At the end of this vision he was standing before the Lord at the end of his life, and Jesus asked him one question: He asked, “Did you learn to love?”
He didn’t ask him about learning to act in loving ways. He was asking him about the state of his own heart.
Our journey on this planet is a journey of the heart. The purpose of it all is learning how to love.
To love like Jesus loves. To freely lay our lives down for one another… not because it’s the right thing to do, but because our heart could do nothing less.
We’re called to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to turn the other cheek when we’re slapped…
And do it all when no one is watching.
This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But He’s not asking us to stand separately and try to act like Him, love like Him and pray like Him. His call is not one of disciplining our flesh to behave. His Gospel call is to allow our inward man to live within Him. and allow Christ to have open freedom to live His life within us.
“For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)
Learning the Voice of the Lord is not an option.
But it’s also not a spiritual exercise.
It’s life and breath to the disciple of Christ, and it’s walked out in the secret place.
He is our only heart changer. The more we allow Him to live within us, in the secret place, the more the true Gospel will be seen in our land.
Soak yourself in Jesus… In the words of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the heart of Jesus.
Draw your heart into Him when no one is watching.