Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that kindly declines an invitation to your lame Halloween party.
“About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”
~ Hebrews 5:11, ESV
I’ve always been mystified when I’ve read a book that electrified me only to learn that others who read the same book came away with a completely different experience.
They would have gotten just as much out of it if they read it upside down.
The same with spoken messages.
I’ve heard messages where light fell from heaven. Time stood still. People were stirred up, ready to charge hell with all guns blazing. Minds were blown. Lives were set on fire.
Others who sat in the same room, hearing the same message, saw nothing.
To be frank (and I am), I’d like to slap those people.
(Okay, I really don’t want to slap them, but it sounded cool and now you can tell your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram friends, “Hey, there’s this dude who writes Christian stuff and he slaps people who annoy him. Isn’t that epic?”)
As an author and speaker, this happens with every book I write and every message I deliver.
I recall delivering a message in a conference and one young man reported that he sat frozen in stunned awe, never once reaching for his smart phone. His life was ruined (for the Lord).
Another person who heard the same message saw nothing and concluded that I needed a brain transplant.
What the Facebook?
Puzzling, right?
Recently, I was listening to a precious brother in Christ give a testimony about when he first read a book written by an author from England about Christ living His life in and through us. (The author passed on to be with the Lord many years ago.)
This brother admitted, “I graduated from seminary a year before. I read the whole book. I understood it mentally, but I saw nothing.”
No light penetrated his heart.
Later, this same brother heard the author from England speak in a conference on Christ in us.
Suddenly, light dawned.
This brother saw, and it changed his life.
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
~ 2 Corinthians 4:6, NIV
He then re-read the man’s book and his experience was completely different. On the first read, the book was dead to him. On the second read, it contained thunder and lightning.
How can all of this be explained?
I’ve come to the belief that when a person doesn’t grasp spiritual things, when they are articulated in power and life, it’s not a problem of the intellect.
It’s a problem of the heart.
“Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?”
~ Mark 8:17, NIV
In the academic arena, a person’s mental acuity determines whether she/he understands a concept or not.
Not so with the things of the Spirit.
When it comes to spiritual things, the intellect can be a royal stumbling block. (Just read 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2 if you want a source.)
In the things of God, it’s the state of the heart that counts for everything.
The New Testament says a great deal about the heart.
Here are some examples:
The heart can become calloused (Matthew 13:15)
The heart can be stubborn (Mark 3:5)
The heart can be hardened (Mark 6:52; Ephesians 4:18)
The heart can be far from God (Mark 7:6)
The heart can believe or doubt (Mark 11:23; Romans 10:9-10)
God’s word can be taken away from the heart (Luke 8:12)
The heart can burn while hearing Jesus (Luke 24:32)
The heart can be cut with conviction (Acts 2:37)
The heart can be right or not right with God (Acts 8:21)
The heart can remain true to the Lord (Acts 11:23)
The Lord can open the heart to truth (Acts 16:14)
The heart can be foolish and darkened (Romans 1:21)
The heart can be unrepentant (Romans 2:5)
God’s love can be poured into the heart (Romans 5:5)
The heart can obey God (Romans 6:17)
The Holy Spirit can enter the heart (2 Corinthians 1:22; Galatians 4:6)
The heart can be veiled to spiritual things (2 Corinthians 3:15)
The heart can be opened (2 Corinthians 6:11, 13)
The eyes of the heart can be enlightened (Ephesians 1:18)
The heart can be sincere (Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22; Hebrews 10:22)
God can test our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:4)
God can strengthen the heart (1 Thessalonians 3:13)
The heart can be purified (Matthew 5:8; Acts 15:9; 1 Timothy 1:5; James 4:8)
The heart can be sinful, unbelieving, and turn away from God (Hebrews 3:12)
The heart can suffer a guilty conscience (Hebrews 10:22)
The heart can harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition (James 3:14)
The heart can revere Christ (1 Peter 3:15)
Those are some important truths about the heart and how it works.
Now where was I?
Oh yea, dullness of hearing.
A person who has a hungry heart for the Lord — and a conscience that’s been purified by confession and the blood of Christ — will understand more about the things of the Spirit than the greatest theologian who is confident in his/her knowledge of God and the Bible.
Over the years, I’ve known people who had extremely high IQs. Some even studied and taught the Bible for a living.
But in terms of their grasp of spiritual things, they were babes.
They would hear the most sublime and richest unveilings of Christ — glorious things that stopped people cold. But nothing registered within them.
There was no pulse.
If you talk to them about the deeper things of God, they’d nod their heads in agreement. But later, you’d realize that they didn’t “get” it. Nothing sunk in.
“For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.”
~ Mark 6:52, NKJV
“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”
~ Luke 8:15, NIV
Some of you who are reading this right now are populating your mind with other people and thinking, “They need to read this! It’s right for them.”
That may be true, but this article is for YOU – and for myself.
Here’s my exhortation.
If your conscience is not clear, confess and apply faith in the shed blood of Christ so there’s no cloud in your communion with God.
Then ask the Lord for an open, sincere, humble heart that’s ready to receive and respond to God’s light whenever you read an article, a blog post, a book, or hear a message.
If you are harboring anything contrary to God’s will in your heart, deal with it before Him.
I believe if you do this, you will eventually see and hear things you’ve never seen or heard before … even in the pages of a book you once read or in a message you once heard.
God’s word is active and alive.
But it takes a certain kind of heart to see its light and touch its life.
