INTIMACY IN KNOWING THE PASSIONS OF OUR HEARTS

The One who wove us together in our mothers’ wombs and sees our greatness throughout all of eternity is the One who is leading our lives now. He planned our prophetic destinies and knows our unique designs, the way we have been formed and fashioned, as only a Creator can.

O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path…and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether…Such knowledge is too wonderful for me…For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb…For I am fearfully and wonderfully made…My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in se- cret, and skillfully wrought…Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. (Psalm 139:1-16)

The Lord sees the end from the beginning. With intimate knowing, He understands what excites us and what we are pas- sionate about. He knows the depths of our longings and our greatest dreams. He knows why we are passionate and how this zeal is a glorious part of who He made us to be.

Next time you’re around a group of people of varying ages, conduct a little experiment. Ask the children what they want to be when they grow up. The answers will fly fast and furiously. A policeman, a fireman, a ballerina, a scientist, a cowboy, a doctor, and usually about a half a dozen astronauts and race car drivers. It seems that they don’t need a second to think about it. In fact, they already have thought about it and they’re not ashamed to announce it. They are quick to declare their intentions, no mat- ter how far out they are. Next, move to the adults and ask what they want to do most in life. Prepare yourself for blank stares and stammering lips. Most of them will struggle to verbalize anything, and when they do, it will be some generic non-answer like, “I just want to do whatever God gives me to do.” While there is a measure of wisdom in being willing to do what God gives us to do, the answer itself usually communicates a bit of uncertainty, insecurity and even detachment. Some will give the impression they never really think much about what they want to do. But God thinks a lot about what He created us for. The truth is these adults have thought hard, lost many hours of sleep, and prayed often about what they want to do. Nevertheless, when asked to verbalize it, they get tongue-tied. Why is this?

There is sometimes a false piety or false humility in deny- ing the passions of our hearts. It has its origins in the extreme, legalistic fringe of the holiness movement. We’re conditioned to believe that if something is pleasurable, it must be wrong. If there is something we would really love to do, then it must stand in direct opposition to God’s plan for the cosmos. God does not equal fun. Or joy. Or pleasure. As a result, the same person who would have rattled off a half dozen life plans at the age of eight, suddenly becomes quiet as a mouse when the idea of destiny is raised once they’re past the age of twenty-five. Destiny? Oh my, never. Not me. I just want to serve the Lord… What if you could do both? What if you could reach for the dreams within your heart and serve God wholeheartedly at the same time in this age and the age to come? It can be done. In fact, you probably can’t fully do the latter without doing the former.

Psalm 37:4 says: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” This verse has been in- terpreted a number of ways. I’ve heard it taught that if you love God wholeheartedly, He will drop these little blessings your way…that car you’ve always promised yourself, for instance, or a place in the sun, white picket fence and everything. The logi- cal extension of this train of thought is some sort of big swap meet with God, a “pray for pay” plan that puts Him in the role of a heavenly Santa Claus rather than a loving Father. I’ve also heard that if you delight yourself in Him, He will supernaturally implant desires in your heart that are actually His. While there is a good rationality for this, and of course He does plant desires in our hearts, holding narrowly to this perspective makes God seem like some puppeteer of desire, who tricks you into doing His will by convincing you it’s what you want. Taking this idea too far produces an image of a God who brainwashes you into thinking you should be joyful about His underhandedness.

I think there’s a third way of looking at intimacy with Christ as expressed through the passions of our hearts. What if, at the moment we became a person, we were hard-wired for certain pursuits? Could it be that He has, in fact, implanted the desires of our hearts within us, not in the form of some conditional con- tract, but as extensions of who we really are?

There’s a reason you feel a pure sense of pleasure when you do certain things. Perhaps they are the things you were truly made to do. The preacher who is as fulfilled preaching to five people as to five thousand was made to preach. The musician who is as content playing to an empty prayer room as she is to a room full of worshippers, was made to play. The businessperson who gets great satisfaction from a job done well was created for that labor. God placed those desires in their hearts and when they express them, He draws especially near to them. God inti- mately knows what is in each of us. He totally comprehends the passions that He specifically designed for our hearts. When we express them, He has joy in His heart, and He means for us to experience some of this joy.

Eric Liddell was on the British Olympic Track and Field team during the 1924 Olympics. The story of his athletic career and how it dovetailed into his life on the mission field is well known as told in the movie, Chariots of Fire. In the film, when questioned about his decision to run, he answers, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” To share in the passions of another’s heart is an extremely personal form of intimacy, and leads us to reverse the question: Jesus, what are the passions of Your heart? What can I do that will allow me to feel Your pleasure? When we believe He shares our enthusiasm for certain things, we begin to ask more intentionally what He takes joy in. In knowing that He shares passions particular to our personalities, we desire to share more of His passions, His personality. It is the natural extension of intimacy; we begin to feel more at one with Him.

