The Battle For The Truer Heart

Tonight I sit alone in my living room after hearing some new-to-me worship songs, having had my spirit lifted by the ancient truths and the heart-felt delivery that these recordings contained. Which songs they were is not important. The family has gone to bed and I am alone with some quietness. I regret that my noisy life has pushed true quietness to the tiniest of margins.


I think about truth and the way we handle it...the way it is wielded. I can recount time after disastrous time that a chunk of truth was ripped out of its happy home amongst the canon of scripture and displayed as a billboard slogan by someone, more interested in comprehending the breadth of their own power and influence on believing men and women than actually presenting the truth of the Gospel in love, that was entrusted to us.

There is a predictable high-mindedness to it. It always smells the same, and some type of insecurity seems to be at its heart. Sad, when the worshipers of the One, true, glorious, life-giving, wondrous, marvelous, King of kings and Lord of lords, namely Jesus Christ, get so turned around by the ambitious nature of the world and forget that one-upping the other guy is best left outside of the secure church walls. It is far too petty and small for the glorious Bride.

Growing up in the church I have seen this pattern in traveling hucksters, holy-rollers and the hip trendsetters. I’ve seen it equally in the conservative, the liberal and the slushy in-between. The danger is that this type of combative truth-handling will unite groups of people under the heading of a certain brand of thought and drive wedges between people with such efficiency that it is mind-blowing.

Ah, but consensus is such a democratic ideal!

But, at what cost? Here's Christ's brand of consensus, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me..."

The overarching theme of the bible is this: God wants to commune in true relationship with mankind. Unfortunately, the big stopper on the relationship isn't Him, it is us. It is a scary thought to be open and completely comprehended by God. Spiritual intimacy is the most complete vulnerability that there is. A heart cannot be at once completely vulnerable to a loving God while also being bent on achieving the personal conquest of the "Truer Heart".

I don't mean, "Truer than I've been before." We absolutely need to seek growth in our relationship with God.

What I mean is "Truer than that other guy!"

I think that the quest to be truer than the next person is one of the key differences between the "brood of vipers" and the children of grace. Search through the logs of sermons you have heard, by men you admire and those you don't, and examine them carefully for signs of one-upmanship between pastors, churches, denominations and larger church movements. Think of the attitude of certain church-based social movements that seem to have biblical merit, but something in the heart is just a little off. Think about the difference in the attitude you find in your heart when Christ moves mightily through a church in a nation on the other side of the world, versus a church six blocks away from your own.

(SPOILER ALERT) And now I am going to meddle!

So much has been written and spoken about worship and what true worship is. I don't think I need to cover all of that ground (I'd kind of like to though, with these thoughts in mind). How many opinions have you heard about worship that you got more of the sense of the ruthless guarding of one's own territory (I imagine Gollum) than the desire to join the genuine song of the saints. Lest you think that I see this from the perspective of someone who would overturn every tradition to serve our current entertainment culture, let me stop you there. I have seen savage attacks from the traditional side, but I have seen equally strident and harsh attacks from the more progressive side.

We, "The True-er" find a genuine stream of worship for ourselves and we start to crystallize the form of it, and the form becomes a codified, exclusionary grid of rigid standards which then becomes a non-living framework... an "it", a sorcerers scepter, a black hat for some sort of flimsy trick. We think the form is our way to God, but in the end it is only a way into the abject vanity of human pride. Jesus is The Way. Widespread and personal commitment to following His voice, His heart, and His passion for souls is what makes the worship of the saints something that the world could never reproduce. Without that genuine commitment to Jesus, it is worthy of mockery.

When the Ark of the Covenant, became an "it", things did not go well for the Israelites. Aaron's rod budded to show that it was a living thing brought about by the living God who is the only one capable of breathing life. God is living and breathing and moving in His people. When He moves, His people move with him. This relationship is alive! It is rarely a homogenized or pasteurized moment when a person lays down their will and gives their life to God. It maybe a quiet moment or a loud one, but there is a breaking that happens. We can all identify with that if we have met our personal Waterloo and were rescued by our loving God.

This brings up a little story from a nature scene that we witnessed this past week. Kim and I were sitting in our driveway after making the long commute. We were listening to the end of a program that we were enjoying together. Suddenly I saw something drop, like a pine cone from our tree, and my wife gave a horrified gasp. She became instantly distraught, "It's a baby squirrel!" I looked past her through the driver's side window and saw a awful looking sight. A rather large (for a baby) and fairly hairless creature with a long spindly, pink tail was writhing around on the ground with its eyes still closed. It let out a high piercing little cry. An adult squirrel came part way down the tree and then scurried back up and out of sight.

We sat there watching the scene when Kim noticed a cat was quickly stalking near to the baby. She HISSED it away. Then the cat approached from the opposite side that it thought a more safe approach. Kim angrily threw a small twig at it to scare it and across the street it ran. Now what? Taking it to a vet wasn't an option I was going to explore...not that I wanted to witness the circle of life first hand. I decided to go inside and get the memory out my head of that ugly, spastic thing. Even if the mom came down there, there is no way that a regular sized squirrel was going to be able to pack a baby that size back up the tree. Kim stayed, hiding behind a trash can to keep watch. The baby lay mostly still, moving from time to time.

Kim quietly came inside a while later. I anticipated the news that the baby died, or that cat got a hold of it. Instead, Kim told us with tears in her eyes that the mother timidly came down the tree, found her baby and meticulously cleaned the dirt off of it. Then she carefully folded the baby into a little ball and took it up the tree and out of sight.

On that trip up the tree, I wonder if that little squirrel ever wondered if the reason he was rescued was because his love for his mother was more excellent or that his heart was more true to her than his siblings. I know that squirrels probably don't have all of those kinds of thoughts, but if it were you, wouldn't you be inclined to feel every bit the helpless wretch and that you were deeply loved by a mother who risked her life for you?

We were utterly lost in our sin: fallen, blind, wounded, filthy and alone. No one could make us right with our Father but He, himself. Impossible? Seemingly, but His heroic love made a way. Then, he gave us a home in the church to worship with others, to be fed the Word and to find fellowship until his physical return, sealed by His precious Holy Spirit.

I pray that we'll see that we are truly loved, letting selfish ambition go, and walking in all of the unity that the Holy Spirit affords.