I stand at the door and knock… Revelation 3:20
There is an imaginary line that runs through the middle of our hearts. On one side of the line, we find “yes,” and on the other side of the line we find “no.” This heart represents your inner self and mine. Each of us have places in our hearts where we have said “yes” to Jesus. And each of us have places in our hearts where we have not yet said “yes” to Jesus.
There are two main ways to live the Christian life. Both have some validity. We can live on the “yes” side. Or we can take Jesus to the “no” side.
The first way—living on the “yes” side—is comparatively easy. Here we build on what we have already agreed to with Jesus. Here we say, “Sin is bad. I don’t want to sin. I want to worship God. I want to do what’s right. I want to please God. I will avoid temptations.” And so on.
The only problem with this is that we have a whole other side of our heart that is saying things that are very much the opposite. And, since we can’t cut ourselves in half and throw away the bad half, we are stuck living with it. That creates a problem.
That’s why we need the second way to live the Christian life. We need to find the part of our hearts that is saying “no” to Jesus and bring Jesus into that part of our lives. This is not so easy. Most of us would rather face a firing squad than get honest with ourselves. It’s scary, and we don’t like being scared. It’s humbling. But, when we do it, when Jesus comes into those darkened places in our hearts, it is life changing. It is transformational.
That’s why God invests a great deal of time and energy getting each of us to the place where we are willing to “go there” with Him. We must find those “no’s”—those refusals—and ask ourselves why. Why are we saying “no” to Jesus? That’s what God needs to get at. The reason why. Behind each reason is a lie. It’s when we bring those reasons to God that He is able to reason with us, and bring to us the life-giving truth that melts away the disabling lies we believe.
Dwight
PS. What is spiritual maturity? I pondered over this for a long time, and then I asked the Lord. The answer I got was surprisingly simple, yet it changes everything. That’s our Inner Wealth topic on 7/27/2019.
