The Heart of Outreach

As we use it here, the phrase “heart-led existence” is the same as walking by the spirit or walking by faith. Our problem is that those New Testament phrases come with a lot of baggage in the minds of readers, baggage that we won’t claim.

It’s not so different from the Orwellian propaganda we face every day from the mainstream culture in the West. Perhaps you’ve heard the old joke that an Anti-Semite is anyone that Jews hate. In other words, the label says more about the slinger than the target. In that same sense, there are more things than you can shake a stick at that weaken faith while pretending to teach about walking in faith. Faith in such teaching is just a superior form of cerebral processing, and the unspoken assumption is that your faith is measured by conforming with someone else’s orthodoxy.

Even if we can get them to use words that suggest the Spirit is above human intellect, they still act and speak as if the whole thing is a matter of right thinking. Take a look at the structure of all their teaching programs, and there’s nothing that reaches above the head. Biblical faith is not a stronger commitment to some orthodoxy. Faith is a faculty that overrules the reason because it comes from a higher authority.

I’ve warned about a common religious and social catastrophe related to Zionism and Dispensational Theology. I don’t care what brand of eschatology you espouse; it’s most likely contrary the Bible. The term “eschatology” refers to rational analysis of some sort; it must of necessity be an intellectual exercise. I’ve tried to point out research by others that show where Dispensationalism came from, how the pernicious lie of eschatology teaching entered the mainstream Western evangelical churches. For example, I mentioned the role played by C.I. Scofield and his marginal notes in certain editions of the Bible marketed in the US.

If you look up his name in connection with his sponsor Samuel Untermeyer in any search engine that doesn’t track you (try Duck Duck Go or Startpage) you’ll get unfiltered results that show the full range of people who have done the research. Chase enough rabbits from the results listed and you’ll learn how Untermeyer blackmailed President Woodrow Wilson into putting Brandeis on the Supreme Court. In other words, the same people are all engaged in a world of evil and it seems to run forever. Most of those stories are told by people who have been marginalized, while the whitewashed lies are everywhere.

Some of the people who write about Scofield have names like Texe Marrs. He does do a good job of getting the story on Scofield straight, but only because he tends to plagiarize folks who actually know. On Samuel Untermeyer, he tends to wander off into speculations that can’t be supported. On just about everything else I’ve seen, Texe Marrs sounds more like The National Enquirer than a pastor of teacher of the gospel. Sadly, the field of those seeking to expose the lies of Dispensational teaching are planted with a lot of tares.

My point is that such information, even when crystal clear and accurate, it still just intellectual data. These people are convinced that getting the right facts will save us. In other words, they are still stuck in the same deadly mudhole that keeps the churches from doing much redemptive work. One flavor of mud is no better than another. They are all slinging mud at each other and this keeps The Cult very happy.

Climbing down into that pit is not the way to rescue anyone. Faith in Christ does not come from right ideas or accurate thoughts. Faith in Christ is a miracle only God can perform in your soul. If your spirit is dead, there’s nothing you can do to bring it to life. God has to touch your dead spirit and fill it with the only spirit life there is — His. When the dead matter of your body returns to entropy, your brain will die with it, but your living spirit will face Him as either an adopted child of His Spirit or a foreigner enslaved to Satan.

Giving people the straight facts for their brains will not breathe divine life into their dead spirits. Whatever it is that God uses for that miracle mission requires that we operate above that level. If you read my previous vision about helping folks recover from the poison of Zionism and Dispensational heresy, it really isn’t about learning all the facts. If you can understand why we can’t support the modern State of Israel, that’s only because you understand the dire imperative of living from the heart. Our primary ministry of healing and redemption starts from simply learning to operate on the moral plane from the heart.

Do you grasp what a vast, unspeakable power that holds? Do you get that walking by the heart is the only way we can walk in God’s divine moral character? That the heart-mind is the only faculty capable of understanding His Person? What do you suppose Creation will do when you walk by the Creator’s habits? That’s our evangelism, our message, our mission. Just live by the heart-mind.

You can’t convince them of the truth with words and facts, but they cannot argue with your heart.