Happy Aloha Friday! Aren’t Fridays great? I often wonder why Fridays feel so great. I know it leads into the weekend but Saturday is the weekend and I don’t think Saturdays feel as good as Fridays. Maybe it’s the anticipation thing. Knowing that a few days off are coming your way. Also a lot of people get paid on Fridays so maybe the anticipation built in with the compensation aspect take it to the next level. Pretty fascinating though, tons of studies have been done on the D.O.W., ‘day of the week’ effect. Good ol’ google can enlighten you, check it out.
Well, we all knew it was coming…here comes the cold weather. I see that the chance of the first freeze is this Tuesday with a low of 29. It’s been awhile since I’ve experienced this kind of cold. In fact, Margie and I still didn’t have any winter coats until this week. We’re at Costco gawking at coats like Eskimos probably look at surfboards..ha! But the cold can be good, we had our first fire in the new place this week. Oh, the joys of a warm, crackling fire. (is it just me or can you stare at the beauty of flames forever?)
This morning we run into chapter 7 in 2 Corinthians. In this chapter you can just feel Paul’s emotions ooze out onto the pages. When I think of Paul I think of a Jekyll and Hyde kinda guy. Before his encounter with Christ he was just…well, a pretty dang mean guy. Angry, self-righteous and down-right violent and murderous towards Christians. But after His encounter with Christ, well, he was changed. He became a “new creature” (2 Cor 5:17) as we all do when Christ moves in and remodels this tent.
Throughout Paul’s letters we get to witness this conversion. Not many chapters reveal this as much as our chapter today. As I read through it several times this morning, the outflow of emotion strikes me. The words of emotion flow with abundance. Listen to these phrases from Paul in 2 Cor 7:
“you are in my heart, I have great pride in you, I am filled with comfort, I am overflowing with joy, I rejoiced still more, God comforted us, my affection for you is even greater, I rejoice, I am comforted, I rejoice because of my complete confidence in you.”
This is an emotional guy. Paul’s heart soared when God was glorified and it broke into pieces when he saw God disgraced. I think when we encounter Christ and are made to be more like Him, we become much more emotional. As our hearts become more like Jesus, they become more fragile for the need of the world to hear the Gospel. Before Christ, Paul had a hard heart, after it was tender. I heard a Pastor use the term ‘calloused heart’ the other day and he did what all great teachers of God’s Word do, he made it real and practical.
If I needed to do a lot of digging in my yard I would start off with soft hands. But after a week of digging my hands would develop callouses to deal with the prolonged friction and wear that I was demanding of them. The callouses build and build over time. They cause me to feel less. They cause me to not fully experience the touch that I could before. I am now distanced from the feel. If we are not walking closely with Christ, spending daily time in His Word, our hearts can become calloused. We may see something in our lives that causes the Holy Spirit to move inside of us. Prompt us to take action. If we deny the Spirit and choose our own way it starts a callous. We feel a little less the next time the Spirit prompts. The same thing happens again and again when we choose our own way. The callous continues to grow and just like holding that shovel after a week of digging, the callouses are thick and hard. Our hearts can become so callous that we no longer feel the Spirit. So, if you find yourself with a calloused heart, what do you do?
I think back to when Margie dragged me to one of those nail places for my first pedicure. The back part of my heels had formed callouses and became really rough from all the walking. The lady took this crazy metal file and started sanding on my foot! I almost took off running, I’ve seen what a file can do to metal..ha! When she was done it was amazing. (by the way, I realize why you ladies love this so much now) After she was done my heels were soft and smooth, the hardness was gone. You see there had to be an action take place. There needed to be friction that removed the rough skin to reveal the soft, smooth new skin underneath. The tender, fresh skin was always there but it needed something and someone to transform it.
My friends, that someone in our lives is Jesus Christ and that something is God’s Word.
Jesus want us to have a smooth, soft, callous free heart. God’s Word is the file that can renew and refresh your heart daily. You see, God desires us to be emotional in this world. To be sensitive to the hurts, needs and pain of this lost world. There has never been a more soft, tender heart than that of Jesus Christ. He came to Earth, the Son of God and died for a sinful, arrogant, hard-hearted people. He lived a perfect life of love but died for those that denied him. Oh, how I long for a heart like that.
I’m so thankful to see the image of Paul’s heart today. A tender, emotional, human heart that breaks and then rejoices as he sees God move in His people. I pray today that those that have developed callouses towards God and this world will be softened. That the Word of God will remove the hardness and allow them to feel. Christ came and died for all and we should love all and serve all. Our hearts should be tender for all in this world.
My friends, the world is full of people that need to hear about the love of Jesus. I pray your heart is tender in the sharing of that gospel today.
May God guide your steps today according to His Holy and righteous Word.
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