Our Actions Reveal Our Hearts

Gared sent me this cartoon yesterday morning and it made me laugh … and then think. That’s why I love Calvin and Hobbs!

Hobbs, the tiger, is echoing Jesus. Our actions reveal our hearts. In the Sermon on the Mount, He didn’t impose the 10 Commandments as a way to force us into obedience. Instead, He took them deeper. When talking about lust, generosity, and prayer, He was trying to shape us from the inside. His goal is to create a community that finds murder unimaginable because we’ve learned to love our enemies and to pray for them. In a community like that, even speaking evil words, or spreading negative comments, becomes a violation of that sacred trust.

We see the same thing at the end of Philippians.

I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life. - Philippians 4:2-3

When Paul begs these two women to stop fighting, it isn’t because they’re breaking the “Don’t fight in Church rule“. It’s because they are shattering the fabric of trust and relationship within the community of Christ. Their hearts are not being conformed to the heart of Christ. Their minds are not being renewed like the mind of Jesus. The fruit or evidence of that lack of transformation is their quarrel.

As we analyze our own actions and think through our own habits, the goal isn’t to force ourselves into greater obedience and productivity for the kingdom. The goal is to have hearts and minds transformed by the spirit of the living Christ.

As we continue to read through the Bible, and as our church focuses on discipleship, may that be our goal.

With You;

Pastor Tim