The Hearing God Podcast
Anthony Moore and Dan Lamos have met for coffee every week for over a decade. You're invited to listen in on their conversation on The Hearing God Podcast. Explore the prophetic, mystical, and heart-centered aspects of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. Each episode offers insights, inspiration, and practical wisdom to deepen your spiritual journey. Tune in for authentic and encouraging conversations that will enrich and empower your walk with God.
The Hearing God Podcast
3. Your Heart Needs Convincing What Your Mind Already Knows
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God isn't asking us to qualify to become His temple – He's declaring what already is true and inviting us to awaken to what He already knows about our identity. The tension between what we know in our minds and what we truly believe in our hearts creates a disconnect that only God can heal.
Welcome to the Hearing God Podcast
Speaker 1Welcome to the Hearing God Podcast. I'm Anthony Moore.
Speaker 2And I'm Dan Lamas. For over a decade, anthony and I have been diving deep into weekly conversations about the prophetic, the mystical and the matters of the heart.
Speaker 1And we invite you into these weekly conversations. We hope you feel like an honored guest at our table, so pull up a chair, settle in and let's get started.
You Are God's Temple
Speaker 2So pull up a chair, settle in and let's get started. So I was thinking about the scripture that was there in our prayer guide for the prayer room this morning and I thought it was very intriguing. It's in 2 Corinthians 6, right 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, I think is where we were. Verses 14 to the first verse of chapter 7. And there was that thought that there's no agreement between the temple of God and idols. And then Paul says and we are the temple of God. Yes.
Speaker 2And I just really was enjoying the truth that, wow, that it's God's will, that I am his temple Like. This is the way I'm designed. God's not asking me to qualify to become his temple. He's actually declaring over my life. He wants me to awaken to what he already knows. Yes.
Speaker 2You are my temple, awaken to what he already knows. Yes, you are my temple and there is no agreement, as as I have redeemed you in christ jesus, there's no agreement with idols yes and it's not like he's saying your problem is you are a dwelling place where there's all kinds of agreement with idols and I need to make you into my temple, right saying you need to awaken to the fact that I've given everything to awaken you to the fact that you are my temple right and that's the, that's sort of the first and foremost
Speaker 1like everything else, sort of like the agreement with idols is a secondary matter to the primary matter of you being his temple, right yeah.
Speaker 2Because I think, what with the enemy and the pull, the pull of just the, the dominion of darkness, is to think it's the other way around, then it's an unusual thought that I am the temple of God. Yes. Like the out of line thought is oh, I'm actually not the temple of God, but I need to become that. Right.
Speaker 2Right. What is disordered is when I'm agreeing with idols and serving idols in my life, that's disorder. Yes, like God's looking at my life that's disorder. Yes, like that's, the God's looking at that, going that should not be right. Here's a human Right and they're agreeing with idols. He's saying, yeah, that shouldn't be, that needs to be remedied. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's not, uh, it's not that the I think we we allow the enemy and darkness and the dark forces of this world to pull us into the idea that it's abnormal for a human to live as the temple of god, like god brings us back to normal I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1It's like a yeah, like the thing I need to run from is agreement with idols yes because that's dysfunction it is dysfunction, you know yeah and I think interesting, I guess where my head was going and I I maybe we haven't quite unpacked that yet, but I think where my, naturally where my head goes is the okay. So, those two things being true, right. So where're we are? First, you know, we are prime, like, first and foremost, we're the temple of god and therefore, secondarily, as a result of that, have no agreement with idols. I think it's uh, that where my head goes is that you know, the tendency of humanity would take that truth and start, like, earning, like we disorder that. You know, for lack of a better way to say it, we disorder that equation to say that I must free myself of idols so that I can be the temple.
Speaker 2Right, right.
Speaker 1Yes, but it's actually the other way around. Yeah, so it's like it's actually the reality of coming to grips with, reckoning with the fact that we are the temple of God, that, therefore, that informs you know it's from that place, not unto that place. It's from the place of being the temple of God. Yeah. That the agreement with idols gets broken. So it's like it's more like. Perhaps it's more like. The more our heart is convinced that we are the temple of God, the less we are going to be prone to making agreements with idols.
Speaker 2Yeah Something like that Well, okay, yeah, so that's so good. So if you're talking to me and you say to me that I am the temple of God, and. I'm aware of the ways that I've agreed with idols that I might be currently sinning in my life and I say back to you I don't deserve that. Right, there is a case to be made for you to say back to me and that right, there is an idol.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2Yes, absolutely. That very thought that you can't be the temple of God because you don't deserve it. Yes, well, there's your first idol. There's your first idol Like what yeah? That's interesting. It's really intriguing.
