What's in your heart?

 A few days ago I was sitting in my deer stand waiting for the forest to come alive at day break. I usually get there a half hour before daylight so I have time to allow thought to roll through my mine without any outside stimulus.

I love it when Biblical truths unfurl in my mind as The Lord enlightens me with answers to questions that I have had lately.  I am learning that if I don't write them down immediately they will evaporate within a few minutes and I can't recall them no matter how hard I try.

Fortunately my deer blind is enclosed and I have a Bible, a legal pad, and pens in there for just such a time.

There is a lot of controversy between people of different Christian persuasions as to what is the correct or acceptable formula when someone prays the sinner's prayer to get saved. 

I have heard the arguments on what words must be used or what posture one must be in, and other techniques before a person can step over the line between darkness and light.

One of the approaches that I know to be sound is, "The Roman's Road," found in the book of Romans. It begins with Romans 3:23 and ends with Romans 10:9-10. As I was thinking about this controversy my mind asked this question, "Wouldn't the last scripture in this series summarize what is needed?"

So, we go to these two verses and here is what they say, " If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart you are made right with God, AND it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved."

As I was thinking about those two verses my mind kept coming back to the conjunction and its importance. The conjunction is, "AND." Another thought that I had was to get some help with the meaning of this word, "Conjunction," so I looked it up and here is what I found, 

"Conjunction -----a compound proposition that is true IF and only IF all of its component prepositions are true." Here is what this tells me; the two propositions in  verse 9 involve confessing with one's mouth AND believing in one's heart.  Both of these propositions must be true or there is no, "Born again experience." They are equally valuable. 

Without a pure heart saying the correct words is meaningless.  But, isn't that what Jesus meant in the sermon on the mount when he uttered these words in Mathew 5:8, "God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God."

That verse asks the question, what is a pure heart?

We can get another clue when we study the grammar in John 3:16.

History tells us that Jesus of Nazareth lived and as a result of this historical fact most people believe ABOUT him, but the preposition ABOUT is not the same as the preposition IN.

Where you spend eternity is determined which preposition you insert in this Bible verse.

Natural man has a compartmentalized heart where each aspect of his life does not influence the other parts. Some of these compartments include; "work habits, your marriage commitments, work habits, relating to our children, our relationships, language on Sundays, language other six days, what we watch on the internet, etc."

A man with a pure heart has no compartments, every aspect of his life is integrated into all of the others.

Jesus warned us about not having a pure heart when he said in Mathew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, (confesses me or believes about me) shall enter the kingdom of God."

So you see, the conjunction AND and the preposition IN are what determines who has a pure heart and where they will spend eternity.

  

What is the tie that binds? Part 2

If you have not read part one, then part two will not make much sense to you, so please read part one first.

In part one I promised to try to find a possible link between the end of Mark chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10 so as to make application to my own marriage.

When we are thinking about marriage we have to go back to the original marriage to see what God had in mind.

When we go back to Genesis chapter two we see that on the sixth day of creation God made the living creatures and when he finished his creation and he saved the best for last. He created the most magnificent creature of them all, man, and why was this creature the most magnificent of them all, because he made man in his own image. 

On day seven he took the day off to admire his creation because he had a really grand plan for the next day, the eighth day. He made a helpmate for the man.

He put Adam to sleep and removed a part of his side, a bone, a rib, and from it he fashioned his best work yet, the most beautiful creature in his Universe, a woman.

Incidentally, the bride of Adam was created on the eight day and the bride of Jesus, the church, was also created on the eighth day, resurrection day, and she came from the side of Jesus, the 2nd Adam.

After this simple surgery, Adam was an incomplete man because part of his anatomy was missing. The missing part was in his helpmate.

Adam knew that he was incomplete because something just didn't feel right on his side, there was a void where one of his ribs should be. He tries to explain this void in Genesis 2:23, "This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken from man." 

And in verse 24 we read, "This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."

Verse 24 tells us that the man is only complete when his wife stands by his side. No one else can make him a complete man, not even his father or mother.

