From the head to the heart

Did you know there is only about a foot and a half between the heart and the brain in the human body? Or stated more poetically, the distance between the heart and the mind is only a matter of inches. This is an insignificant amount of space really, when compared to any lengthy measurement. Yet, this short gap can make an immeasurable difference. In fact, spiritually speaking, the difference between the head and the heart can only be measured by eternity. Granted, this sounds somewhat strange, but I ask you to consider this seriously.

Let me illustrate the vast expanse that stretches between the heart and mind of many people right here in our community. We live in the conservative south in an area accurately known as the “Bible Belt.” The heart of Georgia could fittingly be coined as the buckle of that belt. Church steeples are as common around here as sweet tea and pine trees. We have public prayer on the courthouse steps and churches on (seemingly) every corner. It is not uncommon to still see small congregations gathering around “covered dish meals” on a Sunday afternoon. We are proud of our southern ways and southern cooking. We still say Merry Christmas and wish our neighbors (or even strangers) a blessed day. God, guns and ol’ Glory are often spoken of with great affection. “Round here in these parts,” it’s hard to find people who don’t identify as God-fearing folk. Most everyone I invite to church, already has a church home of their own. However, when asked if they know Christ, or have a relationship with God, almost everyone can tell you about some religious experience they had many years ago.

Yet, none of the things mentioned truly makes anyone a Christian. Whether you’ve memorized the TV channel for Fox News, or if you always vote for that candidate with an “R” beside their name, does not determine whether or not you are truly a disciple of Christ. Unfortunately, the south has been so inundated with religious jargon, we have wrongly supposed being a conservative southern patriot and a Christian are synonymous terms.

Regrettably, there are many, many people right here in our community who are good neighbors and honest hard-working individuals, but are trusting in something other than the finished work of Christ for their eternal salvation. They are confident that some tearful words they repeated after a preacher many years ago, was all that God required for them to enter heaven. Yet others wrongly think that when as a child, they slipped their hand up at vacation Bible school (while every head was bowed and every eye closed, of course) automatically meant they are Christians. There are also those who have signed their name to the back of a gospel tract and mistakenly believe that was enough to grant them entrance into God’s glory. Friends, an emotional experience followed up with a mental decision that did not transform your heart (and life) is not true conversion.

I know God can still save sinners in spite of the Gospel gimmicks of over-zealous evangelists and misguided pastors. What I am avowing is that a true work of grace will reach beyond the human mind and will change the heart. Let us be clear, true salvation entails more than simply acknowledging there is a God. James 2:19 states that wicked demons know there is but one God, and even tremble before Him. However, they are not born-again. Nor is it enough to promote conservative values in the political arena. The Pharisees were strictly conservative, but lost. And as necessarily uncomfortable as it may be for some, it is not enough to have had some religious experience years ago, if that experience did not make a true and lasting change in who you are and how you live. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 if anyone is “in Christ” they are a new creation – “old things have passed away and all things have become new.”

Knowing God in your head is not enough, you must also have been given a new heart. If your religious experience was truly sincere, you will have a new desire and a new passion to leave this world behind and follow Christ. There is a reason why the Bible warns in Matthew 7:21-23 that not everyone who claims the name of Christ is actually a Christian. Jesus plainly states that there will be many who will come before Him on that great day of judgment and say “Lord, Lord did we not ….” and He will say to them, “depart from ye that work iniquity, I never knew you.”

Readers, when the Holy Spirit of God takes His Word and reveals to the sinner their lost and hopeless condition and points them to the resurrected Christ, He does not work apart from the human mind, but transforms our will to His. He then gives us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) and a desire to serve Him.

If your faith has only reached your mind, and not transformed your heart, then that few inches will be the distance between heaven and hell for all eternity.

Make sure you have had both a change of heart and mind!

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