1. God loves to decorate. God has to decorate. Let Him live long enough in a heart, and that heart will begin to change. Portraits of hurt will be replaced by landscapes of grace. Walls of anger will be demolished and shaky foundations restored. God can no more leave a life unchanged than a mother can leave her child’s tear untouched. It’s not enough for Him to own you; He wants to change you.
2. This might explain some of the discomfort in your life. Remodeling of the heart is not always pleasant. We don’t object when the Carpenter adds a few shelves, but He’s been known to gut the entire west wing. He has such high aspirations for you. God envisions a complete restoration. He won’t stop until He is finished. And He won’t be finished until we have been shaped “along the…lines…of His Son” (Rom. 8:29 MSG).
Your Creator is remaking you into the image of Christ. He wants you to be just like Jesus. This is the desire of God.
ONE: A HEART LIKE HIS
1. What if, for one day, Jesus were to become you? Would you still do what you had planned to do for the next twenty-four hours? Pause and think about your schedule. Obligations. Engagements. Outings. Appointments. With Jesus taking over your heart, would anything change? Keep working on this for a moment. Adjust the lens of your imagination until you have a clear picture of Jesus leading your life, then snap the shutter and frame the image. What you see is what God wants. He wants you to “think and act like Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).
1. What if, for one day, Jesus were to become you? Would you still do what you had planned to do for the next twenty-four hours? Pause and think about your schedule. Obligations. Engagements. Outings. Appointments. With Jesus taking over your heart, would anything change? Keep working on this for a moment. Adjust the lens of your imagination until you have a clear picture of Jesus leading your life, then snap the shutter and frame the image. What you see is what God wants. He wants you to “think and act like Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).
“But you were taught to be made new in your hearts, to become a new person. That new person is made to be like God—made to be truly good and holy” (Eph. 4:23–24).
God wants you to be just like Jesus. He wants you to have a heart like His. God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.
2. The crowning attribute of Christ was this: His heart was spiritual. His thoughts reflected His intimate relationship with the Father. “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me,” He stated (John 14:11). His first recorded sermon begins with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me” (Luke 4:18 NASB).
3. If you are in Christ, you already have the heart of Christ. One of the supreme yet unrealized promises of God is simply this: if you have given your life to Jesus, Jesus has given Himself to you. He has made your heart His home. It would be hard to say it more succinctly than Paul does: “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20 MSG). He has moved in and unpacked His bags and is ready to change you “into His likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18 RSV). Paul explains it with these words: “Strange as it seems, we Christians actually do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16 TLB).
3. If you are in Christ, you already have the heart of Christ. One of the supreme yet unrealized promises of God is simply this: if you have given your life to Jesus, Jesus has given Himself to you. He has made your heart His home. It would be hard to say it more succinctly than Paul does: “Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20 MSG). He has moved in and unpacked His bags and is ready to change you “into His likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18 RSV). Paul explains it with these words: “Strange as it seems, we Christians actually do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16 TLB).
What would happen if we left the light on?What would happen if we not only flipped the switch but lived in the light? What changes would occur if we set about the task of dwelling in the radiance of Christ?
TWO: LOVING THE PEOPLE YOU ARE STUCK WITH
(A FORGIVING HEART)
1. Attacks of stuckititis are limited to people who breathe and typically occur somewhere between birth and death. Stuckititis manifests itself in irritability, short fuses, and a mountain range of molehills. The common symptom of stuckititis victims is the repetition of questions beginning with who, what, and why. Who is this person? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I listen to my mother? This prestigious manual identifies three ways to cope with stuckititis: flee, fight, or forgive.
2. Behold the gift Jesus gives His followers! He knows what these men are about to do. He knows they are about to perform the vilest act of their lives. By morning they will bury their heads in shame and look down at their feet in disgust. And when they do, He wants them to remember how His knees knelt before them and He washed their feet. He wants them to realize those feet are still clean. “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later” (John 13:7). Remarkable. He forgave their sin before they even committed it. He offered mercy before they even sought it.
3. Oh, I could never do that, you object. The hurt is so deep. The wounds are so numerous. Just seeing the person causes me to cringe. Perhaps that is your problem. Perhaps you are seeing the wrong person or at least too much of the wrong person. Remember, the secret of being just like Jesus is “fixing our eyes” on Him. Try shifting your glance away from the one who hurt you and setting your eyes on the One who has saved you. Note the promise of John, “But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin” (1 John 1:7).
4. Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, He reaches out in kindness and says, “I can clean that if you want”. And from the basin of His grace, He scoops a palm full of mercy and washes away our sin. But that’s not all He does. Because He lives in us, you and I can do the same. Because He has forgiven us, we can forgive others. Because He has a forgiving heart, we can have a forgiving heart. We can have a heart like His.
THREE: THE TOUCH OF GOD
(A COMPASSIONATE HEART)
1. Oh, the power of our hands. Leave them unmanaged and they become weapons: clawing for power, strangling for survival, seducing for pleasure. But manage them and our hands become instruments of grace—not just tools in the hands of God, but God’s very hands. Surrender them and these five-fingered appendages become the hands of heaven.
2. The touch did not heal the disease, you know. Matthew is careful to mention that it was the pronouncement and not the touch of Christ that cured the condition. “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, ‘I will. Be healed!’ And immediately the man was healed from his disease” (Matt. 8:3). The infection was banished by a word from Jesus. The loneliness, however, was treated by a touch from Jesus.
3. Many of you already do. Some of you have the master touch of the Physician Himself. You use your hands to pray over the sick and minister to the weak. If you aren’t touching them personally, your hands are writing letters, dialing phones, baking pies. You have learned the power of a touch. But others of us tend to forget. Our hearts are good; it’s just that our memories are bad. We forget how significant one touch can be.
(A FORGIVING HEART)
1. Attacks of stuckititis are limited to people who breathe and typically occur somewhere between birth and death. Stuckititis manifests itself in irritability, short fuses, and a mountain range of molehills. The common symptom of stuckititis victims is the repetition of questions beginning with who, what, and why. Who is this person? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I listen to my mother? This prestigious manual identifies three ways to cope with stuckititis: flee, fight, or forgive.
2. Behold the gift Jesus gives His followers! He knows what these men are about to do. He knows they are about to perform the vilest act of their lives. By morning they will bury their heads in shame and look down at their feet in disgust. And when they do, He wants them to remember how His knees knelt before them and He washed their feet. He wants them to realize those feet are still clean. “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but you will understand later” (John 13:7). Remarkable. He forgave their sin before they even committed it. He offered mercy before they even sought it.
3. Oh, I could never do that, you object. The hurt is so deep. The wounds are so numerous. Just seeing the person causes me to cringe. Perhaps that is your problem. Perhaps you are seeing the wrong person or at least too much of the wrong person. Remember, the secret of being just like Jesus is “fixing our eyes” on Him. Try shifting your glance away from the one who hurt you and setting your eyes on the One who has saved you. Note the promise of John, “But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin” (1 John 1:7).
4. Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, He reaches out in kindness and says, “I can clean that if you want”. And from the basin of His grace, He scoops a palm full of mercy and washes away our sin. But that’s not all He does. Because He lives in us, you and I can do the same. Because He has forgiven us, we can forgive others. Because He has a forgiving heart, we can have a forgiving heart. We can have a heart like His.
“If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash each other’s feet. I did this as an example so that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14–15).
5. Jesus washes our feet for two reasons. The first is to give us mercy; the second is to give us a message, and that message is simply this: Jesus offers unconditional grace; we are to offer unconditional grace. The mercy of Christ preceded our mistakes; our mercy must precede the mistakes of others. Those in the circle of Christ had no doubt of His love; those in our circles should have no doubts about ours. Relationships don’t thrive because the guilty are punished but because the innocent are merciful.
"Since you have been chosen by God who has given you this new kind of life, and because of His deep love and concern for you, you should practice tenderhearted mercy and kindness to others" (Colossians 3:12 TLB)
THREE: THE TOUCH OF GOD
(A COMPASSIONATE HEART)
1. Oh, the power of our hands. Leave them unmanaged and they become weapons: clawing for power, strangling for survival, seducing for pleasure. But manage them and our hands become instruments of grace—not just tools in the hands of God, but God’s very hands. Surrender them and these five-fingered appendages become the hands of heaven.
2. The touch did not heal the disease, you know. Matthew is careful to mention that it was the pronouncement and not the touch of Christ that cured the condition. “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, ‘I will. Be healed!’ And immediately the man was healed from his disease” (Matt. 8:3). The infection was banished by a word from Jesus. The loneliness, however, was treated by a touch from Jesus.
