The Battle for Your Heart.

I recently read a book by one of my favorite authors. Yes, that is right for all of you who do not particularly like reading, I read a book. It was called Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker. Now I like Ted Dekker for many reasons but one of those many is the fact that he implements biblical principles and salvation in almost all of his books. There is a direct tie to the story of the Bible. Some books this is easier or harder to find, but it is almost always there. Anyway in the particular book I was caught up in how explicit this salvation message is, and I was mesmerized by the storyline itself. This particular one tended to seem odder than the others, because there seemed to be a link to vampires. I was a little disappointed Ted would jump on the Vampire bandwagon but i continued reading because the fact is, it was still enticing enough to let me continue.

I came to a point in this book where the main character comes to a realization. The battle between good and evil is so crucial because while they are in opposition to each other they are both in contest for the same thing. The hearts of people. Satan tries to win the hearts of people here on earth just as much as God does. While this may seem like a pretty basic realization, it gets more interesting. There are two different ways that each party goes about trying to win the hearts of those around them. The devil uses seduction and temptation to pull people in and believe that it is love. God uses something that seems really lame at first glance, but can really only be described with two words: true love. He uses true love and a genuine kind of love in order to woo us. These can easily look the same in the beginning stages, it may seem like something is enticing and true love when really it is just seduction but there are little markers that point us to seduction and others that point us to true love. If you are expecting me to lay out those markers, I am sorry to disappoint you, because I believe that they change. There are some that are pretty obvious, but I do not want to venture there here.
Yet, there is another part to this challenge. In this realization that there are two sides trying to woo our hearts, there comes a point where we have to choose. There are many little choices that lead to this choice and those choices are crucial. The choice remains in our hearts about what we really desire. At the core we desire, long, yearn for true love. (if it helps just imagine the priest from Princess' Bride). All humanity is aching for a chance to be loved genuinely. To be wanted in a way that no person is able to give. To be cherished for everything that they are and to be chosen by someone who loves them in this way. This is something that many would think is the job of a man to give to a woman. To make that choice about who they love, and that woman are mainly longing for that man to come and choose them. Yet, I think that men have that same longing. We long for this, and we also long for the ability to choose someone who we love unconditionally. We long for some kind of love that is pure and that knows no bounds. (Here is where I add my disclaimer, for many this may seem like marriage that i am talking about, but you would be wrong. I believe that marriage can give us some of this but it only hints at something greater). We long to be chosen by one who yearns for us so deeply that they would do anything for us. We have that person in God. A man named Jesus Christ did 'anything' for us by putting himself through the worst pain on the cross. He loves us deeply. This may seem like an old message to most people reading this.

So the question I have for us is, are we loving him back? He has chosen to love us unconditionally, to give us a love that we are craving!!! He wants to love us so deeply that we can not even grasp it, and yet we prostitute ourselves to the things of this world and give lip service to the fact that we love God. I do not want this to come across as a mopping that we do not love God. yet we say that we love God and we do things to express that love, and yet when did love become about simply doing things for the one you love? Last time I checked, it took a lot more than constantly doing things for the one you love. We need to come to a point as Christians where we continue to do things to express our love for Christ, but also need to continually realize this love, and keep choosing the love we have for Christ instead of the seduction that the devil is offering at every turn. It is a realization and a thing about the heart, and about the head. Whoever said love is blind was lying, because love sees and recognizes and chooses to love even more because of that realization. I want to develop a passionate love for god that is more than just action and lip service. I hope you want that too and are willing to join me in this.

Yours Truly,
Nick Poetker