Guest Blog - Persuasion of the Heart - Paul DelSignore
If you are a Christian, you may discover that the hardest pursuit is actually living the Christian life. By this, I don’t mean following a set of rules or being morally good; I mean ‘living out’ that which we proclaim as the Gospel.
Intellectually, we believe the proposition of the Gospel, that God himself has come to renew creation in and through the work of Jesus on our behalf. But how do we get from ‘belief in our heads” to “belief in our hearts?” How does it go from knowledge to flesh and blood reality. Note that I’m not saying it is distinct from knowledge, rather… it is a knowledge that encompasses and flows toward action.
Some of you may know that I am a big Tim Keller fan; he has no doubt been the most influential thinker for me in my life. But if I was to pick the most important lesson I learned from Keller it would be this: “On a daily basis… you have to preach the gospel to yourself.” What that means is that it’s not just a matter of intellectual assent via knowing the Gospel, but you need to persuade yourself; it needs to melt the heart.
Have you ever worked out on your own in a fitness club and then worked out with a personal trainer? I promise you there is a difference when someone is persuading you (rather forcefully) that you can indeed lift that extra weight. You may know that you can lift the weight, but sometimes you need to be persuaded to do so.
To get the Gospel in us… may require something different for each of us. It may be music, or commentary, or a sermon, or meditation. The daily ritual of gospel intake may also require the visitation of the Spirit. It isn’t a magic formula, and it isn’t easy. I don’t pretend to do it well… I struggle with living out the Gospel. I suppose one problem might be that if we force the Christian life, we do it with our own effort and we become prideful, looking down on others who don’t do it as well as us. Sound familiar?
Persuasion of the head grants us knowledge; persuasion of the heart prepares us to love. Both are important; both are necessary.
