A leather-bound Bible was hurled through the air, and after hitting the edge of a table, it fell to the floor. I glanced under the table and saw its flimsy pages flap open and flutter until they stilled like a dying bird laying on its back. While I stared, there seemed to be a hint of life in this book called the Bible, which I had never read. No one was struck down by lightning, and we all managed to avoid plagues, at least I believe so.
This simple 3 second episode happened at East London University in 1999. I was a mature student studying for my literature degree. It was the professor who threw the Bible. Before my studies I was a bricklayer working hard on building sites throughout London, until sciatica struck, which gave me no choice but to search out a new career hence my return to education. When looking at the Bible taking its last breath while it lay upturned and flipped open on the floor, my mind flashed back to my local sweet shop, as a much younger boy, while holding my big sister’s hand.
“You can have sweets from the penny box over there” she said while my gaze was firmly fixed on the larger chocolate bars that were leaning just out of reach.
“Can have one of those”
“No, come on choose we haven’t got all day”. After making my choice we left the shop where I was more upset than when I walked in.
The situation while sat around a large table at university was similar. There it was, something I desperately needed just like that chocolate bar, which was just out of reach, for the moment anyway.
The professor had told us that we must pick a narrative from the many books that were stacked on a table that had apparently shaped society; and discuss. On the table there was approximately 25 books to choose from. The books had been tipped from a box by the professor before the lesson began. Being put in groups of four we were given an hour to present our case on why our chosen narrative is so important to society. The books on the table were from Shakespeare, Darwin, Freud, Marx, Jung, Austen, Dickens, the Bible and more grand narratives that I fail to remember. On seeing the Bible, the professor said ‘who put that there’ and with anger he threw it across the table. Similar to the sweet shop it seemed that when something is placed out of reach, I just want it more.
That professor did me a favour that day, it was clear that the Bible had a living power after all, making him behave like that. How could a man with such standing in our community do such a thing? What repelled him to act that way? Maybe it was more than just a book after all, with all that repellent energy puppeteering the professor.
My re-birth and search for a new heart began that day, although I never knew this at the time, it’s only when looking back I can see the whole picture. The spark was cracked from an angry professor throwing a Bible, and so within a few weeks I picked it up and started reading. Just like chocolate now-a-days the Bible was within my grasping.
Looking under the table that day at the Bible laying there. How was I to know of the change waiting for me. Defining evidence was not available to me at that time, only the Bible laying there spoke to me in a silent whisper.
It didn’t take much reading before I realised that to understand God’s word I would need guidance. To have Jesus transplant a new heart could only be achieved by those that already had new hearts put in place by the Spirit of Truth. People that knew the scriptures and how to take a fledgling like me through the good book with a loving and faithful understanding of the Word was paramount.
As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
(Romans 10: 15)
At the time there seemed to be something so utterly different from my own Bible reading to having the words spill out of the mouth of a mature Christian, either male or female. The Alpha course meant nothing at all until maturity took the stand where the Word came alive, literally with a heartbeat all of its own. When reading alone it was rather like listening to musical notes being played in the wrong order where nothing makes sense. We press our palms to our ears. Played in the right order by a musician however, we can feel the beat. When we learn to see that Biblical words are all in place as God had intended them to be, total coherence and oneness with the universe takes place. We sit back and listen, learn and finally read and consume.
Jesus said “where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them” (Mathew 18: 20).
The most mature of the group is not always the eldest, as in actual age, but was certainly bound in wisdom, which is a large part of an ingredient needed to sustain spiritual growth for newcomers.
That’s the Bible, where the words become tangible and alive transforming a human being from death to life, which is the change of heart. It is the re-birth and baptism that Jesus tells us about.