Intimacy without shame is a lost concept for most people. They have lived their entire lives in relationships that were more a trade-off than anything resembling intimacy. Anything they encountered approaching intimacy usually involved the shame of knowing it was happening outside of a covenant relationship. To a world full of people who are longing for intimacy without shame, Jesus says, “I am here to meet you. I will rejoice with you in your successes. I will weep with you during your times of fail- ure and heartache. I will see and understand your sacrifices, and I will celebrate and affirm the passions that make you unique in time and eternity. I will be truly intimate with you—I will know you and you will know Me, and there will be no shame in it.”

CHAPTER SIX

hey had gathered together with a clear purpose, and they did not intend to be thwarted. This teacher from Galilee had been stirring things up for a while now; it

was time to teach Him a lesson. It was growing increasingly dif- ficult to maintain control of the people who heard Jesus preach. The Pharisees had their defenses up. They knew earlier that same day He had silenced the Sadducees with His mastery of the Scripture and they did not want the same thing to happen to them. According to plan, the brightest among them made the first move. A lawyer, seasoned in the law of the land as well as the teaching of the prophets, asked a question to test Him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

All eyes turned to the Teacher. He paused for a moment— not because He was searching for the answer, but to allow the weight of the question to hang in the air. After a moment, He spoke.

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these

two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

A murmur ran through the crowd. These were not new ideas to them; they were taken directly from their own Scrip- tures (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). The stir came not from the words themselves, but from the authority with which they were spoken. Jesus wasn’t just quoting a Scripture or giv- ing a regurgitated answer to pass a test. He was prophesying about how Israel would respond to God in the future. “You shall love God with all your heart,” He proclaimed over the people of Israel. This statement is not just an informational statement but a prophetic oracle from Heaven: the time is coming when followers of God will follow Him with wholehearted love, not mindless ritual or casual indifference. His people will be people who love Him radically and passionately. Yes, God will have a people who love Him with all their energy. Today, the Holy Spirit is emphasizing this truth worldwide: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart.”

God will restore the First Commandment to first place in the Body of Christ. As this happens, we will give our deepest af- fection to God. The “joy of lovesickness” is exhilarating. There is a joy and power in being lovesick for Jesus. Loyal, holy love frees us from the burnout of spiritual boredom. Boredom makes us vulnerable to destruction, but God imparts to us the power to be passionate, because He is a passionate God. To love God with all of our strength speaks of loving Him without any of our energy defiled, depleted or diminished. We cannot function properly until we have passionately given our hearts to God in this way. Half-heartedness diminishes our glory as human be- ings. We long to love God wholeheartedly, and have no de- filement or compromise in our hearts or lives. God gave us the longing to love Him wholeheartedly. And when we allow Him and ask Him to, God empowers us to be wholehearted and then, in response to our wholeheartedness, loves and gives Himself to us with all His heart.

We soar to the heights of our human potential only when we fully love God. Today’s weary Church needs a vision of the pleasures of loving God. It was the desire to see this vision es- tablished in the Church that prompted me to write The Pleasures of Loving God in 2000. God’s insistence on wholeheartedness to- wards Him is not for His own gratification. He is not an inse- cure narcissist looking to His created beings for affirmation. He knows exactly who He is and of what He is capable. His insis- tence on wholeheartedness is for our benefit. Loving God with all of our hearts allows us to experience the heights and fullness of what it means to be human.

Our emotional capacity for love is immense. We were cre- ated for love, and God will empower us to receive His love, love Him in return, and love others. It takes God to love God, and it takes our receipt of God’s supernatural power to give us the capacity to love Him. Thus, the supernatural work of His Spirit empowers us to walk out full obedience. Paul described it this way: “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit pours God’s affec- tion into the human heart regardless of personality type, history of bondage, woundedness, or brokenness. It’s a supernatural ac- tivity that transcends the human condition.

This graceful impartation of love is the only way we will be able to live as the equally-yoked Bride of Jesus throughout eternity. Our primary reward is in having the power to love. Our desire for God is His gift to us. Our reward is to feel and receive love, and then to reciprocate it by the power of God. Our lives are not to be measured by how big our ministries grow, but by how much we have grown in loving God and subsequently lov- ing others. Even in this age we can enjoy the great reward of being empowered to love as the primary preoccupation of our lives. It’s a pleasure beyond compare. David spoke of his delight in wholeheartedness when he wrote, “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).

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