Executive Director
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it." Jeremiah 17:9
The following is from Andy Stanley's new book "Enemies of the Heart" in chapter 19.
"Life can be hard on the heart. The world is full of outside influences that have the power to disrupt the rhythm of your heart. Most are subtle. Some may even appear to be necessary as protection from further disruptions. Over time you develop habits that slowly erode your heart's sensitivity. The inevitable pain and disappointment of life have caused you to set up walls around your heart. Much of this is understandable. But at the end of the day, there's no way around the truth: Your heart is out of sync with the rhythm it was created to maintain."
"Perhaps the major reason we rarely stop to monitor our hearts is that it was never encouraged. As children, we were taught instead to monitor our behavior. If we behaved properly, good things happened, regardless of what was going on in our hearts. Eventually your heart - the real you- will outpace your attempts to monitor and modify everything you say and do."
Jesus is not after your good behavior, He is after your changed heart. The challenge with that is upon salvation, your heart continues to be riddled with the result of the fall. We continue to struggle with sin. Does that struggle ever end? The process of sanctification is where you grow day by day in your affection for the Lord and your pursuit of Him. Each day, month, and year your heart is continually transforming by the power of Christ so that some of your struggles with sin may ease. It will likely never end, but it may ease.
BYX and the brotherhood that we have serves a role in the sanctification. Brothers encourage one another in our pursuit of Jesus and challenge one another in our struggles with sin. There is real tangible growth that occurs in our brothers lives through this. So the final question is, "How is your Heart and what role are your brothers playing in your heart?"
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