Speaker 1And the solution to that isn't to necessarily try harder. It's actually to go to God and say here's an area where my heart needs to be convinced that I am the temple of. God, so come and convince my heart.
Speaker 2Right. So this would sound like a very funny prayer in our current existence. God, please forgive me for thinking I don't deserve this Right, right, right. Not because I deserve it or I don't, but because I'm obsessed with that question.
Speaker 1Right, because deserving has performance tied up into it.
Speaker 2God, please forgive me for that question. Yes, please forgive me for entertaining that question, for responding to the truth that I'm your temple. Forgive me for raising the objection. Well, I don't deserve it like we don't recognize that as an idol, we say no, that's actually noble and good to think about how undeserving I am, totally.
Speaker 1Totally, but we've all been there. Oh yeah, oh right.
Speaker 2And I say the times we're living in, but really this has been throughout history. This has been a human thing to think that there is a, that being the temple of God is something you deserve or you don't deserve, right, when that is just a spiral down.
Speaker 1It's almost like asking the wrong kind of questions, because it's something that we have to serve. I mean, again, it's like the gospel, it's just something we have to receive right, it's just a receiving.
Speaker 1It's an acknowledgement, it's an accepting and it's an opening of the door, and then the real work is done by the Holy Spirit. Right, it's done by God himself. He comes in and he's doing the work. And so I just think that sometimes, when we have those kinds of questions, there's all kinds of things, but I just think, when we get into that way of thinking, I just say that it feels like it's just completely the wrong conversation, the wrong kind of questions to be asking, wrong conversation, the wrong kind of questions to be asking.
Speaker 2Well, you know it as uh, as it seems we always do, and maybe it's totally appropriate for this to happen again and again and again. Going back to, uh, you know, genesis, right, just the beginnings of god, providing food for adam and eve to eat in the garden. It's interesting that he would create a being that was going to rule over his creation, that was going to need to eat.
Breaking Agreement With Idols
Speaker 2Like even just like humans were created to actually need something. Yeah, why Right? Why would he do that? There's somehow he loves that interaction with with creation, and especially with the ones who are his assigned to rule his creation on earth that they're. They're going to need to eat. Yeah, like if Adam and Eve don't eat, they're not going to live.
Speaker 1It just seems funny to me when you say that. It just seems funny, that how is it? It seems a little bit like. It seems a little bit funny to me that Adam and Eve would rule over something that they would be dependent on.
Speaker 2Yes, I know Right exactly.
Speaker 1Yeah. So it's just funny. It's funny to say again like you can follow the thought exercise down and you could see how that could still be true, but it still just seems initially kind of funny how this is God says, rule over this thing, but if you don't actually partake of this thing you'll die. Interesting Well, I mean again. So presumably you know this is the mandate to man. Again, you could make some argument about adam and eve and them being immortal and those kinds of things, but well, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 2it is very intriguing to me that whole dynamic of the way humans interacted with creation, the relationship of it all. It's very intriguing to me and I also had like a flash of like wow, isn't that interesting that you would make that connection?
Speaker 1Because here's Jesus cursing a fig tree. Yeah.
Speaker 2Because you're not doing your job. Yeah, yeah. Like fig tree, you're supposed to be producing fruit for me to eat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he is the you know, he's the firstborn, you know, of the new creation. Yeah. And, like it's interesting, here he is coming to a fig tree looking for fruit. Right. And it's not producing any. He's like well, what's? You're not doing your job? Victory.
Speaker 1But he's going to eat because he's hungry, it's amazing that even God would take on flesh and be hungry and need to eat.
Speaker 1It's intriguing to me, for sure, and this is loosely related, but I heard this a few years ago and it blew my mind at the time and it is connected to a little bit what we're talking about, about efforts and the work and and stuff, but for and I and I don't know if it was, I don't know if it was a guy like NT Wright or or something like that, but it does, it does seem a little NT Wright-ish, but this blew my mind. It was like there was, you know, when Jesus, you know, before he goes to Jerusalem, he's there, he curses that fig tree, and the person that I, you know I don't know who it was who said this, drew a direct correlation between that fig tree and the fig leaves that Adam and Eve used to cover themselves.
Speaker 1Oh wow, yeah, and to me you know, and again, I think the connection was made there between, like man's effort to cover, their own to cover you know, man's own shame right, and the idea that it was God's you know, ultimately it was going to be God's work that covered man's shame not man's efforts right, and I think we're in that same dynamic here of conversation.
