A Clue to Your Own Heart

9/22/2007

Tamara: Maybe this is a case of someone not being able to say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Spirit. But I had most recently conversations with someone, and they just can’t give God the credit for good things. They always want to say, “Well, you’re such a good mother,” or “Your children are so sweet,” or “Your friends are so nice.” And you try to say...

Mark: She doesn’t know us, does she? [laughter in the room]

Tamara: And it’s like the craziest thing!

Mark: “I know them a lot better than you!” [more laughter]

Tamara: She just won’t! I want to say, “Do you realize you just can’t say, yeah, God’s really good? You just can’t say it.” I haven’t said anything quite that direct. I just kind of say, “You must have misunderstood everything. I wasn’t fishing for compliments.”

Mark: You know it’s such a cliché, and a lot of people have been hardened to that cliché: “Oh, give God the glory. God did it, not me.” What they really mean is, “I did it, but I’m going to pretend God did it.” People have been hardened by all these stupid clichés that are self-serving, self-aggrandizing, hyper-religious comments about “Oh, give God the glory. God did it, not me.” But they don’t mean that. Their life doesn’t really demonstrate they really believe that. There’s not a true humility there. Because so many phrases that are true have been abused by the religious world, sometimes it is a little bit hard to break through. But just being real with him or her is sometimes the best thing. It doesn’t have to be in the middle of that conversation. It can be, “You know, I’ve been giving it some thought, and it seems like every time this comes up, I really mean that, and you really hate that. Can you explain to me why it’s so hard for you to give God credit...or to let me give God credit? You have to say something back every time. You have energy to try to steal God’s glory from Him and make it something so horizontal. Would you say that to Lazarus, too? ‘Raised from the dead! Oh well, you would have done that yourself.’ No, God really does do things. Honest!”

It’s a side conversation where you can just zero right in on that one topic. And that might be more effective than trying to get into it while you’re in the middle of a situation. Just say, “I’ve been thinking about this pattern that keeps coming up, and this seems to be a really sore spot for you. And you might find some key to your own heart and potentially find Jesus in your own life if this is any clue. If every time I said the word ‘food’ your eyes got really big, well I’d say there’s some issue, some obsession you have with food, that seems to be a pattern here. And the same seems to be true with giving God the credit. Perhaps you’ve got a lot of pride in your life or fear or something that’s a barrier between you and God. Because this pattern keeps coming up. Ring the bell and you salivate. Give God credit and you freak. You can’t handle that. So if I were you, and I wanted to go to heaven and not hell, and I wanted to know Jesus and be His friend and not His enemy, I would use this as a clue as to what might be hardening your own heart towards Him. Because you can’t stand it when I do that. So, this is for your benefit not mine. I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m just trying to give you a clue to help you find God, because you haven’t yet, and this might be one reason why. Because this really irks you. Lazarus could not raise himself. God does do stuff. Apart from Him, you can do nothing.” Even read the first half of John 15 with them. “These words are true. Like it or not, they’re true. It’s your pride or your fear that’s keeping you from believing these things and keeping you from finding Jesus, so if I were you, I’d use this as a clue for understanding you own evil heart. Next topic.”

Tamara: It’s like when you were talking about you don’t explain why catholicism is wrong to somebody, thinking it’s really going to help them...I keep wondering, how could people watch that Luther movie and want to stay catholic? How can you show them how ridiculous all the things they do are, and they still love it? I was thinking when you were saying nobody ever told you why ashes on your head was a silly thing to do, nobody ever really went through all the false things I believed either. I just saw people that loved Jesus and I thought, can you really do that? You can really love God, really, and not just do a bunch of stuff your supposed to. And it was really attractive to me. It’s scandalous, eventually, but scandals draw the line…