You Gotta Have Heart!

Romans 10:10 Paul writes, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

The other day, my son wanted to see what a real human heart looked like. So we went online and looked it up. He was pretty grossed out. The human heart isn’t very attractive. God often prefers function over form. Jesus said that it was out of the heart that all kinds of evil come. He also said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The heart of the matter is your heart.

Paul is writing about righteousness. There were still some people who thought that they needed to depend on their own works, their own merit, their own goodness to be justified, saved or forgiven. I’m so glad that we aren’t like that anymore. (please read that with a whole lot of tongue-in-cheek) Paul said that belief is in the heart, not the head and not the strength. Well, the heart is something that we have very little, if any, control over. It functions on its own most of the time. There are those whose heart needs some help, but mostly it just goes on beating. Paul is not talking about the physical heart, but that which is deep down in the very core of your being.

On our own, left to our own devices, our hearts are dark and dingy places. There’s not much there. There is certainly no belief in Jesus in a heart left in the dark. Paul talks a lot about how the Holy Spirit gets into our hearts and brings light to the dark places. John talks about that too. Paul goes on in Romans 10 to talk about believing coming from hearing and hearing coming from speaking. Someone needs to speak the words so that someone else can hear them so that the heart can believe them.

The one that is active in all of that is the Holy Spirit. He’s the one who creates and sustains faith. The Holy Spirit prompts the mouth to speak and even, according to Jesus, teaches the mouth what to say. Then, through the words spoken, the Holy Spirit guides them into the ears and down into the heart where He once again creates faith. And it’s through that faith that clings to Jesus justification comes.

That’s a lot of work for the heart. How has the Holy Spirit been giving your heart a work out?

Heavenly Father, you prefer function over form. Stir up in our hearts the gifts of faith and belief through your Holy Spirit. Then, open our mouths to speak the words that the Holy Spirit can use to create faith in someone’s heart. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Abnormal

(previously published at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, West Des Moines, Iowa)

Ezekiel 36:26 “And I [the Lord] will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

You’ve all heard of Frankenstein, right? My favorite version of the story comes from the movie “Young Frankenstein.” Ok, so it’s not the most true to the story, but it’s funny. I always crack up when Gene Wilder asks “Igor” where he got the brain for his creation. It came from a jar that was marked “Abby Normal.” This brain caused all sorts of crazy things to happen for the monster, including singing and dancing. The brain was not normal, it was abnormal.

According to the world, you and I are “Ab Normal.” Ezekiel was proclaiming the word of God and He was saying the same thing. The world considered the Hebrews normal at this point. But it was because they had gone against everything the Lord had commanded and blended into the world around them. They worshipped the world’s idols and followed their customs and gone as far as to use the Lord’s name profanely. They were a lost cause, but normal according to the world.

So the Lord said that He wasn’t going to stand for it anymore. He wasn’t going to allow His people to become permanent fixtures of the world. He had every right to completely wipe them off the face of the planet, to scrap the project as it were. But that’s not what He does. He promises to deliver His people from their sin. Rather than let them die in it, He brings them out of it. He promises to make them “Ab Normal.” He’s going to go all Dr. Frankenstein on them and remove the old, dead organs and give them new ones. They won’t be normal any more. That stony heart, gone! In its place, a replacement heart from God Himself.

Now, it is we who are abnormal. A king born in a stable was abnormal. A man claiming to be God was abnormal. An innocent man dying for the sins of the world was abnormal. A dead man rising again and entering rooms despite locked doors was abnormal. It is because of what Jesus did that we are made abnormal. God shows us mercy when what we deserve is death. That is abnormal. None of this makes sense to a “normal” world. The children of God no longer fit in. We do not have hearts of stone, but hearts of flesh. We do not have worldly spirits, but are filled with the Holy Spirit. We are cleansed from sin and given new life.

When someone says to you, which I have heard all my life, “you’re really weird,” our response is along the lines of “thank you, but I prefer abnormal.” Being different is fantastic. Being abnormal is tremendous. And one day, when Jesus calls me home, I’ll be perfectly abnormal.

Father, forgive us for sometimes wishing we were normal. There are days when it would be easier to blend in. But you graciously rescued us from a life of normalcy. You replaced the old parts with new life. You forgave us when you could have squashed us. Thank you for you mercy and for making us abnormal. Through your Holy Spirit, may we always stick out like sore thumbs for everyone to see. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Epiphany

Matthew 2:10 When they (the Magi) saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.

^{From Isaiah 60}

¹ "Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

² See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

³ Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

¹⁹ The sun will no more be your light by day,
nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.

²⁰ Your sun will never set again,
and your moon will wane no more;
the LORD will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end.

God shines in the little Jesus.

God shines in the bright star.

Rejoice exceedingly

Tears of joy

Laughter spilling out of your smile

Great joy

Happiness like nothing else

God shines in the little Jesus.

God shines in the bright star.

May the bright Son of God shine on you, in you and through you and may your smile be unable to contain the joy and laughter. May it spill out into every conversation, every meeting, every hug, so that all may know who it is that shines in you. Amen.