Life #35 - Power of the New Heart

007 (34) hibiscus

The Gospel of Mark (9:14-30 NKJV) is preached with the focus on faith. While that is true, we are given an inside look at the heart of a deeply committed father. He did everything to get his son delivered of a mute spirit, which his son had since infancy. Is something deeper being revealed to us concerning the heart's power?

The father’s actions show us the measure of love the heart contains:

Love believed there was a miracle with his son’s name on it. Love helped the father be patient for results. Love kept him humble, being never too proud to ask for help from anybody. Love persevered throughout time, overcame the hardships, and did not count the number of failures. Love protected, trusted, and hoped for his son. Even when Jesus’ own disciples failed to deliver his son, anger had no place in his heart because love never failed him (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13 NIV).

Though love motivated his actions, it remained the father’s responsibility to see that the love for his son never grew cold (Matthew 24:12). He could have given up; thrown a pity-party for himself; become frustrated and abuse his son; or put his son aside and not deal with the problem.

Instead, the father reaped love’s reward when Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and the young man was healed (Mark 9:25, 27 NKJV).

Love, from the power of a new heart, makes an extraordinary difference in ordinary lives. Love always produces a life-giving impact! Always.

Scripture quotations from the King James Version (KJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts are taken from our book to be released next year.

Life #9 - Life is a Redemption Song

Makapu`u Trail to Lighthouse, 2011

In October 1937, Marcus Garvey gave a speech that urged his listeners to emancipate themselves from “mental slavery” and to “free our minds”. He stressed that “none but ourselves” could do it. Later, Bob Marley included Garvey’s phrases into his popular “Redemption Song”.

Our minds create our reality based on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yes, that’s the tree we’re not supposed to eat of, but still do, eh? Like Garvey said, we are slaves to our minds. All of our interactions with others are based upon what we let our minds construct using lower-grade timber from that tree!

Do our minds fabricate lies about ourselves and others? Do our mental-emotions cause us to “hate” the very people whose blood we share? Do we let our minds perseverate on how others have offended us or caused us pain? Are our minds persuaded we must punish “them” by withholding our love? Have our minds concluded that we are justified in not forgiving anybody?

These are the very reasons why Jesus commanded us to love, agapaō from our mind (Matthew 5: 43, 44). It isn’t for “their” sake that we love. It isn’t for “their” sake that we forgive. It’s for ours! If we don’t diffuse the mind through love and forgiveness, then we remain prisoners for the rest of our mental lives.

Until we emancipate ourselves from the dungeons of our mind, life for us can never rise higher than a Redemption Song.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; Greek definition from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: love - #25; Source on Garvey and Marley from Wikipedia; Excerpts from our book to be released next year.