Now, if we go back to the last verse in Mark chapter nine we learned, "You must have the qualities of salt among yourselves and live in peace with each other."

Everyone knows that salt adds or enhances flavor to food. Some folks say that food without salt is bland, boring, or just not complete.

Here is an interesting fact. People are attracted to the opposite sex who have qualities different or opposite from theirs. One of the laws of physics tells us that opposites attract.

When a man who is weak in some qualities marries a woman who is strong in those qualities they compliment each other and become a whole person when they are standing at each other's sides and working together. Interestingly, the world and its worldly seers say just the opposite. Just look at the dating apps.

 Too much salt, however, occurs when one mate Lords it over the other. A person like that is said to be salty.

Salt is also used as a preservative. When I was a boy we didn't have electricity or a refrigerator. My folks used to pack fresh meat into a stone crock surrounded by salt.

Salt kills micro organisms that spoil or actually decay meat and without these deadly micro organisms meat retains its nutritional value and taste. 

In Ephesians chapter 5 Paul gives us the qualities of a healthy marriage. He instructs men to love their wives and women to honor their husbands. 

These two verbs, love and honor, compliment each other. By loving and honoring each other, the participants in the marriage are careful to be on guard protecting their mates from influences that would be harmful or even destroy them.

They encourage each other and are always discerning the subtle little things that could spoil and eventually destroy their relationship.

In the first part of Mark 9:50 Jesus warns us with these words, "Salt is good for seasoning. But if it looses its saltiness, how do you make it salty again?"

The answer to that question is, "You can't." Once impurities are mixed with salt it looses its properties and according to Jesus' words in Mathew 5:13, "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt looses its flavor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people."

Could this be the reason why 50% of the marriages in America are thrown out and trampled by people?

So, getting back to the original question that precipitated this whole discussion, "What is the secret ingredient for holding a marriage together?"

Could it be SALT?

Could the covenant made between a man and a woman on their wedding day be called, "A salt covenant?"

My question to you the reader is, "Does any of this make sense?"

What is the tie that binds? Part one

 At the end of Mark chapter nine, Jesus says something very interesting and intriguing. "Salt is good: but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."

I was wondering what he could of meant with this verse so like most curious Bible students I consulted several commentaries to see what men who are much more intelligent and educated than I had to say. Of course, they all mention the fact that salt adds flavor to food and it is a preservative. In days gone by people used to preserve their meat by packing it in salt.

I guess I was looking for an explanation a little more edifying, something that I could use in my own life.

So, after praying, using James' advice in chapter one verse five which says, "If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you." I then set out to find what hidden treasures there might be in Mark nine's final verse.

By reading on into chapter 10 we see Jesus giving a pretty clear explanation on how he feels about marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Verses 6-9 says, "But God made them male and female from the beginning of creation. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together." He goes on to say in verses 11-12, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery."

Incidentally Paul speaks to this issue in his letter in first Corinthians chapter seven. His instructions pretty much parallels Jesus' teaching.

The purpose of this article is not to give my position on divorce and remarriage but to gain some insight on how to preserve marriage. If we could discover the secret to a healthy marriage then divorce wouldn't even be an issue.

Ruth and I will be celebrating 60 years of marriage next July. When we celebrated 50 years I looked up the statistics on how many couples celebrate 50 years together. The statistics tell us that 1 in 20 or 5% make it.  Incidentally the statistic for 60 years is 1 in 100 or 1%.

Going for the long shot seems to be a lofty goal, albeit a difficult one. 

So, are there any secrets or tips or is there a prescription to help make it happen?

When I contemplated this challenging  study I wondered if the end of chapter 9 and what he addresses in the beginning of chapter 10 is somehow connected.

One of the principles of hermeneutics is context.

I do realize that there is probably a few days between the events of these two chapters and there certainly are a few miles of distance between the events but I still wondered, "Could there be a connection?"

One of my goals in writing articles, and I learned it when I wrote newspaper articles, is to keep them short. So, I know that this may not seem fair but I am going to continue this search for valuable nuggets next week.