Chapter 3, The Enemy Within
**NOTICE*** Kris Lundgaard just did a 4-part retreat on The Enemy Within. If you’re interested in the mp3's, simply click here, or on the title "Chapter 3, The Enemy Within" above.
As we approach Halloween, haunted houses are a common sight in my neighborhood. Even next door there's a house decked out with an inflatable Frankenstein, cobwebs, tombstones and large plastic spiders.
Chapter 3 begins by explaining that "the haunted house scares us because it hides something unknown and deadly" (36). We've all seen the movies. Haunted houses are not where sane people want to vacation. You "tempt fate" when you go into one. Everyone knows that inside "the monster lies in wait, licking its chops" (36).
After extolling all the virtues of having nothing to do with haunted houses, he turns the tables on us with "You have a haunted house within you: your heart" (36). What? You just told me how deadly haunted houses are, warned me about the danger, and then say that inside me is one I cannot escape from!!!
In the Bible, the heart refers to our entire being--not just our emotions, but a person's entire mission control center. And, because it is the home of sin, our heart is "deceitful above all things" (Jer 17:9). The greatest poker players in the world are no match for the deceit any person's heart.
“Follow your heart!?!” Maybe we should run from it like the unsuspecting guests in haunted houses? Lundgaard puts it this way: No Hollywood director "could ever design a house as complex as your heart, or gather enough monsters to fill it" (38).
In my case, I am learning that a lot of sin in my life I’ve made a truce with because I don’t actively fight it, and if I’m not fighting it, I’m being killed by it. It does not feel like I’m progressing because I’m not violently warring against sin. I hope Lundgaard gives some practical battle strategies because I know I cut my flesh slack and “watch it regroup and revive’ (40).
This I do know. If I'm ever going to get a handle on my heart—i.e., find out why I do, think, say, feel what I do, think, say, and feel--I need God, who cannot be deceived, to explain my heart--why I lust, or get angry, or worry, or fear what others will think of me.
Thank God for the hope this chapter ends with! Believers have the Spirit who knows our hearts and “ferrets out the monsters” because “no sin escapes his searching eye” (41) in our haunted hearts.
As we approach Halloween, haunted houses are a common sight in my neighborhood. Even next door there's a house decked out with an inflatable Frankenstein, cobwebs, tombstones and large plastic spiders.
Chapter 3 begins by explaining that "the haunted house scares us because it hides something unknown and deadly" (36). We've all seen the movies. Haunted houses are not where sane people want to vacation. You "tempt fate" when you go into one. Everyone knows that inside "the monster lies in wait, licking its chops" (36).
After extolling all the virtues of having nothing to do with haunted houses, he turns the tables on us with "You have a haunted house within you: your heart" (36). What? You just told me how deadly haunted houses are, warned me about the danger, and then say that inside me is one I cannot escape from!!!
In the Bible, the heart refers to our entire being--not just our emotions, but a person's entire mission control center. And, because it is the home of sin, our heart is "deceitful above all things" (Jer 17:9). The greatest poker players in the world are no match for the deceit any person's heart.
“Follow your heart!?!” Maybe we should run from it like the unsuspecting guests in haunted houses? Lundgaard puts it this way: No Hollywood director "could ever design a house as complex as your heart, or gather enough monsters to fill it" (38).
In my case, I am learning that a lot of sin in my life I’ve made a truce with because I don’t actively fight it, and if I’m not fighting it, I’m being killed by it. It does not feel like I’m progressing because I’m not violently warring against sin. I hope Lundgaard gives some practical battle strategies because I know I cut my flesh slack and “watch it regroup and revive’ (40).
This I do know. If I'm ever going to get a handle on my heart—i.e., find out why I do, think, say, feel what I do, think, say, and feel--I need God, who cannot be deceived, to explain my heart--why I lust, or get angry, or worry, or fear what others will think of me.
Thank God for the hope this chapter ends with! Believers have the Spirit who knows our hearts and “ferrets out the monsters” because “no sin escapes his searching eye” (41) in our haunted hearts.
Labels: The Enemy Within
posted by Ordinary Pastor at 9:15 PM
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