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Heart - the Alpha and Omega of Spirituality
Rob Crickett, Vic., Australia
The personalness of God is the wonderfulness of God. It is in my own heart that I meet the personalness of God, and so know Him as my Father. I don't know what it is about my heart that it alone lets me see God, and know Him as my Father. Perhaps it is that heart is the seat of my own personalness and vision. Perhaps it is that heart is simply the place wherein God meets me, and his personalness and wonderfulness gently enlightens me into a son-like personalness that I can envision. Whatever and however, it is wonderful. And the wonderfulness is the why of it all.
I think that the human heart is an extraordinary creation. It seems to be so touchingly personal a thing in each of us. It seems to be so responsive a thing, as to be able to embody and reflect the very image of God, the very wisdom of His perspective, the very peace of His assurance, the very stature of His magnificence, the very faith that is His faith.
Heart seems to be the alpha and the omega of spirituality. Truly it is precious in each of us. A preciousness which is sacred for its being the meeting place in each of us wherein the personalness and wonderfulness of God, our Father, reveals itself; holy (set aside) and mysterious, in a way that such personal and secret revelation between a Father and child seeds, sprouts, blossoms and flowers our uniqueness into domains which no other eye might ever glimpse.
It is a shame that so much time and energy is devoted to judging this precious creation and its works. The empty-hearted look to the full-hearted and cast intrusive objections; as if good-heartedness, joyful-heartedness, glad-heartedness, worshipful-heartedness, love-filled-heartedness, innocent and child-like-heartedness were somehow capable of striking mortal blows more deadly than a cobra against the empty-hearted.
It was at a recent Christian revival meeting in Melbourne, hosted by Ken and Gloria Copeland, Jerry Savelle and Jesse Duplantis from Texas and Louisiana, that I encountered wholly new dimensions of heart. My heart's experience of the personalness and wonderfulness of my Father found fresh new building materials we could both use in our working relationship together.
Revival meetings provide great opportunity for judgment by the empty-hearted. Being born again is judged! Giving your heart to Jesus is judged! Making Jesus the Lord over your life's every detail is judged! Being baptized in the Holy ghost and fire, and speaking in tongues, is judged! Rejoicing in worshipful praise of God is judged! Raising your hands up in the air while you pray, and worship, and fellowship, is judged! Giving money like endlessly bucketing water out of the river Jordan is judged! Healing the sick, the lame, the blind, the deaf, the broken-hearted, is judged! Treating promises accredited to God as literal, trustworthy and reliable, is judged! Saying things like Praise God, and Glory to God, and Amen, and Halleluiah, is judged! Being a good Samaritan, like it's built into your lifestyle, is judged! Dialoguing with God is judged! Laughing uncontrollably until you're paralytic drunk in spirit is judged! Prophesying is judged! Claiming things that are not - to be different - is judged! Taking life seriously enough to believe in and act on the life and teachings of Jesus, and the covenant of the parent-child relationship between God and man, is judged! And so on, and so on.
Revival meetings provide a seventh heaven for any serious sceptic - there's just so much to judge in them. Such judgment, however, would be meaningful and worthy of respect were it not for one simple thing - inexperience.
Invariably, unconverted critics are evaluating the converted. Instead of participating fully with their heart's experience, and then, having tasted their own heart's experience, coming to their own conclusion. Rather, they are holding their heart in check while their intellect calculates its appropriate response - invariably an appropriate response whose appropriateness is neither personal nor wonderful, but simply safe.
That's like the Greek judging the Italian, through Greek eyes, for the Italian's experience of speaking Italian. Not only does the Greek lack experiential empathy with the Italian's experience of speech, but the construction of his Greek criticisms are in his own language of Greek. There is no bridge between the accuser and the accused, neither in empathy nor terminology: and that's a very Herodian trial.
True evaluation can only ever arise from a heart which knows its own heartfelt experience of the matter in question. If this is not true, perennially valid from here all the way to Paradise and back, then Jesus' life was a meaningless charade in the personal experience of Michael.
As a result of fully participating with the hearts of Ken and Gloria, and Jerry and Jesse, as they shared their hearts' working relationship with God's heart, my heart has shown me very personal and wonderful dimensions of Jesus' words:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matt. 7:1-2)
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