Speaker 2It's really of God.
Speaker 1Provides the covering God provides the covering, and then having and yet seemingly at enmity or at odds with, at least in this sort of cosmic struggle with God, seemingly having to convince man that you don't have to cover your shame, you don't have to. The equation's wrong your working comes from the fact that I've covered your shame. Comes from the fact that I've covered your shame, not your not work like you're working to cover your shame is actually the wrong. You're coming at it from the wrong angle, like it begins with the finished work of the cross. It begins with God's movement towards man, rather than man trying to do something like earn something to cover something up those kinds of things, and I think that you know so.
Speaker 1To me it fits right, like whether that's true or not.
Speaker 1I think, and I tend to think, that what Jesus was doing there the fruitlessness right, because that was part of the deal right with the fruitlessness right, because that was part of the deal right with the fig tree is that it wasn't doing his job, it wasn't bearing fruit.
Speaker 1So, jesus, there, there's a prophetic picture in there of Jesus identifying and cursing the efforts of man because it's fruitless, right, right. So it's like, ultimately, that your and my efforts, even to cover our own shame, but even to get to God, in and of ourselves, are fruitless. It's the Tower of Babel, it's religion, right, it's the religions of this world, every other religion except Christianity. It's those kinds of things that say I have to put, you know, I build stuff on top of each other, you know whether that's good works or whatever to get to God, to cover my shame, to whatever. And God comes in and he says that's like that's fruitless and I curse that, right, because the real thing of what's going on here is that it begins with God, it begins with God's movement towards man, it begins with being the temple, it begins with you know what.
Speaker 1I'm saying With being the temple. It just begins there, and our hearts have to be convinced of that. And there's the temple. It begins with you know what I'm saying With being the temple. It just begins there, and our hearts have to be convinced of that. And there's the wrestle, there's the reasoning, or whatever. There's the conversation that God is trying to have with us. If we'll listen right, is that I've done this for you, I'm doing this and I'm doing this in you if you will stop long enough, if you'll stop struggling, just stop struggling long enough, just to let me do this thing in you, and so I just think that's huge.
Speaker 2I don't know if you Me too yeah, I think that is such a current word. You know, like what we're here to do on this podcast is we're all about hearing God. You know, and this is a, it's a powerful word to to be able to, to center in on the fact that we need to hear God in order to do this day. Yes yes, and he has made all the provision that I can hear from him today. Yes, he's speaking, if I, by faith, am willing to accept that and listen for him and receive what he's saying to me, then I can do the day.
The Mind-Heart Disconnect
Speaker 2I am not intending he hasn't intended for me to get as far into this day as I can without hearing him, and if I should need some help I just text him. Can you shoot me over a word? God, totally, he has made provision because it's his joy to speak, because this is how his creation works. It's by his word of his power, right and I would say too, just to help people.
Speaker 1Maybe it's like when we hear God, it isn't always here's the list of things for you to do, right, right, it's probably. Perhaps and again I'm not making any theological statement, I'm just going a little bit by experience the kinds of things that he says have some to do with what you should do, but it's not. The majority to me of the kinds of things that God says is he speaks identity over you, right, so he speaks you're my son, you're my daughter, I love you. And having an encounter like when your heart hears that God sees you and knows you, that does something to you, like it frees you up in a way that is fairly incomprehensible, it's one of those things that you probably have to experience to know. Right, you can't explain the things that you probably have to experience to know, yeah, right, you can't explain the things that happen deep inside of you and therefore, so just to keep going with, I could talk there for quite a bit, but just to go with our line of conversation.
Speaker 1When we hear God come in and acknowledge the fact, when our heart hears that he loves us to live our lives, to do the things like to live our life in a way that we become like him, right? So it's like I've discovered the love of God in my life, and so me living my life. I'm free me talking to people, not bound up, not in a performance. It's less to like. Identity informs what we do, probably more so than God coming with a list of here's the things that you should do today Agreed Right.
Speaker 1Operating from the place of being like, of having our hearts convinced that we're a child of God, is, could I say, if the more we do that, the more likely or more positioned we are to do the things that he did? Right, yeah, so it begins with identity. It begins with God saying who we are. Right yeah, granted, of course, there is times for instruction. Okay, I want you to go and do this thing, right, right, okay, so that happens. But I actually believe the probably, the more, perhaps, the more profound things is like. I'm gonna speak identity into your life and then watch what happens.