In John 3: 1-3 we are told
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]”
The re-birth was painful, but with joy beyond measure at the end, which paradoxically was my new beginning, if you get my drift. Pain, I found out, was a touchstone to growth. To talk, declare or be resolute about anything was easy with words alone, but to feel those words deep within was the hard part, and confessing my sins or defects was certainly not stress-free either. These discussion regarding the self always materialized during the Bible study, it was how we grassed up our sin, our histories.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1: 2-3)
There is a difference to what we say comparing to what we actually mean from the heart, which is the base of all emotions. Life becomes full and justified through the depth of God’s word, which can only be loved into place by consuming Jesus on the cross. The birth is one great happening, but the death, and death on a cross at that, is all together another. Many psychologists, 12 step programs and even Christians miss the glory through the gory details of Jesus on the cross. Without the Cross we have nowhere to lay our sins. Jesus gave us our sorrowful place where we could lay down our old lives and pick up the new with Jesus resurrection. He died, we die. He lives, we live. There is no other way. Noone gets to the father accept through Jesus (find quote)
One young lady had prayer and had changed, or born again if you prefer, in one night never to drink again. I myself never took another sleeping tablet, or pills to put a swerve on my alcoholism, it all stopped with a change of heart that became shaped and filled with God’s word. It all stopped when the Bible started a new rhythm in my physical and mental being.
The new heart transplant boomed a new story in my chest. I hope one day to look under a microscope and see the infinitesimal atoms that I breath in are formed like micro letters, all travelling around my body in the shape of the right words being placed in the right order by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the Word made flesh (John 1), which allows my heart to be made up of His words Amen.
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
(Hebrew 4: 12-13)
When asked what happened to me and how do I look so different? I always suggest find a home group from within a solid church where a small assembly can meet up weekly to study God’s word, to pray and to have fellowship with other Christians.
Re-learning is key, and to do this we must listen like a child first in school.
He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Mathew 18: 2-3)
My inner self had been emptied out, so I was in one sense running on empty. With a feeling of exposure like being stripped where the cold wind can bite at your skin. It is certainly not good to remain in this exposed state for long, so best get on with your studies and re clothe yourself in God’s garments.
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. (Mathew 12: 43-45)
After my baptism it became clear that the devil wanted to keep me in my sinful flesh, and I wanted out. To manage this, I had to stay close to the scriptures and always attend church and my house group, which seemed to combat the fragmented left-overs of my old self, commonly known as sin.
That book that looked alive on the university floor had more life than anything I had ever experienced.
When we are born again, God gives us a new heart. The power of the Holy Spirit changes our hearts from our own words to God’s words.
How can you pray that someone with a hardened heart reaches repentance?
https://www.takebackyourtemple.com/ministering-hard-heart-prayer/ THIS IS FANTASTIC
26I 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. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26)
Noone in my house group are perfect. We still can ramble on in our sinful flesh, and bound ourselves up with our own ‘good ideas’. The freedom to choose whether or not to obey God’s word raises its ugly head in one guise or another. It slides in our thoughts like the genesis serpent.
However, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He broke the power of sin that controls us (Romans 6:10). Receiving Him as our Savior gives us access to God and His power—a power to transform our hearts from sin-hardened to Christ-softened. When we were separated from God with hardened hearts, we found it impossible to please Him. We tended toward selfishness, rebellion, and sin. With new hearts we are declared righteous before God (2 Corinthians 5:21). The Holy Spirit gives us a desire to please God that was foreign to us in our hardened state. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that we “are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” God’s desire for every human being is that we become like His Son, Jesus (Romans 8:29). We can become like Jesus only when we allow God to rid us of our old, hardened hearts and give us new hearts.
Reading through my bible the word sacrifice has a myriad of meanings. Some sacrifices appear harsh and plain evil, others are more of a tradition where an animal suffers terribly. Throughout the Old Testament there is an array of actions that marry the sacrifice of, let’s say a goat for example, where the blood is spilt here and the body parts displayed there at the alter and burnt offerings are eaten within a certain time frame by a selected group.
But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. (Luke 8: 15)
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God (collosians 3: 16-17)
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6: 1-4)
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