He Came For My Heart

Extract from the book "The Gospel According To Moses", which attempts to show the gospel from the perspective of the Jews and the Christians:

"When the Israelites stood at the foot of the mountain, the Lord revealed himself in thunder and lightning at the top of the mountain... That is one aspect of God. But later when Elijah encoutered the same God on the same mountain, the Lord revealed himself with a "still, small, voice". According to Maimonides (Jewish scholar), Moses ascended MT. Sinai to recieve the Torah (The Law/Commandments of God), heard human words and wrote them down like a secretary taking dictation but Israel at the bottom of the mountian saw nothing but a cloud of fire and head nothing but a thunderous roar.

The unapproachable thunder and the more accessible Torah is also true of the Torah and Jesus. If the Torah is a thunderous roar, Jesus is a still, small voice. But both have the same message... We believe that Jesus is God, which means obeying Jesus, is obeying God's Torah.

' And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.'

Like a loving father who expresses his affection to his children with both firm discipline and the gentle example of his own life, the Lord tries to communicate with me on every possible level.

For my mind he gives me Torah, but Jesus came for my heart.

Why do i need them both? Perhaps for the same reason Israel needed both thunder, and a still small voice. The Master of the universe wants to be very, very sure I understand."

For some reason, the bolded statement hit home in the heart for me. Until we truly encounter Jesus, everything that we read from the Bible is just feeding the mind, and all head knowledge. Yet Jesus has come for my heart, that i would rend my heart, not my garments in repentance and turning to Him. Once the heart has been captured, the mind follows, even if i do not have complete understanding, i am unable to leave the One whom my heart has been given to. On the flip side, even if my mind has full understanding, without the heart, no amount of convincing or rationality will make me follow another. 

It is however, not a blind faith, for the Word gives us understanding as well but in the Christian faith, the heart embraces Jesus first, then the Word becomes alive for us, because now the Living Word himself is in us. What would be to the world, perhaps just an amazing ancient book of literature, is now for us Life itself, that speaks not only to my mind, but to my heart.

Because Jesus came, now i can begin to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength and all my mind!

How is it that a heart that already belongs to You, still continues to feel, the "falling in love" again feeling? or perhaps You expand my heart, so there's always more of it to continue to keep loving You.