What Breaks Your Heart?

What was the greatest thing that Jesus Christ had ever done in your life? What have He saved you from? 

Of course I know from SIN basically but I believe there was this inevitable God-shaped void in every man's heart that He got filled when we first met Jesus. It can be from depression, insecurity, heartache, inferiority, fear, doubt, shame, anxiety, lawlessness, homosexuality, discouragement, lust, greed, etc

Well to me, God perfectly came through my life in the midst of self-alienation; shove off all the lies about myself being never good enough,  took away the sense of insecurity about what others say about me, discarded my insatiable yearning for approval and belongingness, junked away all the sins that I thought I can never get away, and repaired a completely wrecked heart.

That was how God made me whole, reassembled my torn heart with the very bits of debris left.

So now, WHAT BREAKS YOUR HEART?

At this very moment, I regularly check the stuffs which trigger my lacrimal gland to function. What are the things that concern me the most? What are the things that take most of my time up? What are the things that I put my heart into? What do my thoughts and speech denote a lot? Are these Kingdom-related (as it should be) or flesh-related? Are they even of God or of my selfishness?

As the technology advances, the modern world is all the more becoming  illusive, unreasonable and senseless. Not only the world itself, most that is within it as well. Video games, social networking sites, television, gadgets, sports, celebrities, fictional 'things', and many other things. Oh, not to mention our concerns about numbers; size, weight, age and even likes on Facebook! (I'm not excluding myself from these things. I'm also guilty. But God's grace! Ah!)

Recently, our youth group had finished through the whole book, "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. I remember one discussion night when we talked about the "Profiles of a Lukewarm". You tell about one of the most convicting nights we ever had, having a clear view of where we're at in our walks with God.

"We become lukewarm when we start to diffuse our focus on one of these three important personas; God, people and ourselves. We can focus on loving God but forget loving on people, vice versa. We can start to pray for ourselves (which is very vital on our walks) but neglect the people we need to pray about. And lastly, we can completely value ourselves and others better but take God out of the picture. Figuratively, Hate is not the antonym of Love, it is falling OUT of Love. When we fall out of love from one of those significant parts of the puzzle, it proposes a missing link that would most assuredly keep us at a distance to being the followers God wants us to be. We can not love God and hate on other people. We can not love others and bear grudges about and in yourself.  We can not love ourselves and deny our need of tender dependence to God's love. Wherever the balance is missing, there the lukewarmness is."

And there's NO other person rather than Jesus who knows our situations better. He knows our hearts. He knows our thoughts. He knows us very well. Nothing is hidden from Him. In MATTHEW 15:17-20, He excellently demonstrated His full wisdom regarding our very nature and composition, how He intricately knows us as we are even subjectively.

                  “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Jesus stated clearly that righteousness was never concluded by our action and show, instead it was elucidated by the very depths of our innermost motives. And in the most untimely situations, our human tendencies always lead us to bringing our focal points to ourselves. No matter how much we want to see Jesus be reflected in our lives, our sins, our flesh and it's desires are like mirrors surrounding us on every sides, bouncing rays of lights back to our eyes. Well, it's really a danger and a bit of discouragement. That is why there's no other way to look at but UP. Look up!

We see hope as we look up, we see deliverance coming through if we set our eyes to Jesus, seeking after His light and expectantly waiting for His rescue. If we open ourselves to vulnerability and humility, we can see Christ reaching out our every cries for grace. We can see the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven, anointing our very hearts through conviction and genuine repentance. And we see this in the later part of that chapter about the faith of the Canaanite  woman whose heart was breaking because of her demon-possessed daughter. (Matthew 15:21-28)

Unfortunately, it's so easy for us to look at ourselves and to the waves. It's so easy for us to give in to our selfishness  and forget what we're called for. We look at ourselves and still overemphasize our imperfections, neglecting the fact that God had made us perfect in His sight (Ephesians 1:4). We gave the world the power to make and break us by letting it define us, conforming to it's filthy desires, and making it our heaven. We submit our hearts easily to it's own course and leave us bearing endless, burdensome longing and discontent, trying to fill in our hearts with a loophole that only God can suffice.

Sometimes, we think of ourselves as the most miserable, most hopeless people in the world. Our troubles are as shallow as our ungratefulness to the abundance that had been made available to us. Our only concern doesn't go beyond ourselves, it's always about us; how ugly we are (when in fact, there are countless physically disabled and mentally challenged people who are just thankful they're alive), how fat we are (when in fact, most of the countries in the entire world are dying because of starvation, poverty and hoarding), how uncool we are for not having those cool earthly stuffs (when in fact, only a few out of hundreds are able to go to college because they got no chance to even taste a decent meal for a day), how broke we are for not being able to buy what we want (when in fact, many people can't even afford  their daily needs), how lonely we are because no one seems to like us and pursue us (when in fact, there are numerous homeless, orphans, widows that we see outside of our backyard).

We exhaust ourselves to these petty demands that we are not actually scarce of! "We are loaded with too many good things, more than we could ever need, while others are desperate for a small loaf." As Francis Chan would describe.  Instead of channeling these desires away from ourselves, we continue on rolling our eyes as if we don't see a need in front of us. And ironically, those of us who have plenty are the stingiest givers!

Well again, I'm not excluding myself from this convictions. I, too, am so guilty of this. And I can't imagine how I can care less for these people, not to mention those who are on my reach, and continue on living in this weakling, defeated, discontent Spirit. In a miserable state of mind as if God is deaf to not hear our desires and weak to not mend our hearts. This is not I'm called for, neither you are. 

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to LAY OUR LIVES FOR OUR BROTHERS.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on Him, HOW CAN THE LOVE OF GOD BE IN HIM?  Dear children, LET US NOT LOVE WITH WORDS OR TONGUE BUT WITH ACTIONS AND IN TRUTH. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence," ~1 John 3:16-19

We ought to get our ungrateful, trivial selves off our own pedestal and start to live the way that pleases God. We ought to stop appealing complete satisfaction outside from Christ. We ought to purify our hearts from it's superficiality and really let God preserve it away from our own care because 'the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

There's only ONE who knows how bad it is. "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." (1 John 3:20)

God is greater than our hearts, we can be sure that He can heal our fleshly natures if only we believe He will do so and trust that He will not fail in the process. He knows our every motives and that is what He's looking at (1 Samuel 16:7). Not that God wants us to suffer by heartbreaking, but instead what breaks our hearts must be what breaks His: Famine, war, human exploitation, injustice, death, addiction, crime, scarcity of love, unrepentance, lost souls to name some of the many. At least care about these things, we will all the more becoming like Christ, all the more being a delight to God, all the more living as children He saved for. He already did the salvation for our part, we don't need to save ourselves again and again, but through us salvation will come to others homes. 

           "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter." ~2 Corinthians 7:10-11 

Instead of self-pity, Godly sorrow is important to stir up passion for other people that leads to submitting to the Greatest Commandments. Out of God's outpouring love, we respond in loving Him and loving others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). It will make a lot more difference if we treat each and every people and encounters as Jesus Christ. How would we care for them if look at them as if they were God.

“I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, WHATEVER YOU DID FOR ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE BROTHERS OF MINE, YOU DID FOR ME” (Matthew 25:42-43;45)