Speaker 2Right On the other side of that Right. Yeah, that's exactly. I want to encourage anybody who is listening to this that that is so huge, what you just said, Anthony, and has meant so much to me over my lifetime, but especially the past few years of rediscovering that it is what God says about me and my identity in Christ that is meant to actually set me free.
Speaker 1It does set me free.
Speaker 2It does and in whatever way that I'm agreeing with temptation and participating in sin in my life, or faulty ideas, or believing a lie from the enemy. These things are not my identity Correct, but that's my fear. My fear in bringing it to God, being open or sharing with a brother like yourself, or sharing with another close friend about an area where I'm fruitless or I'm actually sinning in my life is. I'm afraid I'm going to discover that's my identity and that I'm actually disqualified.
Speaker 2I'm actually not part of God's family. I don't belong, I'm not the temple of God. These things are just not true. Because look at me sinning and I'm afraid to bring it forward, because I'm afraid. That's my identity, and what God always does is he starts right there I'm just thinking about. He curses that fig tree and it dies. I'm afraid that he's going to curse me and I'm going to die if.
Speaker 2I admit I just did this thing and I know it's sinful, but I don't want to bring it forward because I'm afraid he's going to curse me and I'm going to die, I just want to draw it.
Speaker 1Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2But the reality is he is going to curse that fruitlessness in my life by saying Dan Lamas, you are not designed to agree with that lie, right? So I'm that thing, right there.
Speaker 1That participation, that idol that you don't have a yoke, that you're not yoked to.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, that I can surrender that to him and he is going to deal with it. Yes, he's going to deal with it and he has on the cross you know our friend our friend, friend amy howard, talks about taking our sin and bringing it to the wounded side of Jesus and leaving it there. That's a great picture because he wants to take my sinning that I've done my agreement with the lie of the enemy. He wants to take that from me because it is fruitless and it's not my identity.
Speaker 2He wants to take that from me, because it is fruitless and it's not my identity. Yeah, and but, but the, you know but but our flesh and and the and darkness, the dark powers of this world wants us to focus on. God's not going to be happy with you for doing that. Yeah. And you're about to be dealt with the same way that fig tree was.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1There's a maybe. I'll just give you a little bit of a testimony or a story from my own life, to sort of just exemplify this. Probably one of the more recent encounters with God I had, and I know that I think we've talked about this before, but just.
Speaker 1I was in a service, we were at a conference and there was this specific prayer moment and I had been going through this season just of wrestling. I've been processing a lot of things, processing a lot of things, um, you know, processing a lot of things relationally and processing a lot of things. I've been carrying a heavy burden, let's just say right, uh, and had been wondering why some things were the way they were and even felt, uh, even felt like I was owed something. I think that was the journey of processing and coming to this, realizing that, yes, I had a sense that I was perhaps owed something. And in this prayer moment, it was just something that Pastor Brent was leading and he had us take all the things that we were wrestling with and he had us you know, you can't see this, but he had us put those things in our hand, in our closed fists, and hold them out in front of us.
Speaker 1And in that moment, I knew exactly what it was that I had in my hands, so to speak. It was the things that I was wrestling with, things that I felt like.
Speaker 1I was owed and in a second, the Holy Spirit came and validated all of those things. He validated, and it was this wild thing that caught me off guard and he was like, yes, all those things that you've been wrestling with, I validate those things, all those things that you feel like you're owed. You see, correctly, you are owed those things, wow. And and then the next part of that was releasing them. Right, the next part of that is releasing them.
Speaker 2Which would be dropping. Whatever that thing is, which is basically opening your hand, is sort of a prophetic act of just releasing those things.
Taking Our Sin to Jesus
Speaker 1So in the course of like five to ten seconds, I put everything that I felt like I was owed, all my wrestling in my hands. Holy Spirit came in, validated me in all of those ways and then, two seconds later, I was releasing them and in that moment I think so just in that moment I was free. Wow.
Speaker 1And I have not been the same since, and so just, but it was the thing that caught me off guard in that moment was like I think we can all get through the idea of, okay, we need to just release things to God, we need to keep casting our cares on Christ because he cares for you, right? So we know that we need to release these things that are struggles, right. But the thing that caught me off guard is how the Holy Spirit spoke to me, specifically because he didn't say you know, would you hurry up and release those things to me? He didn't say would you hurry up and release those things to me. He didn't put something on me that was heavy handed. He didn't say well, it's about time. Of course we know those things, we know the scripture in our head. Man.
