Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened. (Mark 6:45-52)

If the disciples had gained the intended insight from the loaves and fishes incident, what should their response have been to Jesus walking on the sea? Instead of astonishment, what reaction would have been appropriate? Mild terror? What was it that Jesus wanted to convey? At the very least, it was this: the rules have been changed! Things weren’t happening as they previously had. The sick are healed, food just materializes, men walk on water, and astonishingly, even tax collectors repent! Suddenly there is a new baseline for normal. All things are apparently possible now with Jesus!

How does this all-things-are-possible thing play out? After witnessing a miracle, were the disciples supposed to just flip a switch and open a new faith circuit? Jesus told them the problem was that their hearts were hardened. How did this happen? “Did they do this to themselves, Lord? You didn’t do this to them, did you?”

Whose domain is the heart anyway, God’s or ours? Who has access and responsibility for the circuitry of our hearts? Who wired them in the first place? I propose that we credit God as the master engineer who had wired his prototype (Adam) without a flaw. Let’s assume God is keenly interested in this circuitry and has told us to watch over it with all diligence. What will that look like? Will Bible study and memorization repair the damaged wiring? Will the confession of God’s Word solder the loose ends back together? Will another sermon be the fuse for our blown circuits? In our quest for answers, let’s begin with this idea: In Adam, our wiring was fried. This was the hardened condition of the disciples’ hearts—and ours.

When we are born again, do we get rebuilt hearts—ones that have been worked on, reissued, and are now warrantied by the factory?  I don’t think so; we aren’t going to be made into the image of Christ with used parts. New hearts, capable of relating rightly to God, are central to the New Covenant. Christ in us is our new circuitry. So, is that the end of it? Are we to have no further heart problems? Can we now flip that switch, default to auto-heart pilot, and cruise on in without any turbulence? With no fear and trembling?

No. As long as we have choices and there are commands in Scripture, there is some kind of mysterious joint venture going on between God and ourselves. We have shared responsibility for the domain of our hearts. Since all life flows through our heart, it is essential that we have some idea of what our responsibility is and what is God’s.

It is helpful to acknowledge that God created us with access to the switch. Man had to be able to choose. This was essential to our hearts as well as to the ultimate kingdom power grid. Since the kingdom’s power is based in love, and choice is essential to love, the plan necessitated human access to the switch. It is tragic, isn’t it, to think of God watching his children turn out their own lights? After Adam threw his switch, God was no longer central in his heart—Adam was. He now had the desire of his heart, and the flow of Eden-current ceased.

How does this work though? If our wiring is now good, why do we still do bad? Think of a child’s brain. It is a universe of potential electrical connections, which will either be made or not. For the child to reach its potential, it must have the right kinds of stimuli. Our hearts are similar.

Like the field of the child’s brain, the potential for circuitry is all in place. In Christ, this is true of our hearts as well. Scripture would say, we are saved and are being saved. Our metaphor says that we have new wiring and that, we are completing our circuitry—in fear and trembling. The uncertainty of things has to do with the mind of our flesh, which might be thought of as the remnants of the wiring we inherited in Adam, which has been tampered with by the world and the devil. Through these temporal circuits, phantom currents flow, carrying dying impulses of a life that has been buried in Christ.

The stimuli required for our new wiring is the moment by moment relationship we now have with God. Experience upon experience, encounter after encounter, the potentials of our new hearts are realized. As God shows us where we are still maintaining the old circuitry, by way of our agreements and choices, we see, by design, we still have access to the switch.

To my fleshly mind, it seems like a fearful risk to allow my grubby mitts anywhere even near a switch—yet love demands it. Understanding love’s requirements, we surrender our exclusive rights to this switch and a grace is released which connects miles of potential circuitry in our hearts. Mysteriously, this inner grace makes a way for Jesus to express himself outwardly through us to the world.

Brace yourself for some heavy theology: Our heart circuitry is fried in Adam yet it is brand new in Jesus. In this sense our hearts are good hearts with the capacity to process Truth. Our minds are another matter. They must be renewed. There are synapses and relays yet to be connected. As these connections are made, we are transformed, one circuit at a time, back into the image of God in Christ. This is how we are becoming the light of the world.

This is our joint-adventure with God.  As steward-partners with Him, it is our simple, yet fearful task (in light of the voltage) to yield those circuits to God where its obvious His abundant life is not yet flowing, asking Him to have His way in restoring us to the original schematic—His image.

Father, like the disciples, perhaps we could use a little terror or astonishment, at least enough to remind us that the rules have been changed. Please let us be the generation who learns to live from your new baseline of normal where our hearts are not hardened, but are rather, in Christ, discovering that all things are new and truly possible with You. Help us to see that in Christ, the light of Your kingdom is now within us and, by nature, it radiates outward into all creation.

Father, help us to recognize the kingdom is our domain—yours and ours. Teach us to jealously guard this space. Teach us to live the types of yielded lives which allow grace to flow from our new hearts out to the world. Help us to renew our minds that we may be radiant with your glory and shine into all the dark places around us.  Amen.

 

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