When Our Foggy Hearts Encounter The Light of the Gospel The Trajectory of Our Lives Changes

I glanced outside this morning to find my garden immersed in a cloud of fog.  Fog is composed of little droplets of condensed water suspended in mid-air.

Fog mysteriously envelopes everything in its wake and is in essence a cloud on the ground.  When light encounters fog it is distorted.  As light hits this medium it is slowed down and it's angle of travel is changed.

Like fog our hearts, as they are encountered by the word of God, should change directions.

The old adage of our culture is "follow you heart" but the Bible states in Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick;

The Hebrew word for deceitful means:
sly, insidious, slippery, polluted and crooked.

The Hebrew word for desperately sick is ä·nash':  incurable, weak, sick and frail.

So there you have it!  Don't follow your heart because it will lead you onto a slippery crooked incurable path of destruction but instead follow the Word of God.

Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

As we encounter the light from the word of God, the direction of our lives is changed.  At times, like driving on a foggy night, there is confusion and even despair as we encounter God's truth.

We may feel like this is the wrong path and surely it is for anyone who is trying to maintain their own life.

Following the path of Christ is treacherously uncertain and we are giving up our very lives, our will and our way to go where He leads us.

Our propensity is to follow hard after what our heart wants but when weighed against the truth of what God has intended for our lives we see a very different pattern.  A pattern of self denial and sacrifice for the sake of others.

As John the Baptist, the very mouth piece of God who ushered in the Messiah himself, was in prison, Jesus was teaching, preaching, instructing and healing the people he told His disciples;

"Go tell John what you hear and see;  

the blind receive their sight and the lame walk,

lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, 

and the dead are raised up ,

and the poor have good news preached to them.  

And blessed is the one who is not offended in me."

Jesus' ministry did not match the expectations of John's disciples.  As God's plan unfolded, John's life was in jeopardy and ultimately was sacrificed for the sake of the Christ.

Who plans to have their head chopped off?  I sure wouldn't but we see that God's plan for this life was one of death.

Our lives most likely will not be required of us like John's however, metaphorically we are all called to come and die;

Luke 9:23

... "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Mark 8:34-35

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, 

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  

For whoever would save his life will lose it, 

but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.  

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ.  It is not longer I who live, 

but Christ who loved me and gave himself for me.  

So my life is seemingly sent on a destructive trajectory as my heart is exposed to the light of the Word but in this crazy upside down kingdom for which we are bound, that is exactly the point!

God does ask that we lay down our own lives and follow Him.  It doesn't mean that He is against us enjoying life and finding pleasure in family and friends and even possessions but the question He asks is, if I ask you to lay it down, will you?

As our preverbal heads are chopped off, it is not God's intention that we roam the earth like Ichabod Crane, confused and haunted, but that we exchange our head, in essence our hearts for His!

He is to have preeminence in our lives.  God doesn't leave us decapitated but His plan is that we have a new Head which is Christ!

Christ died for us!  That is the reality of the gospel, so that we might live in Him!

Romans 5:8

but God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

As we ponder this truth, our affection for Him grows and we are able, by the power of His spirit to live lives as laid down lovers for His purpose and not our own.  To build His kingdom and not our own.  To go to His word and as we are offended, by what we find there, the path we walk changes abruptly as His light is refracted off our insidiously sick hearts.

Lord, thank you for your Word!  Let the light and truth of Jesus have its perfect work in our hearts steering and directing us onto a path for His glory and not our own.

As we come under the fog of confusion when we are assaulted by Your word, may we not stay offended but cause our response to be one of servitude and sacrifice for the sake of the gospel!