Living By Faith Blog

Bleh

That’s how I was feeling two hours ago.

I couldn’t put my finger on the cause — my heart was just dull.

I did not have much hunger for Jesus, much love for His glory, or much passion for His cause.

But God calls us to love Him with all our hearts (Deut 6:5), warns us not to be lukewarm or complacent (Rev 3: 16), and commands us to rejoice in Him (Phil 3:1).

Okay …

But we can’t just will-power our way to joy, love, and passion.  We can’t turn feelings on and off like a light switch.

What can we do?

What helps me is Romans 15:13, where Paul says — “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

This verse answers three question –

Who can give me joy, peace, and hope?  God can.  So I don’t have to keep feeling lukewarm.  Even though I can’t change my heart feelings, God can. 

How much can God change my heart?  Completely.  Don’t miss Paul’s language: God can fill me with all joy and peace so I abound in hope.  With how yucky I felt — that sounded impossible.  But so did God’s promise to free tiny Israel from massive Egypt.

How does God do this?  Through faith.  God fills us with joy and peace “in believing.“  So I am not passive in this process.  If I will turn to trust Jesus Christ, God will change my heart.

This doesn’t happen instantly.  For me it usually means persistent battle.  But in time He will fill us with joy, peace, and hope.

So here’s what happened an hour ago.

I turned to Jesus just as I was with my lukewarm heart.

I didn’t try to change my heart first.  I turned to Jesus as I was — trusting His sacrificial death to pay for my guilt, and His blameless life to cover my sin.

I confessed my complacency and lukewarmness.

I admitted to God that if I saw Jesus as He really is, I would be full of joy and praise and passion for Him.  I confessed that something was keeping me from seeing Him clearly — maybe unbelief, or pride, or trusting something else as my Treasure.  I asked God to forgive me through Jesus’ death.

I asked for the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit

– to give me more faith (Mark 9:24), to show me Jesus (2Cor 3:18), and to change my heart (Psa 119:107).  I also needed to pray for more earnestness in prayer — as my prayer started off pretty wimpy.

I set my heart on Jesus.

I opened to Matthew 20 and read how Jesus felt pity for two blind men whom the crowds were shooing away (Matt 20:32-34).  I asked God to free me from whatever was blinding me, so I could see Jesus as He is.

As I read, and prayed, I started to sense the majesty of Jesus — the Creator of the Universe — who felt compassion for these needy men.  I felt a stirring of love and worship for this God of compassion.  I felt a growing desire to help other people come to know this God of compassion.

I don’t want to overstate it.  I was not yet filled with joy and peace and abounding in hope.  But my heart was changed.  I was no longer lukewarm and complacent — I was feeling growing love for God and longing for others to know Him.

I thanked God for changing my heart.

This was all mercy.  I came to God with a hopelessly lukewarm heart.  But because of Jesus God welcomed me, showed me His glory in Jesus, and changed me.

A couple other thoughts –

Consider asking others to pray for you.

I love how honestly Martin Luther describes the state of his heart in this letter, as he begs his friend Melanchthon to pray for him.

Ask God to reveal if you are trusting something besides Christ as your Treasure.

When I am lukewarm it’s often because I am trusting something else to satisfy me — like applause from people.  If I’m trusting applause from people, and no one is applauding, I will feel lukewarm and complacent.

If that’s the case, I will not be restored to joy and peace until I turn from trusting applause, and once again trust Christ as my all-satisfying Treasure.

Don’t be discouraged if this takes time. 

Many psalms are written by men who are crying out to God to change their hearts, but have not yet seen their prayers answered.  So you are not alone.  Check out Psalms 13, 42, 43, 63, and 86.

I’ve had times when it’s taken days before I have experienced God restoring my joy in Him.  What helps me is to trust that the timing of my life is in His hands (Psa 31:15).

What feels like delay is rich opportunity to humble myself as needy and powerless before my merciful Jesus — and God will use this to end up giving me even more of Himself.

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(Picture used with permission from anotherpioneer from Flickr.)