Speaker 1But what he was doing in that moment was he was speaking to my heart.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And he says yeah, you're right. Wow, that's powerful. He says you're right, and we do not expect to hear the Holy Spirit saying that. We don't expect to hear the Holy Spirit say and so when he did that, it was just this. I don't know. It was just this beautiful surprise of grace right when he came in, and he just validated me in a way that completely caught me off guard.
Speaker 1And it was one of those things too. It's one of those things too. In a second or two he did that, and I've been carrying that for two months now, two, three months now From that moment. From that moment, it was just like. That's beautiful. It was like we talk about that too. It's like, okay, god comes in in a second and he does something and you're.
Speaker 2You're suddenly different on the other side of it. Man that's so powerful. So yeah, for sure that was like so, but that that validation was is yeah, well, you know that man that is powerful, like just thinking about that illustration, you know, and of you know, your fist, clenched palms facing down. You know, of you know, your fists clenched, palms facing down, recognizing you're gripping onto something. And just to go to that 1 Peter scripture you just quoted, casting all of our cares upon Jesus because he cares for us for you.
Speaker 2We don't all know that Jesusesus cares about us right right. We wouldn't say let, opening those fists and letting that drop to the ground at jesus feet. We wouldn't, a lot of us wouldn't say that the motive is because he cares about me yes, and so when you? Say the holy spirit says you're right, you, you are owed some things yeah but you can. You can release them to me because I agree with you.
Speaker 2Yes, yes and there's something about the like you, the holy, you knowing from the holy spirit that, oh, you agree with me that I am owed, that there's something about it, well, he going to take care of me. Then, like to say, man, it's just hitting me very strongly right now that I think most of us do not realize Jesus caring about us is a reason to let go of what we're grasping. So many people I talk to say why does it feel like I'm grasping all the time? Why can't I just relax with God, like I know he loves me and I know I'm safe, but why is it that I can't? Why am I grasping all the time? I just feel like I'm worrying all the time about whether things are gonna be okay.
Speaker 2I mean, could it be that it is as basic as because we don't know that he cares about?
Speaker 1us Like we don't really know, like our heart is not convinced that he's yeah exactly that.
Speaker 2that's motive enough to let go.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and I think it's just. I just sort of threw that in there because I think it's important to make that distinction, because, especially if you grew up in the church, we know in our head all the right answers. Yes.
Speaker 1We know in our head, we've learned them from an early age, but our heart has yet to be convinced. That's where the incongruity comes from. That's where the rub is. It's like what do we do? I know in my head what the scripture says. I know in my head, okay, I need to cast all my cares on him, or that he loves me, or that he's good, or that he cares for me. We know in our head, but our heart, that there are two realities going on, that our hearts do need to be convinced fully, completely, and I think that again, I think this is the journey of the believer. It's the gradual, perhaps convincing, maybe even reconvincing of the heart that he is who he is.
Speaker 2Yeah, totally so our friend Holly, holly Rikes, who wrote the book Free on the Inside. So she's one of the resources people that we tap into in learning about freedom, prayer, freedom, prayer training. Tim Valentine and Holly Rikes. Tim and Jen are part of King's Church here in New Brunswick, but Holly's a friend of theirs and she wrote this book Free on the Inside that we use as a textbook for our training.
Speaker 2But she likes to say your head tells you how you should feel, but your heart actually tells you how you do feel. Right, I like that. It's like we're aware of. We read the scripture and we say that's how I should feel, but then we walk through the day and we're aware that actually how we do feel is quite different. Yes.
Speaker 2And that awareness that God wants to heal that yeah, god wants to heal that by us confessing unashamedly God the way that I'm feeling and the way I'm behaving through this day because I feel this way isn't lining up with your word and it's learning that he doesn't shame us with that dynamic.
Speaker 2He says I want to heal that. I want to bring your heart in alignment with what you should feel, because it's true that when Jesus says don't worry about anything, well that means I shouldn't worry about anything Correct. But when I'm worrying, that's not a matter of God condemn, or I'm under condemnation or God is going to condemn me. It's a healing that God wants to bring.
Speaker 1Right, and I don't want to get too far because I think we're, you and I are covering ground that may be not obvious to everybody, but it's at least worth identifying. Like this is the discovery perhaps for me in my own life. The discovery perhaps of the last dozen or so years is that at least you know, I've come to the discovery of articulating two things that there's, I know there's a, that my heart and my mind often have a mind of their own right. Yeah. You know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1Right, like that. My heart and my mind often are not in agreement with each other. Yes, and I would have. It's like I would have been aware of that my whole life but would have been unable to. I think the gift of the last dozen or so years is the articulation of that, of realizing that's a thing, of that of realizing that's a thing Like I would have lived sort of in this weird tension and not been able to put language to it of this, the fact that my mind might believe one thing or know one thing, but my heart or my emotional response may believe something else.
