Speaking of getting to the heart of the matter, I find the teachings of Jesus profound, challenging and yet amazingly simple. He often makes what my father would call, “Astute observations of the obvious.” He points out things about we humans that are simple and obvious things that somehow escape our attention and/or understanding. Here is an example.
"The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:44-45)
Who one is: one’s values, beliefs, understanding of life, worldview, is what produces his or her actions. Our thoughts, our beliefs, our hearts, are what motivates us to action. It is what my father often accused me of having a bad one: attitude.
As the church and the government seek to deal with present-day social ills, we generally fail because we fail to address the symptoms. Much like in counseling, surface problems are easier to see and easier to address. But such an approach rarely solves problems.
Problems most concerning to Americans are drug abuse, crime and the decline of values. In a recent survey, 76% Americans believe the United States is in a moral and spiritual decline. Why is that? Probably because it is true. How did that happen? It is much deeper than taking and the 10 Commandments and prayer out of our schools and replaced them with situation ethics and condoms. Those are important, but they are just symptoms. Our problem is much deeper. We, of the church, love to rail against the school system, but where is the Church of Jesus Christ in all of this? There is no Supreme Court ruling banning prayer and moral education in the home.
We wonder why things aren't going well. Our society has tried to ignore the moral side of life and believe we won't go down the tubes. We have proven to be naive and poor students of history and human nature. I believe it springs from my generation’s and following generations’ unfounded arrogance. We seem to believe all rational and meaningful thought originated with us. Those who came before us were thinking and acting in intellectual and moral darkness.
Our age of moral relativism teaches that moral choices of right and wrong are reduced to matters of personal taste, emotional preference or cultural choices. It reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen’s children’s story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Most of our educational system, founded in Secular Humanism, has sought to debunk previous moral and religious values and insinuated that anyone who doesn’t agree with the educators is just stupid. And who wants to be seen as stupid? I know because I served over 21 years of my life in the educational system getting diplomas and degrees. And since I didn’t buy that crap, I felt pretty stupid most of the time.
Society is in disarray and putting a band-aid on it or giving it an aspirin won't get the job done. Symptoms come to alert us of sickness. Treating the symptoms will not cure the illness. Programs like condom distribution to teenagers and hypodermic distribution to drug abusers treat the symptoms, not the sickness. To solve the problems we have, ignorantly caused, we must go deeper and find the heart of the matter. And they are matters of the heart, just as Jesus so clearly taught us.
Peggy Noonan, author and speechwriter for President Ronald Regan, said, "Character building is mostly a matter of private quests and private struggles." The government is not the problem and does not have the solution. A recent NEWSWEEK article on Virtue ended by saying, "In the end, it's not the laws we pass but the lives we lead." Who we are dictates what we do. It is from the inside out. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter. What we do comes from the heart. Jesus put it this way: “You offspring of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil (wicked)? For out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34 (AMP))
We bear fruit consistent with who we are, what we basically are. Apple trees don't strain to produce apples. It is their natural function. We produce the fruit of the spirit (peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control) not by effort, but by being filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Jesus said, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.” What is stored up in your heart? And we are not finished. What are you in the process of storing up in your heart each day? What are your children storing up in their hearts? What are you bringing to your children's hearts?
What goes in is what comes out. If you want to know what is in a person's heart, listen to what they say and watch what they do. As Jesus so wisely said, your mouth provides an X-ray of your heart.
Luke 6:46 "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" God is not nearly as naive and ignorant as we would like to believe. Jesus asks a question that cuts to the heart of the matter. It is a question we ask each other on a daily basis. If you care, why do you do what you do or not do what you need to do? He is saying, "Put your money where your mouth is."
How harshly based in reality is this statement: He is saying, "Seeing is believing." God has shown us His love and plan for our lives through Jesus. We can believe in Him because He has already shown himself and his love to us. Can he believe in us? Garrison Keillor, writing of one of his characters said, “Nora is a well-educated woman and no longer believes in God. Fortunately for Nora, God still believes in her.”
My Dad used to ask, "What do you have to say for yourself?" All of us have asked our children, "What are you doing?" Often, they don't seem to really know. Bill Cosby tells of coming home and finding his son sporting a reverse Mohawk haircut. When he asked his son how that happened, his response was, “I don’t know.” Cosby if he had had his head with him all day. Stop, look and think about what you are doing. Is it consistent with who you want to be and how you want to be living your life?
As Jesus is teaching He says: "He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built." (Luke 6:48) Jesus always got down to basics – the heart of the matter. He talked little about rules and much about attitudes. He knew many things came together to produce our behavior. Solid foundations produce solid lives – solid people. Poor foundations make for easily destroyed lives.
How is your heart? Take a look at your heart. Listen to it. Listen to what comes out of your mouth. Give it a stress test. Take an X-ray. If a change is needed, go to the heart of the matter. Don't waste your time trying to change behavior or putting out the immoral fires flaring up in your life. You are treating symptoms. Cut to the heart of the matter. God, speaking through the prophet tells us: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 11:19 (NIV))
Go to the heart of the matter and ask God for a new heart and start building your life on the foundation of the Word of God.
Copyright © 2018, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
Bill McConnell is the Interim Minister at Norwood Christian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a Church Transformation consultant and a Christian Leadership Coach. He is a frequent speaker at Church Transformation events. His latest book on church transformation is DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANT CHURCH and is available at Westbow Press.
He can be contacted @ bill45053@gmail.com. Connect with him on Facebook @ William T. McConnell or on Twitter @billmc45053 or visit his Amazon Author Page @ Amazon
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