the Good News is that Jesus freed us from the weight of our sins on the cross, and in Christ, we are a new creation, unencumbered by the heavy, former things. Yet some of us still struggle to release the imprints of toxic emotions and we’re ground-bound trying to fly.
Photo by Michal Mrozek
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17
Posture > perfection
Jesus came for men.
Jesus came for women.
Jesus came for prostitutes.
Jesus came for tax collectors.
Jesus came for Jews.
Jesus came for Gentiles.
Jesus came for LGBTQ+.
Jesus came for all nations.
Jesus came for sinners.
Jesus came for everyone.
Somewhere in time, we the Church got tangled up in striving and legalism, seeking a perfection that simply isn’t possible on this side of heaven. We let our heart postures erode while judgments crashed like waves on a jagged shoreline. Our fixation with sin led to rifts and exclusions and eventually, the church sounded more like discord than harmony.
Do we look like Christ’s hands and feet on earth? Are we living in chaos or peace? Are we liberated from striving or simply going through the motions of faith, exhausted and ragged? Are we empty or replenished? Do we share the Good News of the Gospel, or do we recoil?
Friends, this is so important.
We may outwardly appear to be righteous when in fact the inner postures of our hearts can be so ugly. Agree or disagree, we have to be talking about this because if we don’t, we are missing everything.
In the last several weeks on 3 Strands, we’ve discussed salvation, preparedness for salvation, forgiveness, and mercy — and all of these concepts intersect in the postures of our hearts.
God cares deeply about our hearts:
+ He tells us to guard our heart because it is the wellspring of life (Prov. 4:23)
+ He searches the heart and knows its innermost thoughts (Jer. 17:10)
+ He says he will remove our heart of stone and give us a new heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26)
+ He promises to give us the desires of our hearts (Psa. 37:4)
+ He is near to the brokenhearted (Psa. 34:18)
As we are made in God’s image, God also has a heart and a soul (Jeremiah 32:41).
What’s going on in our hearts matters greatly to God, and it’s not the outward appearance that the Lord looks at (1 Samuel 16:7). He cares that we love him with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves (see Matthew 22:37-40 in verses for study). He cares that we love without bounds. This means extending mercy without judgment to all of our neighbors. Are we living this way?
There are disagreements, dissent and gossip within the church. When by now we should know better, so many of us have learned to hold jealousy, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, slander, and everything that contradicts the fruits of the spirit in the deepest chambers of our hearts (see 1 Peter 2:1, Ephesians 4:31 in verses for study). By harboring these toxic emotions in our hardened hearts, we also shut ourselves off from freely flowing in God’s love. We cannot hold onto ungodly emotions and rise up to reach God’s best. We have to shed the heavy to receive the lightness of spirit to which we are called.
Friends, the Good News is that Jesus freed us from the weight of our sins on the cross, and in Christ, we are a new creation, unencumbered by the heavy, former things. Yet some of us still struggle to release the imprints of toxic emotions and we’re ground-bound trying to fly.
We need fresh wind and fresh fire, and we need mercy. Not just for others, but for ourselves.
We see the interplay of legalism and mercy unfold in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). As a penalty for her sin, she is brought before a crowd by Pharisees to be stoned. Jesus, anticipating they meant to trap him, said, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.” One by one, the Pharisees walked away, until Jesus and the woman stood together. Jesus asks the woman where her accusers are and there is no one. He then says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
All too often, we have observed within the church a runaway culture of judgment, while mercy seems to be lost. Just like the Pharisees, we can be too quick to judge when we ought not to be slinging stones.
We can’t miss this. Jesus who died for us. Jesus who dines with tax collectors and prostitutes. Jesus who pardons the woman caught in adultery. This is Immanuel, “God with us.” God with us in our sins written in the dust. God with us in our messes and our mishaps. We did nothing to deserve this grace, and by all accounts, his judgment of our sin is just. Yet mercy triumphs over judgment.
One of the most beautiful examples of a right heart posture before the Lord is told in Mark 14:1-9 when a woman pours a jar of expensive perfume made of pure nard on Jesus’ head to prepare him in advance for his burial. The same story is told in Luke 7:36-50, and the woman is said to have cried tears on Jesus’ feet, wiped the tears with her hair, kissed Jesus’ feet and poured perfume on them. Jesus says that anywhere in the world the Gospel is told, what this woman did will also be told, in memory of her. Her love of the Lord was great, and she was forgiven much.
The people who love God the most do unthinkable things like break nard on Jesus’ head and wipe tears mingled with perfume from his feet with their hair. They are ready to receive mercy from the Father because they understand the depth of the sin from which they are forgiven. They are penitent.
The one who loves Jesus more is the one who had the bigger debt forgiven. He who has been forgiven little loves little. The postures of our hearts matter far more than perfection.
So, Church… let’s smash the false notion that we have to be perfect and without sin, because we don’t. Let’s heal the broken places in our spirits and turn our hearts back over to our Maker to be remade. Let’s acknowledge the ugly places in our hearts in need of his light and redemption and clean it up. Let’s live transformed lives in the grace and mercy the Lord has given us, and let’s love him even more because he has forgiven much.
Lord, we confess that our hearts have been ugly at times and that we need your help to clear our hearts of any toxic emotions that can hinder us from freely flowing in your love. Help us, Lord, to live freely in your love and to cease from striving because you have rescued us from our sins. Thank you for your mercy and forgiveness. Help us to love you more.
Verses for study:
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Jeremiah 17:10
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 34:18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Jeremiah 32:41
I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.
1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
John 8:1-11
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Mark 14:1-9
It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”
And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii[b] and given to the poor.” And they scolded her.
But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”
Luke 7:36-50
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”