3. Many of you already do. Some of you have the master touch of the Physician Himself. You use your hands to pray over the sick and minister to the weak. If you aren’t touching them personally, your hands are writing letters, dialing phones, baking pies. You have learned the power of a touch. But others of us tend to forget. Our hearts are good; it’s just that our memories are bad. We forget how significant one touch can be.
Jesus touched the untouchables of the world. Will you do the same?
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like" (James 1:22–24 NIV).
FOUR: HEARING GOD'S MUSIC
(A LISTENING HEART)
1. “Let he who has ears to hear, use them”. More than once Jesus said these words. Eight times in the Gospels and eight times in the Book of Revelation we are reminded that it’s not enough just to have ears—it’s necessary to use them. In one of His parables Jesus compared our ears to soil. He told about a farmer who scattered seed (symbolic of the Word) in four different types of ground (symbolic of our ears). Some of our ears are like a hard road—unreceptive to the seed. Others have ears like rocky soil—we hear the Word but don’t allow it to take root. Still others have ears akin to a weed patch—too overgrown, too thorny, with too much competition for the seed to have a chance. And then there are some who have ears that hear: well tilled, discriminate, and ready to hear God’s voice.
2. “Let he who has ears to hear, use them”. How long has it been since you had your hearing checked? When God throws seed your way, what is the result? How long has it been since you let God have you? How long since you gave Him a portion of undiluted, uninterrupted time listening for His voice? Apparently Jesus did. He made a deliberate effort to spend time with God. Spend much time reading about the listening life of Jesus and a distinct pattern emerges. He spent regular time with God, praying and listening. Mark says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed” (Mark 1:35 NIV). Luke tells us, “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16 NIV).
3. If we are to be just like Jesus—if we are to have ears that hear God’s voice—then we have just found two habits worth imitating: the habits of prayer and Bible reading. Consider these verses: "Base your happiness on your hope in Christ. When trials come endure them patiently; steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer" (Rom. 12:12 Phillips).
If we are to be just like Jesus, we must have a regular time of talking to God and listening to His Word.
4. Listening to God is a firsthand experience. When He asks for your attention, God doesn’t want you to send a substitute; He wants you. He invites you to vacation in His splendor. He invites you to feel the touch of His hand. He invites you to feast at His table. He wants to spend time with you. And with a little training, your time with God can be the highlight of your day.5. Equipped with the right tools, we can learn to listen to God. What are those tools?
• A regular time and place
Select a slot on your schedule and a corner of your world, and claim it for God.
• An open Bible
Before reading the Bible, pray. Don’t go to Scripture looking for your own idea; go searching for God’s. Read the Bible prayerfully. Also, read the Bible carefully. Jesus told us, “Search, and you will find” (Matt. 7:7).
• A listening heart
Don’t forget the admonition from James: “The man who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of so doing, is not the man who hears and forgets. He puts that law into practice and he wins true happiness” (James 1:25 Phillips).
We know we are listening to God when what we read in the Bible is what others see in our lives.
FIVE: BEING LED BY UNSEEN HAND
(A GOD-INTOXICATED HEART)
It’s a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.
1. 2 Corinthians 6:1: We are “God’s fellow workers” (NIV). Fellow workers? Colaborers? God and I work together? Imagine the paradigm shift this truth creates. Rather than report to God, we work with God. Rather than check in with Him and then leave, we check in with Him and then follow. We are always in the presence of God. We never leave church. There is never a nonsacred moment! His presence never diminishes. Our awareness of His presence may falter, but the reality of His presence never changes.
2. Jesus’ relationship with God went far deeper than a daily appointment. Our Savior was always aware of His Father’s presence. Listen to His words:
"The Son can do nothing on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise" (John 5:19 NRSV).
"I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge" (John 5:30 NSRV).
"I am in the Father and the Father is in Me" (John 14:11 NSRV).
3. Because Jesus could hear what others couldn’t, He acted differently than they did. Remember when everyone was troubled about the man born blind? Jesus wasn’t. Somehow He knew that the blindness would reveal God’s power (John 9:3). Remember when everyone was distraught about Lazarus’s illness? Jesus wasn’t. Rather than hurry to His friend’s bedside, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. It is for the glory of God, to bring glory to the Son of God” (John 11:4). It was as if Jesus could hear what no one else could. How could a relationship be more intimate?Jesus had unbroken communion with His Father.
