The Bible NETWork ~ Impacting the World for Christ one post at a time!

The key to true Biblical spirituality is found in integration of both heart and mind and it begins with an affirmation of both. This means rejecting a spirituality that is merely sentimental as well as rejecting one that sees emotion as mere self-indulgence and as an end in itself which, as such, isn't focused on God at all. This means rejecting a spirituality that rests in a self-martyr complex (self-pity) rather than in spirituality focused on gratitude to God. This means rejecting cerebralism, rationalism, scholasticism that are not informed by Christian compassion.

How do we arrive at a spirituality in which the heart and the mind sustain, affirm and endorse each other?

It begins with the renewing of our minds. No other religion has given such critical importance to the mind as Christianity. In fact, to be a Christian is to have the ability to think deeply, clearly, soundly. Paul writes in Rom. 12:1, 2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds, then you will be able to test what is good and noble and true.” We are NOT transformed by our own volitional actions or will, but by the grace of God. We choose to change our loyalty from ourselves and the things of this world to God, but it’s God who does the work in us as we respond to his truth and obey it. Our minds must be engaged by his truth and we must act upon it. Paul puts it this way in Col. 3:16: “Let the Word of God dwell in you richly (NIV).”

And so I take you back to the first two steps of this course in spiritual formation. The first focused on knowing God and the second on knowing ourselves. We need to understand the Lord's work in the world and live in light of who God is as well as grasp a correct understanding of ourselves as human beings, God’s creation, made in his image, but caught in the wretchedness of sin from which we cannot extricate ourselves.

If our minds are to be shaped by God and not the world, it means we have to choose what we focus our thoughts on. Paul describes those who are not in Christ as darkened by the way they think while those in Christ are to set their minds on things above (Col. 3:2, 10). We are what we think and, if the mind is the steering wheel of our lives, then we better make sure it’s connected to Christ and dwelling on the things of God. The human mind is conditioned by outside stimuli. It is not self-contained. The mind can only think what we feed into it. Our minds are conditioned whether we are aware of it or not.

Years ago, I did my master’s thesis in journalism on visual literacy. My point was that we should educate people not just on how to understand and correctly read written texts, be they literary, historical or whatever, but that we need to educate people re: how to understand, interpret and think knowledgeably and correctly with information communicated through visual media, with a particular look at semiotics (the study of signs and symbols). It concerned me then and still concerns me today that people’s minds are mindlessly (pun intended!) being formed by visual media.

Media theorist, Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, points out that we don’t think when we watch television or film because we aren’t given time to do so. If you’re reading a book, you can stop, think about what you just read, absorb it, rightly grasp it and then return to reading. But with television and film, the images go by quickly and we don’t have time to rightly assess and interpret them before another image comes and then another and then another. In this manner, we passively allow what we see to form our thoughts, our opinions, our worldviews. Indeed, television creates attitudes and priorities. It is, in fact, one of the most powerful forces in the battle for the mind. Unfortunately, most of what’s on T.V. is unbiblical. In fact, it legitimizes unbiblical behaviour. I think this is especially true with regard to sex. Fornication, adultery and homosexuality are treated as normal, acceptable and right. God is ignored, denied or maligned.

Dallas Willard asserts that "the process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing the destructive and inaccurate, with the images and ideas that filled the mind of Jesus himself." Expounding on that statement, he says, "And so we must apply our thinking to the Word of God. We must thoughtfully take that Word in, dwell upon it, ponder its meaning, explore its implications — especially as it relates to our own lives. We must thoughtfully set it into practice. In doing so, we will be assisted by God’s grace in ways far beyond anything we can understand on our own; and the ideas and images that governed the life of Christ through his thought life will possess us."

To read his article entitled The Transformation of the Mind, go here:

http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=120

It’s important to note that, when it comes to the renewing of the mind, we aren't talking about intellectual and scholarly thought although that may have a place in it. ALL people, regardless of age, intellect or education can know the truth of God and act on it.

I will leave a discussion of the heart for another day.

In speaking about the heart here, I’m speaking about it as the seat of our emotions. Part of our maturation as Christians involves having emotional health. All of us, no matter how happy our childhoods, no matter how blessed by God, sustain damage because we live in a fallen world. That means there have been people who used and abused us somewhere along the line (maybe even in our churches). We have known loss and sorrow, be it through death of a loved one, the bankruptcy of a business or health lost because of disease or accident.