Speaker 1Right, right, so so it's like so.
Speaker 1So I just think, I think that's just an important to just call out that there are two, there are at least two, there's probably three, but like for for the sake of the conversation in this mind heart conversation, it's at least worth identifying that that's a recent, fairly, let's just say the last sort of 20% of my life has been acknowledging, discovering and developing articulation to say that my mind is at odds with my heart, right and quite frequently dare my heart Right, right and at quite frequently dare I say Right, because it's the whole thing of like.
Speaker 1it's like you know we've. But I've lived in this reality my whole life but have been unable to articulate it yeah. So just to say it's worth just identifying that that's a real, that's a real thing and a real thing, and I don't hear a whole lot of people talking about that, but that's actually a foundational part of like your makeup like your, your body, sorry, your body, your, your soul, and your, your mind, your spirit.
Speaker 1right, so there's a, there's multiple parts and they seemingly can act independently of each other, right, right, so, yeah, and so, and again, this is a very biblical and Christian worldview, so it's not like we're being heretical here Right but it's like we have to unpack a little bit. We should just actually talk about how that impacts your life. So I don't mean to just sidetrack but, because we can.
Speaker 1I just think it's worth identifying that these are the kinds of things that you and I talk about all the time, but we don't hear necessarily talked about a lot, but it's very foundational to something like freedom prayer, right, so just to yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Well, you have those places where Jesus highlights the first command love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the second, is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. You have that list of heart, soul, mind and strength, and you might find another place where Jesus or Paul talks about the heart, the mind and the body, but there's always this dynamic of the mind and the heart and the body.
Speaker 2I like thinking about it in those three parts because it's easier for us to really understand that we're designed for our mind to be in communion with God, to be running the show In our heart.
Speaker 3our mind is, is compassionate this is just my version, our mind is our mind is compassionate toward our hearts yeah and from my study what I understand, just my very, you know, up to my knees.
A Personal Testimony of Release
Speaker 2Maybe studying some neuroscience is to understand that that we are. We work best when our mind, when our mind is in charge and is compassionate toward our heart right our heart has a way of operating, and then of course our body right follows the, the mind and the heart right, right. But where it gets short circuited is because our heart is a. Is the quicker response to situations right? Our heart responds faster than our mind does in real time, right you?
Speaker 1know, it's why we have disciplines where we train ourselves right, because our heart, how we're doing your heart, has very much to do with our heart, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2exactly. It's like we our heart is a fast responder. It doesn't make it better or worse than our mind, but it is the way it functions. Our mind is usually catching up with our heart in most situations.
Speaker 1Well, I just want to say this too, because, to circle back a little bit, this is why we've been using language that God has to convince our heart of something.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1It's very much so that this is us trying to unpack how we go through life and the realities that are going on internally, right, and it's just important so, how we go through a given situation and, circling back even further, us to be settled in the fact that God cares for us or that God loves us.
Speaker 1Right, it's very much a reality of the heart. Right, it's very much a reality of the heart because I think if we, you know again, we know the scripture, we can rehearse the scripture, we can memorize the scripture, we can, you know. But the believing of the scripture has very much to do with how our heart does with that scripture verse, and that's the part where we actually need God to come in in the miraculous way that he does. He needs to speak to that fact, right, and he can do that a number of ways, like his validation, his identity, how he You're my, my son, I love you. I can say those things, but to hear God say those things, there's something deep that happens in my heart, and so we need him to come in and do those things absolutely and just recognizing as our friend onesided friendship with John Eldredge a recent author
Speaker 2that we've been reading quite a bit from, but he's been helpful in just really helping us to appreciate. You know that we need to realize, we need to slow down, that the kingdom usually works at a slower pace than the internet. He talks about how we're disciples, of the way the internet functions. Everything has to be so immediate. The facts from the experts today if you ask me tomorrow what the experts are saying. I probably have read some contradictory information. By noon tomorrow there'll be new expert information that debunks what I'm saying the experts are saying it's just craziness how fast this stuff moves.
Speaker 2For sure, but we think that we need to submit to that when really the way God works in our life is this methodical, like at the pace of growing something you know. Yeah but, so what I'm going to say here is that that, um, that this whole thing of pace. You know that, that the most important things that you and I need to know to do, life comes to our mind yeah our mind is where that.