Put another way, we don’t just read the Bible. The Bible reads us.
The same is true with any Spirit-anointed piece of content – be it an article, book, or message.
WANT TO GO DEEPER?
The Deeper Journey YouTube Channel – contains Christ-centered conference messages, interviews, hard questions | unconventional answers, book chapters, monologues, podcast episodes, and more.
Recent Articles:
Can Genuine Christians Learn from the Pagans?
Deconversion From Christianity
Personal Prophesies, Bitterness, and Dismay
How to Pray for Hopeless People
Will the Revolution Be Televised?
P.S. If someone wanted to change your life and zealously forced this blog post on you, you can appease them and subscribe here. It’s gratis and comes with a dozen Super Fire Hot Wings … the kind you can only eat after you sign a set of release forms. (No lemon suckers please. They won’t understand the humor.)
Thanks for this. I’ve always thought for most of my adult life that most of my evagelical upbrining equated the mind as being the same as the heart. For several decades I’ve thought that was wrong they are different yet definately connected. Part of what I see is that the heart is the source of emotions and the emotional health that Jesus brings is a work of His Spirit in our hearts/feelings and it is connected to our minds also. It is not only rational intelect. I loved your list of heart scriptures and will keep that list for my own reference.
Cindy
Thx. Quick note that the emotions aren’t the equivalent of the heart. The heart is deeper than both intellect and emotion, though it includes both. The central part of the heart is the human spirit, which transcends mind, will, and emotion.
A message can move the emotions and/or stimulate the mind, but that’s not the same as “seeing.” That happens in the deepest part of us.
Good stuff as always! Thank you!
Thank you for all the great work you’re doing to advance the kingdom
I’m so blessed by your writings. They are always very rich.
Blessings!
As a young pastor I write and speak and you are dead on.
This is an important qualification that you made, “I’ve come to the belief that when a person doesn’t grasp spiritual things, when they are articulated in power and life, it’s not a problem of the intellect.”
When articulated in life and power makes all the difference.
I love that you said the Bible reads us. We don’t just read the Bible.
Powerful point.
Keep writing. The things you address aren’t talked about anywhere else.
Thanks Frank. You are so funny, I enjoy your messages.
Thank you for your well formed thoughts carried through to application. Well done.
I have recognised the dullness of my heart for some time now and feel incapable of stirring the fire again. Long to wake with that desire to run to Him again.
Thankful for this article – explains why I am struggling to read a popular book by a different author when everyone else is raving about it. Thank you for the humourous way you bring these truths and exhortations. I will examine my heart and lift my expectations!
Thanks Frank.
There’s a passage in Ezekiel about God speaking according to the idols of the heart. There have been some idols of the heart in my life that took years for God to deliver me from, but He can do it if you ask Him. How many times have we heard only according to our self centered not desires?
This is why seeing and hearing through God’s eyes according to His eternal purpose is so valuable. There is the daily manna that doesn’t last too long, but then again, there is that hidden manna that if you pay the price for that, it never ever leaves you because it is eternal.
It is important to find how precious Christ will become if only we draw near to Him that He may draw near to us.
Fantastic! This explains so much.
I love, love, love these unfiltered articles. They resonate so much, enjoy the sense of humor too.
Ah, this is good. The eyes of the heart flooded with light so a person’s wood is no longer wet and they become a flame, not a Bic flicker on the low fuel side.
So that’s why Paul wrote his prayer!
How much more shall we pray for the flame and flood of light! Imagine how we would all be! Such good truthful kindling!
The line about a hungry heart/theologians/Spirit…Yes!
Frank, geez man, this was just so so so timely for where I am and what I’m trying to say right now…and it drives me to pray for the hearts I’m trying to reach.
Oh and the confess, repent, etc BEFORE you listen, YES!!!
I’ve been calling it “dumping prayer” using the metaphor that the heart is just a container and will be full of trash or glory or whatever you stick in it, so before every session or talk or camp we do, we start with a dumping prayer of repentance and then re-consecration….and it’s changed everything!!!
Excellent…
brotherly,
Bud
Timely message. Thanks!
Great article brother. Love the humor as always. I’m going through “Insurgence” for the second time and wow, I missed so much on the first read. Recommending it to friends.
Sobering … thank you brother.
Dang, Frank. You stirred my spirit and my funny bone.
Thanks for both, they were really needed today.
This blog came at a perfect time for me this week. Praise God!
Thank you for this message. I have been dealing with a dead heart for a while now. It is still beating but that is about all. It has been a process – too long to go into in a comment box. I praise God, though, that He is faithful in wooing the wandering sheep back home. I believe He sent me this article as a place to begin the journey back. Thank you for your honesty and openness – there is too much fluff out there with the title of Christian!!
God Bless you!
As always, a fresh perspective to an ageless truth. Thank you, Frank!
Could you direct me to a thorough description of the heart in scripture? I have heard several definitions
If you look at every reference to the heart in Scripture and you combine them together, it includes these functions: thinking, volition, feelings, the conscience. But one doesn’t need to understand the anatomy of the heart to grasp the point of the article and the instruction at the end.
Another reminder….The apostle said, “Examine yourselves”. Reading your stuff regularly causes me to do that! Thanks.
Wonderful message. Thank you for it!
Excellent! A perfect read for first thing in the morning. Thank you!
Agreed!
Thank you for this excellent article!
Thanks Frank for this article. My heart has been softened this morning by its truth. God bless you and your ministry.