Well, here's the last part to my thoughts on your private life. Yes, it has been as comfortable as hugging a cactus, but it's been worth it, right. So far, I've focused on the really hard stuff... but today I want to focus on the potentially amazing aspect that can flow from your private life. Remember, I first asked if your private life was really yours? I suggested, "No, it isn't." Then I asked if your private life was really private? I suggested, "No, it isn't." An now here's the final question for you:
Is your private life really a
life?
The
answer to this question is “Yes.”
Is your private life yours?
No. Is your private life
private? No. Is your private life really a
life? Yes. Your private life is a life. It is precious. It is special. It is unique. It is beautiful.
It reveals the image of God.
So your private life is to be cherished and treated well. Your private life is not to be
saturated in sin as if it is yours to trash or throw away or to hide in destructive
indulgence.
Dan
Leffelaar is my right-hand man in the young adult ministry at Brentview. Since the first weekend I was on staff,
Dan has been my partner in ministry here.
He really should be in full-time ministry, he’s got God’s call on his life. And that’s not a private call. But until the opportunity opens, he’s
working in the meantime at the Heart and Stroke Foundation. In his role, Dan makes presentations on
how to care for your heart. He
shares about habits that we should develop in order to keep our heart strong
and healthy and our blood flow clean and unobstructed.
One
of the things Dan presents to people is this Vat of Fat. It’s nasty. It is meant to make us sick about the bad stuff we take into
ourselves that restricts our heart from working and our blood from
flowing. According to the Vat of
Fat, if we take in an extra serving of fast-food French Fries beyond the
calories and food groups what we’re supposed to take, every week, we will add
to our bodies 36 pounds of solidifying fat that goes beyond what we can burn
off in a year. If we take in an
extra glazed donut beyond what we can handle, we will add to our bodies 22
pounds of fat. An extra soda a
week beyond our daily calorie needs will add 17 pounds of this stuff. And so on. Disgusting isn’t it?
Too much of this stuff clogs our arteries and attacks our heart. And that limits what we can do, limits
our enjoyment of life, limits our enjoyment of time with others, and eventually
will steal our life away from us.
Now
imagine doing this to your heart and soul. What we take into our heart, into our private life, impacts
our ability to live free from obstruction. We can’t truly live free if we keep saturating our life in
junk and excuse it because it’s our life or pretend like we can keep it hidden
because it is done in private.
Eventually, the clot will reveal itself and it will be destructive to
you and impact everybody.
Your
life is supposed to be free from the obstructions that keep you from truly
enjoying the abundant life that God wants for you. Proverbs 4:20-27 says: “My
son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep
them written on your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health
to a man’s whole body.” Above all
else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth;
keep corrupt talk from your lips.
Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before
you. Make level paths for your
feet and take only ways that are firm.
Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” Proverbs 3:3 says, “Let love and
faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the
tablet of your heart.” Proverbs
6:21 says, “Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your
neck.” Proverbs 7:3 says “Bind
them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.” Psalm 37:31 says that when the law of
the Lord is in your heart, your feet do not
slip. Letting God’s ways shape
your private life impacts every aspect of how you live.
When
we go to God and present to him our life, God accepts us, forgives us, and
begins the work of recreating us from the inside out. His Spirit begins working in our heart to help us to live
according to the pattern he has set out for us. No matter what’s in your private life, God wants to help you
have the wellspring of life flowing within you.
I
have not said anything today without including myself in the mix. If you were to follow me around 24/7
with hidden cameras, you would certainly discover some sin that God already
knows about. I don’t say that to
astonish anyone. My point is
simply that none of us is pure.
Proverbs 20:9 asks it correctly: “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart
pure; I am clean and without sin.’”
The rhetorical answer is “No one can say that.”
The
Good News is that the heart-clogging, soul-clotting stuff that we have been
hiding can be expelled and exchanged for the heart-freeing, soul-cleansing word
of God. Just because you have
hidden bad stuff doesn’t mean you need to keep carrying that junk in your
arteries. Or just because you have
been caught doing something that you did in private, doesn’t mean you have to
have a spiritual heart attack. You
have an opportunity to restore your private life to what it should be. Psalm 51:10 cries out, “Create in me a
pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 101:2 says “I will be careful to
lead a blameless life—I will walk in my house with a blameless heart.”
The
conclusion to all of this is simple: Your private life is God’s to shape, not
yours. Give him back your private
life. Let him shape you from the
inside out. Let him help you truly
live with all the joy and abundance and strength and integrity and confidence
that you can have as he lives within you.