Speaker 2That is that vault of information we need to do life forever like. We're designed. That our mind, at slower paced, rational, nail it down, get this nail down, memorize it. You're gonna need to know this. That informs those split second decisions. And what oftentimes happens to people is they despise their heart or their mind because their heart is the quick responder and it seems like their heart gets them in trouble. They say, well, my heart is useless. Like no, no, no, it's not useless. It needs to be healed.
Speaker 2God wants to heal the connection between your heart and your mind. So what happens often in freedom prayer is someone. Jesus takes them to a memory where maybe there's unforgiveness in their heart towards somebody and they choose back in that memory, I choose to forgive Jesus and I hand this person over to you.
Speaker 2I cancel the debts, I hand them over to you. Come and heal my heart, and I just want to receive your truth. Well, what they find is their perception of that memory where there used to be. Is their perception of that memory where there? Used to be unforgiveness.
Speaker 2They were stuck there. They couldn't think a different thought about that memory. Suddenly, they can see the memory differently. Why? Because the gap between their mind and their heart's healed. In that moment, their heart doesn't have to hold bitterness against that person anymore. Suddenly, they can see the situation differently. Well, what's happening is their heart is getting healed and it can cooperate with the mind.
Speaker 2You say that person that hurt me. God's holding them accountable, and they actually were under a lot of strain themselves and I can understand why they reacted the way they did, like okay, I can see it from Jesus' perspective lot of strain themselves and I can understand why they reacted the way they did right right, like okay, I can see it from jesus perspective. And again, going way back, holy spirit says yep, yeah, you, you and injustice was done to you yeah absolutely you are owed something.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm going to take care of you, yep. And so suddenly the person's heart comes in line with their mind and the heart can slow down. They say, well, I'm actually okay, and so now there's a healing that happens there, and so the point I'm making here is that people tend to judge their heart and say my heart's useless.
Speaker 2Like no, it's not useless, it's God designed. God wants us, and then, of course, we have our body and what God, the gradual healing God, does, I believe, over decades for somebody is he brings our whole being to be able to hear. I love you.
Speaker 2My body needs to hear from God. I love you. But at the early stages of my Christian walk I didn't think my body mattered. I thought all I got to do is deal with my mind and then the rest is going to happen. God goes no, I want to train you over a lifetime that. I love your whole being Like when I heal you it's not just because you need a body to walk around in.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm healing you because I love your body yeah, you know, I love I'm letting your body know I love you and you are heart, you're, you're a mind, your heart, your body, and it's a big subject and yet I'm grateful that we live in the times we do where we can understand the gospel through that framework that that we are like often encourage people. No, like you're, you're stuck. You need freedom, prayer you feel stuck in darkness or in sin okay it doesn't mean that you're not saved like when you trusted jesus and you were able to surrender to embrace the gospel.
Speaker 2all of you saved. You are going to come up to points, though, when you realize, man, here's a stuck place, okay. Well, the truth is you're a daughter or a son of God through Christ Jesus and here's an opportunity where he wants to show love to an area of your life that you weren't comfortable with him being in before yep and now he's gonna gonna help you grow up by bringing healing between your mind and your heart or between your mind, heart, body.
Speaker 1You know, yeah, um yeah, and I think, I think just about process right, I think we, you know there's, there's, and we've talked about this lots but there's a measure of the reality of we have to give our own selves grace and patience as God, because God isn't, you know, god is. It's this pressure to be Christ-like right.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And maybe not understanding the timetable at which God is working.
Speaker 2Yes, right, yeah.
Speaker 1Because here's another biblical truth God's a gardener right, and he's creating a garden in you and me as a believer right. As a believer right. And also, we can get impatient with where we feel like we are right, and that's again, that's a heart issue, and I'm not saying where we feel like we are, definitely the bulk of the time isn't actually true right. Circling back to the beginning of our conversation, it is we, are. We actually, first and foremost, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1And so I just I think it's part of this like this. So we're doing this like we're going through life, we're becoming like Christ as currently a temple of the Holy Spirit. Right. And you know the part of it is like the untangling of our heart and our mind as we go through this process. Right.