"I am the vine, and you are the branches. If any remain in Me and I remain in them, they produce much fruit. But without Me they can do nothing…. If you remain in Me and follow my teachings, you can ask anything you want, and it will be given to you" (John 15:5,7).
4. Healthy marriages have a sense of “remaining.” The husband remains in the wife, and she remains in him. There is a tenderness, an honesty, an ongoing communication. The same is true in our relationship with God. Sometimes we go to Him with our joys, and sometimes we go with our hurts, but we always go. And as we go, the more we go, the more we become like Him. Paul says we are being changed from “glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18 KJV). People who live long lives together eventually begin to sound alike, to talk alike, even to think alike. As we walk with God, we take on His thoughts, His principles, His attitudes. We take on His heart.
God is as near to you as the vine is to the branch, as present within you as God was in the temple, as intimate with you as a husband with a wife, and as devoted to you as a shepherd to his sheep.
The more we search the Bible, the more we realize that unbroken communion with God is the intent and not the exception. Within the reach of every Christian is the unending presence of God.
5. A sheep grows familiar with the voice of the shepherd. How can you and I grow familiar with the voice of God? Here are a few ideas:
• Give God your waking thoughts. Before you face the day, face the Father. Before you step out of bed, step into His presence.
• Give God your waiting thoughts. Spend time with Him in silence. Try being silent with God. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10 NIV). Awareness of God is a fruit of stillness before God.
• Give God your whispering thoughts. Laubach sought unbroken communion with God by asking Him questions. Every two or three minutes he would pray, “Am I in your will, Lord?” “Am I pleasing you, Lord?”
• Give God your waning thoughts. At the end of the day, let your mind settle on Him. Conclude the day as you began it: talking to God. Thank Him for the good parts. Question Him about the hard parts. Seek His mercy. Seek His strength. And as you close your eyes, take assurance in the promise: “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps. 121:4 NIV). If you fall asleep as you pray, don’t worry. What better place to doze off than in the arms of your Father.
SIX: A CHANGED FACE AND A SET OF WINGS
(A WORSHIP-HUNGRY HEART)
1. Do you prepare for worship? What paths do you take to lead you up the mountain? Let me urge you to come to worship prepared to worship. Pray before you come so you will be ready to pray when you arrive. Sleep before you come so you’ll stay alert when you arrive. Read the Word before you come so your heart will be soft when you worship. Come hungry. Come willing. Come expecting God to speak. Come asking, even as you walk through the door, “Can I see the pilot today?”
As you do, you’ll discover the purpose of worship—to change the face of the worshiper. This is exactly what happened to Christ on the mountain. Jesus’ appearance was changed: “His face became bright like the sun” (Matt. 17:2).
2. The connection between the face and worship is more than coincidental. Our face is the most public part of our bodies, covered less than any other area. It is also the most recognizable part of our bodies. God desires to take our faces, this exposed and memorable part of our bodies, and use them to reflect His goodness. Paul writes: “Our faces, then, are not covered. We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like Him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
God invites us to see His face so He can change ours. He uses our uncovered faces to display His glory.
3. Exactly what is worship? I like King David’s definition. “Oh magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together” (Ps. 34:3 NASB). Worship is the act of magnifying God. Enlarging our vision of Him. Stepping into the cockpit to see where He sits and observe how He works. Of course, His size doesn’t change, but our perception of Him does. As we draw nearer, He seems larger. Isn’t that what we need? A big view of God? Don’t we have big problems, big worries, big questions? Of course we do. Hence we need a big view of God.
Not only does God change the face of those who worship, He changes those who watch us worship.
4. Paul told the Corinthian church to worship in such a clear way that if an unbeliever entered, “he would find … the secrets of his heart revealed; and … would fall down on his face and worship God, declaring that God is indeed among you” (1 Cor. 14:24–25 TJB). Your heartfelt worship is a missionary appeal. Let unbelievers hear the passion of your voice or see the sincerity in your face, and they may be changed.
Seekers may not understand all that happens in a house of worship. They may not understand the meaning of a song or the significance of the communion, but they know joy when they see it. And when they see your face changed, they may want to see God’s face.
5. Do you come to church with a worship hungry heart? Our Savior did. May I urge you to be just like Jesus? Prepare your heart for worship. Let God change your face through worship. Demonstrate the power of worship. Above all, seek the face of the pilot. The boy did. Because he sought the pilot, he left with a changed face and a set of wings. The same can happen to you.
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