A Heart Connected Relationship with God

Most of the work and I do involves inviting people to live more from the treasured seat of their life–the heart. When your heart is addressed, you get to the real issues that motivate and influence your entire life. The heart is where your root system lies.

If I find your heart, I’m going to discover all the things that are important to you, the issues that grip you and the values that motivate everything. When you live from the heart, life gets real, experiences become authentic and you find yourself becoming more fulfilled, day by day. 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:21

It is All About the Heart

Everything Jesus did on this earth addressed the life of the heart. To this day, He is still all about having a heart exchange with you. He knows that if He can connect with your heart, He will have access to all that you are and be able to transform your life. 

But isn’t that the battleground? We struggle in wondering what Jesus will actually do if we open up to Him. 

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
Revelation 3:20

What will Jesus do if we really open our hearts to Him? In this biblical passage, our Lord is not addressing unsaved people. He’s talking to the church, inviting them into a new level of intimacy. This invitation is simple, yet powerful. All He wants to do is sit down and have a meal with you. 

This meal speaks of intimate exchange and meaningful connection. But for so long, we have been avoiding this. Maybe because you thought when you open the door, God would body slam you and shout at all the things that are wrong with you. Quite possibly, you are not used to a relationship with someone where all they want to do is connect. Relational intimacy may be a foreign concept to you. 

God is all About the Heart

Our Father in Heaven and our Lord Jesus want to have a real relationship with you. But you can only experience this if you are willing to have a real heart to heart relationship.  

When you have a heart to heart relationship with God: 

  1. The highest value is relationship, more than religious duties, performance evaluations and task-focused living. 
  2. You give God permission to have access into every facet of your heart and life. 
  3. Your pace of life is not at hyper speed. There is a healthy rhythm and room on the edges of life for reflection. 
  4. You tune into allowing God to mature and develop your emotions, so you can become more emotionally present, engaged and empowered with God and others. 
  5. You understand that past experiences can have an impact on your present reality, so you allow God to bring healing to those areas that can become hindrances. 
  6. You allow symptomatic problems in your life to lead you towards letting God teach you about the motives and beliefs of the heart that drive those behaviors and struggles. 
  7. You learn to receive from God, so that you have much to give others in the power of His love. 
  8. You recognize that God uses your earthly relationships to mature your life and even enhance your relationship with Him. 

Sadly, it’s not a surprise that most people have not been mentored in this. We therefore avoid issues of the heart like the plague, afraid we will be shamed and pushed into a corner to cry in endless pain. 

And yet this is not true. Engaging a heart-to-heart experience with God leads us into an adventure like we’ve never known. You may feel some pain, but that’s the whole point. You finally get to truly feel and awaken to what’s possible. 

Moving Past Symptoms

Moving into a more heart connected journey starts by moving past surface evaluations and into more honest assessment. Dealing with the heart moves us past symptoms and to the real reasons why we do what we do; and especially why we do what we don’t want to do. 

Think of the many things you involve yourself with on a daily basis. Are you aware of the motives that drive your actions? It’s easy to quickly assign noble intentions on many things that we do, without being aware of the broken motives we carry. 

For example, you may be involved in helping people in some form or fashion. You communicate to everyone that you just love pouring out to others and showing love. While this is true, have you considered your unmet need to be validated and accepted that drives you to work endlessly on those projects? Is there a chronic busyness that keeps you from noticing the ache in your heart that is still empty? 

What about those areas you’re trying to break? Do you understand what’s underneath the pornography addiction you can’t seem to overcome? Or the anxiety that doesn’t relent? What’s going on with this depression or the anger that lashes out a little more often than you’d like? 

This isn’t a pop quiz or an interrogation, so don’t worry. But it’s time we invite God to reveal what’s underneath these symptomatic problems, so that we become more in tune with what’s happening inside.

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