Heart Tracks - Cracks And Leaks

"He tells what He has seen and heard, and how few believe what He tells them. Those who believe Him discover that God is true." John 3:32...."For I have passed on to them the words You gave Me." John 17:8...."How sad to get to heaven and learn that the enemy believed His promises over us more than we did." Sheila Walsh

There's a neat little praise chorus with the line, "All Your promises won't let go of me." I wish this was really the case with most of us. More than that, I wish it were so that all of His words to us would not let go. Dare we meditate just a bit on the wonder of what John the Baptist is saying in the above verse? Jesus Christ, whose place is at the right hand of the Father, and who is witness to and partaker of the infinite wonder of the Three and One God, makes known to us that wonder. All of what He has seen and all of what He has heard. And how little of it we believe. How little of it we receive. We grope along with scales over our eyes and veils over our hearts....and remain largely ignorant of all of it. He passes on all the words the Father gave Him for us, and we so easily allow them to pass on through us. They may be memorized in our minds, but their reality so often never reaches our heart.

Walsh's words are chilling. The enemy of our souls know exactly how powerful are His words and promises to us. He has no doubt that if we'll believe and walk in them all he will ever know in relation to us is defeat. Christ has fully defeated him. I've a good friend who says that satan refuses to believe he's defeated, so he fights on. He refuses to accept reality. He can be very skillful in getting us to not accept it as well. And so he attacks the very root of our faith, our trust and confidence in Him. Wherever he can isolate us from Him, deaden our hearts to His voice, close our eyes to His presence, he wins. Where today is he winning with you and me?

Someone has said that if we have never fully trusted in Him, in the truth of His words and promises, the "cracks" in our lives will allow our "strength and confidence" in Him to "leak out." We need to allow His Spirit to search out those cracks, and in His love, seal every one of them. Where are our cracks? Where is His Life leaking out from us? His Word tells us we are sealed in Christ. Only by fully trusting Him can we know the reality of that promise.

Yet it is more than just about His promises, believing them and His words. It is about our knowing Him. Knowing who He is, knowing that when we see and hear Him, we see and hear the Father. Knowing His heart, and then knowing it is also the heart of the Father. Knowing His love not just as a biblical fact, but a personal reality. And in that reality hearing His whisper of life into our life...so that our lives become filled with His life. And we're one...with Him, with the Father, with the Holy Spirit. Than we realize that His words are much more than ink written on a page. They are alive and written upon our hearts.

I read somewhere that when Jesus called Peter to walk out upon the life threatening storm waves, He called him to step out onto the very thing he thought would destroy him. He wanted him to believe that His words were infinitely greater than those waves. He wanted him to believe that His heart connecting with Peter's would never allow Him to sink. Peter wavered in his belief and trust, and began to sink. Where are we wavering today? Where have we begun to sink? Where are we sinking right now? Do we believe His words over us, to us, in us? Have we settled the question as to whether He is true? Or, are the "waves" more real to us than He is? Do the cracks and leaks in our spiritual lives make us blind to Him....and only aware of the storms and waves?

Blessings,
Pastor O