The Heart Behind It

Hey everyone, I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything and I apologize for that if you like reading what I have to say. But, I realized I missed blogging and am going to try and post every or every other week while here at school. This post is going to be based off an article I read last night that made me think a lot and I really enjoyed it. It was from relevant magazine and I'll give you the link. Here you go: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/why-don%E2%80%99t-we-evangelize-anymore. It's a great read and I would recommend it. While it has a great message I want to focus on a smaller part of it based on this quote:

"The thing is, God’s not after our efforts or initiatives. He’s not after the good words and the good deeds. He’s after our hearts. He wants our hearts to beat for the people who have never heard a word from the Bible. He wants our hearts to be filled with love and longing for the people we see on the street. He wants our hearts to break for the young adults that decide to leave the church they grew up in. Because that’s what His heart does. That’s where it all has to start."

While this article is focusing on evangelism, I wanted to go a bit broader with this concept. You see, God doesn't just want our heart in evangelism, He wants our hearts in everything we do. The actions don't matter as much as the heart because the heart is at the root of who you are, what you believe, and what you do. If you have the type of heart God desires, the actions will follow. James 2:18-26 relates to this very well saying things like "I will show you my faith by my works", "You see that faith was active along with works, and faith is completed by his works", and "so also faith apart from works is dead". So, have the heart and the actions will follow. If you have this heart, how could you do anything else than try and bring in God's kingdom?

On the flip side of that coin, we shouldn't be trying to justify ourselves through our actions. This is something I, and I'm sure many of you, can relate to. In Galatians, Paul is talking to people who have been saved but are now trying to "earn" their salvation through their works. Galatians 3:11 "Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law for The righteous shall live by faith." Your "job" as a Christian is not to do good things and avoid bad things, your "job" is to love and trust God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Doing this will lead to a transformation, either for the first time or for the tenth time, of your actions to honor God and bring in his kingdom. That's the end goal isn't it?

I'll give you a quick look into my life at the moment before I wrap this up. This topic is something that I have been faced with this summer through now and am still working through. I have realized that I don't really have God's heart for a lot of things, people being the most obvious one. My heart doesn't cry out for those that are lost usually but I've seen some change in that recently so that's good. When I do what I do, whether good or bad, I've had to examine my motives. I'm not sure if I do what I do because of a love of God, or if I do it for a more legalistic reason. I want to say it's because I love God but I can't say that that is the case all of the time. It's something I have been working through. If you want to know more, feel free to e-mail me or text me or whatever and I would be more than willing to talk further. For now, I challenge you to examine your heart and figure out if it is in line with God's. If not, pray about it. Not once, but daily until you see God transform that in you, that's what he's doing in me.

God Bless and Go Blue!
Tedd Sheets Jr.