Only when we come to terms with all our joys and sorrows can we come to be all that God wants us to be. That means dealing with the hurts that have scarred us down through the years. One of the best books I have read on the subject is The Sacred Romance by John Eldridge and Brent Curtis. It explains how God can remove the “arrows” that have pierced our hearts and heal them with his great love. I highly recommend it.

Being emotionally strong in Christ shows in the saint who is able to persevere through trials and setbacks and who has the ability to respond to trials with grace, maintaining peace, joy and hope no matter how dire the circumstances.

Some people see emotionalism as a weakness. Women have long been denigrated for displaying their emotions. But emotion is a big part of Scripture and we see spiritual giants expressing it. Men like David express their sorrow and mourn openly and deeply. Take Elijah, for example, who sat on a rock and just wanted to die 9 King 17). Paul got discouraged, too (2 Corinthians). But Paul also shows us his emotional maturity by singing songs of praise to God chained up in prison (Acts 16:25) and writing the most joyful of his epistles (Philippians) while in chains under house arrest in Rome. The book of Job is one long poem of expressed emotion. And we see that, when people grieve or express weariness, they call out to the Lord and he sustains them.

And then there’s Jesus. As a man, he shows anger when dealing with the Pharisees and the buyers and the sellers in the temple. He mourned and shed tears with Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus. And he knew joy! “Let my joy be in you,” he told his followers, “May your joy be complete!” And he assured us that our sorrow could and would be turned to joy some day.

Having had my joy robbed by pain and disability for almost two whole years, I can tell you that being joyless is one horrible way to go through life! But that stage of my life is past. I am now a “though” believer, not an “if” believer. “If” believers are those who say, “If God gives me good health and if God gives me a job that I like and if God gives me a wonderful marriage and a happy family, then I will follow Him.” But “though” believers are those who say, “Though I don’t have good health and though I am unemployed and have no money and though I am unmarried and alone, I will STILL follow the Lord!” “Though” believers are like Habakkuk who wrote, “Though the fig-tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will be joyful in God my Saviour (Habakkuk 3:17,18, NIV).

Which are you? Are you an “if” believer or a “though” believer?

If we are going to be firing on cylinders re: both heart and mind, it’s imperative that we spend time meditating on Scripture. God’s Word is his self-revelation to us. It’s his means of grace to us. It’s his tool for renewing and maturing us. Therefore, we need to develop an appetite for Scripture and feed that appetite well.

Meditation allows the Word to percolate into the deepest parts of us (See John 15:7 and 1 Peter 1:22). Meditation is qualitative rather than quantitative. It takes time and can’t be rushed. It requires quiet and solitude and patience. In our busy lives, it may be hard to find the time, but it’s necessary. Therefore, we need to make the time.

As noted in another thread, Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises provide instruction on how to internalize God’s Word so that it changes us from the inside out. For myself, I found Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Meditations on the Word a great blessing. Bonhoeffer asks the question, “Why do I meditate?” and answers with, “Because I am a Christian.” In other words, meditating is part and parcel of who we are as followers of Christ. “Every day I do not penetrate into the Word of God is a lost day,” he writes. I feel the same way. If a day passes without me getting into a familiar passage and understanding it at a deeper level or finding a new passage that I hadn’t studied before, it’s a bad day! I can actually feel the difference in my heart and mind because nothing satisfies me the way the Word of God does.

Bonhoeffer asks other questions like “What do I want from my meditation?” His answer is “We want to meet Christ in his Word.” And, of course, an encounter with the Lord can’t help but change us so that we get up from our time of meditation different than when we sat down.

“How shall I meditate?” Bonhoeffer asks. His answer is too long to write in its entirety here, but suffice it to say that we spend enough time reading a passage to get the gist of it and then carry it with us through the day, thinking about it, pondering it in our hearts, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to our spirits, clarifying it.

“How do we overcome the problems of meditation?” Bonhoeffer queries. He isolates some of the problems including one that I have trouble with – impatience. I get distracted easily. I want to hear God’s voice NOW. I find it difficult to just sit with the Lord and my Bible without my thoughts straying to the problems of the day. Personally, one thing that helps me is having a meditation buddy, that is, someone who is meditating on the same passage. It’s good to get together and discuss what the Lord is saying to us through it. It also provides accountability re: meditation. If you are working with a friend, you are less likely to skip your daily time of meditation.