He Wants Our Hearts

This morning I thought about weddings, baptism, and our hearts. I'm going back to the Christmas Eve service where Max urged all of us to give our hearts to Jesus this Christmas. To those who were doing so for their first time, Max asked them to write their decision on a card in the bulletin and drop it in the plate. He promised that someone would contact them for follow-up in this critical decision in their lives.

In our fellowship, many people might protest this approach to evangelism. They'd likely say, "Why isn't there anything said about baptism?" One can criticize the Oak Hills church all they want, but hopefully their criticism would be silenced once they learned that over 500 new believers have been baptized there. This church believes in baptism -- in their statement of belief, published on the back of their bulletin, it says, "Salvation is available for all who put their trust in Christ as Savior. Those trusting Christ should repent of sin, confess their faith, and be baptized."

What I appreciate about the approach of this church is their emphasis on giving one's heart to Christ. Don't you think if we start there, letting Jesus come into our hearts, we will turn from our sins and confess our faith publically in baptism?

In my early years as a Christian in the late 70's, it confused me when there was so much emphasis on "getting people baptized." I noticed that those who were pushed to "get baptized" didn't seem to change that much. While others I knew, outside of the fellowship I was in, had these transforming experiences the day or night they met Jesus and gave their heart to Him.

This is where I come to the subject of weddings. What if we told couples they just need to get married, to go through the ritual? Then they'd be married and stay together for life. Right? But what if their hearts weren't into it? Will they likely stay married? Or will they have just gone through a ceremony?

I know of a man who was married with two children..and then last year told his wife he didn't love her any more. And now he's abandoned that family and has remarried. He went through the ceremony with this first wife, but some how, some way his heart grew cold towards his first wife. And he switched his heart's allegiance to another woman.

Have you wondered why those churches that emphasize the heart -- giving our hearts to Jesus, becoming a follower of Jesus, urging believers to allow the Holy Spirit to take control -- tend to grow a lot more than those who emphasize the ordinances (as important as they are)? I've been bothered by this for years.

So I come back to the heart. Each day I want to give my heart to Jesus, more of myself to Him. All of my allegiance to Him. I never want to let that allegiance grow cold. And I want to urge others to do the same.

Any thoughts on this, fellow bloggers? Has any of this bothered you?

Jim