Matters of the Heart-Heart Attacks – Steve Orr
Heart Attacks:
The “heart attacks” I’m talking about are when people attack your healthy heart, your good heart, and your innocence. (Please contact your physician regarding literal cardiac issues.) The worst attacks come from Bible Thumping Preachers bent on performance-based, guilt-driven religion. Their favorite weapon is the Bible and their most used ammunition are scriptures like this:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
With this, “Thumper” takes aim at twinges of guilt which lurk in the dark corners of the victim’s mind. He agitates forgotten, unhealed sore spots until the wound is reopened. His victims are attacked many times until they actually start to enjoy the pain of the sore spots, more agitation means more pain. The wounds fester. Eventually the attack victims become spiritual masochists seeking more painful pleasure saying, “Man! The preacher really did a number on me today. I needed that browbeating to set me on the straight and narrow.”
On the drive home, echoes of Jeremiah’s condemnation are replayed. Having been reminded about how deceitful and wicked they are, they go home with renewed zeal to work out their problems. Then they take off their religious Sunday clothes to relax with a beer or two and watch the football game. During the week the spiritual masochist returns to life as normal until the following Sunday when the sadist Thumper reloads his weapon and continues this vicious cycle.
What a convenient relationship!
Sometimes family and co-workers pile on by adding insult to injury because it makes them feel better about themselves.
Selah…
Please! Let us now drink deeply from the Word that refreshes:
Above all else, guard your hearts, for from it flows the wellsprings of life. Keep these words in your heart, they bring life and health to one’s whole being. (Proverbs 4:21-23 paraphrased)
Thumper’s bible clubbing is based on a lie! It’s a guilt-driven, works-based mentality of religion taken straight from the obsolete Old Covenant Law, (Hebrews 8:13). Paradoxically, the New Covenant was prophesied just a few pages over in Jeremiah 31.
When we’re driven by law and performance we lose touch with ourselves, with our inmost being, our heart. We are not made to live that way. The cure comes from the refreshing waters of the New Covenant of grace.
Please stay tuned. There is much more to these matters of the heart.
Steve Orr writes to us from Montana. After working in the mecca of technology, Steve traded the rat race of Silicon Valley for the adventures of High Tech in Big Sky Country. Steve has an MBA with experience in accounting, finance, technology, and management. He occasionally writes a little software code, but mostly he likes writing about Matters of the Heart.
Plain Truth Ministries | Box 300 | Pasadena, CA 91129-0300