Speaker 1And I think that's the part is that as we stop and again like as we, the believer, stop long enough to allow the Holy Spirit to speak into our lives, to inform us, to speak identity over us, those kinds of things, we'll actually go through life better. We'll be healed, therefore more Christ-like, we'll actually conduct ourselves in a more holy manner, therefore being more Christ-like, so it's like having grace and space and patience really for ourselves as we go through this process. It's really an important thing because, again, god is the gardener, right, and so there are weeds. It is slow, like a tree. You know, a redwood tree isn't born in a day. An oak of righteousness is not born. It is like that acorn perhaps that is planted and in the soil of your heart is still an oak tree. It's not anything else other than an oak tree, right, it's not anything else other than an oak tree Right.
Healing Prayer and Closing
Speaker 1But it's not a giant canopy of leaves and maturity, yeah Right, it's still an oak tree. So you can still be an oak of righteousness and have that still be in a bud form Right, right, righteousness, and have that still be in a bud, form Right, right and so. But it's so just to just to say that that we, I say all that to say is that may God give us grace to have patience with ourselves along these, along the journey. Yeah, for sure Amen.
Speaker 1I want to. I want to throw something else in. Something that you said that I sort of jumped at is that I wanted to just throw this across, slide, this across the table. This is a thought that perhaps the victory in the freedom or the vindication that we receive when we actually cast our cares on Christ, perhaps even the things that we're owed right. Perhaps that's not a like. Let's say, someone wronged you and you feel like you're owed an apology. The real freedom doesn't come in getting the apology that you're looking for. Right.
Speaker 1The real freedom comes in actually releasing that to God, right. We don't, you know. Again, we've been, you know I'm sure you've been in lots of situations where the apology is just not possible, right. Whether the person's not around, whether they're not in a correct, maybe they're long past right, maybe this is from a, maybe they're dead right, like they're, or they're just not around or they're not unwilling, the apology is not possible, like from the offending party, right. But true freedom comes when the release happens and God comes in and does his work.
Speaker 2Right, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1So I say that sometimes we think we have to get certain things in that and I just thought it's worth saying out loud that, like, the freedom that comes in your life doesn't come because you get what you think you're owed right, it actually comes when we will in that. That connect that to my moment with the lord two or three months ago is the real freedom comes in the release yes, right yeah there's the freedom, oh man yeah yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2And just for me, what that stirs up is, um, god knows what I need and he's not holding out on me right like yes like though that, and when I'm grasping something, it's usually because I don't believe those two things. Right. That God doesn't know or remember what I need. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to hang on to, I'm going to keep bringing this to him, because I'm afraid he's going to forget what I need Yep, and God knows what I need and he's not holding out on me. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4Like he cares, yep, and God knows what I need and he's not holding out on me Like he's, he's he cares and he so he wants to meet.
Speaker 2That need I. That's right here on. What you're saying is such a blessing. I you know this has been really really good.
Speaker 1I wonder like I wonder maybe it just is. It feels like we're landing the plane here Just to there's two things. It feels like we're landing the plane here. There's two things. I feel like maybe you could pray for the heart of anyone who's made it to this point in the conversation.
Speaker 1Just pray that we would pray for our hearts, that we would allow him to come in and convince our hearts that he's good that he loves us, yeah, that he's good, that he loves us, that he really is who he says he is, and then, then, but also that our hearts would be convinced that we are.
Speaker 2We are temples of the holy spirit, right?
Speaker 1yeah, I would say those are, those are dominant themes of our conversation just yeah, yeah, I would love.
Speaker 2Yeah, God, you, you do know what we need and you're not holding out on us. And thank you for this conversation, God, Um, just the way you've led Anthony and I along the way here as we've chatted. And God, we just pray for our friends. God, anybody listening right now that God, would you just come and heal our hearts, persuade our hearts that you do know what we need and that you love us and that you aren't holding out on us.
Speaker 2God and that you aren't holding out on us, god, and I do pray God for just a beautiful work in the lives of your people today, in a fresh way in our time, that we would believe in our hearts that we are the temple of God and that there is no agreement with idols.
Speaker 2There's no agreement between the temple of God and idols. God, and I pray that you would work in our hearts that we would just even see as the sun comes up every day. A fresh opportunity for you to do that work in our hearts, of just reminding us of who we are. In you and Lord, we just thank you for the grace of this Open our eyes in a fresh way to the hassles and the struggles of our life, even in this moment, right now, and just recognize that it's an opportunity for us to release things to you, because you do care for us. Yeah.
Speaker 2Because we are your temple. So thank you for all this, god, you are so good and the gospel is amazing news. Again and again, and again, thank you, god, for your renewing work in our life every day, in Jesus' name, amen, amen. Well, that's a wrap on this episode of the Hearing God podcast.
Speaker 1It has been a privilege to have you as our honored guest. Until next time.
