Hearing the Music

What's Etched on Your Heart?

Each week this summer we are privileged to hear from a pastor regarding a scripture that God “etched on his heart” – a personal testimony of sorts. But what about you, what about me? What has God etched on our hearts? What story would we tell if asked to bring the message on a Sunday morning?

In 1973, I was a newlywed, plucked (quite willingly) from everything familiar. Two thousand miles from home, I was just married and attending a huge, secular university. In many ways, my life was upended. God knew what I needed.  In His mercy I was invited to a Navigators 2:7 Bible study. The focus was discipleship, Bible application and scripture memory. It was a wonderful study in which I was challenged and encouraged. But the final assignment was more of a challenge that I wanted. All participants were to write their personal testimonies, basically telling how God had etched His Word on their hearts. What could I possibly have to say? Four year earlier, I had made a profession of faith. I had a lot of head knowledge but what was etched on my heart? I was naïve and spiritually immature. Despite that, I made a profession, heard God’s promises to me and spoke mine to Him. But now it was time to write my personal testimony and I was certain I had nothing to say. I had heard other testimonies and mine was nothing like those.

Don’t we all love to hear a "good" testimony or hear someone tell of a miraculous faith experience? Have you heard the one about the Vietnamese prisoner who was cleaning latrines and found a very soiled copy of Romans 8:28 in the latrine trash? His captors had been using the pages of a Bible as toilet paper. Only the night before he had given up on God and declared himself an atheist. Finding that page changed his life and restored his faith. Now that’s a miraculous faith story! Christ Church women recently worked through a study of the book of Jude by Jackie Hill Perry. Jackie had chosen to turn her back on God in every way, but He pursued her. One night, seemingly out of the blue, a thought came to her mind about her lifestyle. It wasn’t audible, but she knew it was God. She began to read the Bible. In those personal quiet times without a church, a pastor or a friend, God saved her and changed her life forever. What a story! This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost. Few of us would have a testimony apart from what happened that day. What would have been etched on your heart if you were in the crowd that day and heard Peter proclaiming the gospel in your own language?

What is etched on your heart? What is your story? Is it like Hien’s, the Vietnamese prisoner of war, or Jackie Hill Perry’s? I don’t recall what I wrote in that first testimony, but I do know some of what I would write now. It might not read like Hien’s or Jackie’s, but it’s no less spectacular and no less miraculous. Like them, I was lost and now I’m found. Romans 8 says that God foreknew me, He predestined me to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, He called me, He justified and glorified me, just like Hien and Jackie. Hadn't God been calling me to Himself in my early years in a Christian home, school and church? Definitely. I believe He heard and received my feeble profession at seventeen, not because of my sincerity or even my understanding of what I was doing, but because He had called me first.  

One of the verses He has etched on my heart is Psalm 63:8, “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” For so long, I lived as though it was up to me to cling to Him, but instead He was upholding me all along. As I was clinging, He put wonderful believers in my life. He provided gospel-preaching churches, faithful parents and grandparents, a godly husband, excellent Bible studies, great books on faith and theology, many joys and plenty of sorrows. He continued to love me and has been faithful in the face of my sin. By His Word and His Spirit He is changing me into His likeness. The process is much slower than I would like. There have been detours, roadblocks, back-sliding, disappointments and doubts. But I have learned that “I sought the Lord and afterward I knew, He moved my soul to seek Him seeking me.” Now that’s a story! What about you?

Photo by Chandan Chaurasia on Unsplash

Think Big, Think Long, Think Biblically

Picture yourself with one of your hands reaching forward and upward as you pursue Jesus. In that same picture, your other hand is extended behind you as you take someone along on that journey. This is leadership. This is discipleship. Does the picture describe you? Are you pursuing Jesus and calling others to come along? Then perhaps you are a leader.

On Sunday morning Pastor Addison will lead us through Psalm 32. The psalmist praises God for the ways He deals with our sin then after the “therefore” in verse 6, describes how we are to respond to that: with bold prayer, with trust, by yielding to God and through rejoicing in Him. At the PCA Women’s Life-giving Leadership Conference in February, Lynnette Hawkins and I learned that forgiven, life-giving leaders respond like this by:

THINKING BIG – Do I aim to do something that is doomed to failure unless God is in it or do I play it safe? Do I ask God to do “exceedingly abundantly more than I can ask or think?"  

THINKING LONG – Do I lead others in the light of eternity or are my investments short-term and short-sighted?  

THINKING BIBLICALLY – Do I take advantage of opportunities to listen to good teaching, to study God’s Word for myself, to ponder it, apply it, memorize it, talk about it with others, and pray about it? Do I allow it to convict and correct me? Does it inform everything I do?

Here are three other takeaways from the conference:

1. We serve an amazing God, and He is at work in powerful and life-giving ways.  

2. We are part of an amazing denomination. From work being done on college campuses, at Covenant Seminary, in the military, overseas, in engaging disability with the Gospel, in pursuing justice and mercy, through publications, in small and large churches, through church plants and a host of other ways, the Word is being declared, lives are being changed and the Gospel is going forth.  

3. The PCA is full of amazing women (and men, too). We met many leaders that fit the description in the initial picture. They are strong, humble, wise and godly, and they sacrifice much so the Gospel goes out.

Lynnette and I were privileged to be in their company and our prayer is that we will be servant leaders who pursue Christ and continually invite others to join us on the journey. Here are the large group talks and seminars from the conference which can be downloaded and listened to at your convenience! There is a lot of wonderful information packed into these talks.

_{Photo by Dineslav Roydev on Unsplash}