Toward a Deeper Walk

by Marcus Warner

This book is for people like me, who often look good on the outside, but who flounder on the inside. It is also for people with broken hearts who are

being beaten down by life. I have learned that the victorious, “abundant” life in Christ is not one that is free of battles and baggage. It is about a deepening relationship with the Father and learning to trust His Father’s heart for us.

I have never been discipled, and I have been a Christian for 20 years. Be- cause of not knowing who I am in Christ, I did not know how to walk ac- cording to the Spirit. Therefore, I have been living my life according to the flesh while gaining a lot of head knowledge about the Bible and God... I have struggled so long because of my weakness to say no to myself, and I have really been ineffective for Christ. I was always told

by those that I opened up to what to do, but it never had any power in my life. I know a lot of theology, and I know everything I should do; but I do not bear much fruit, and I do not love others the way God wants me to. I have prayed a long time that God would show me how to get my head knowledge to my heart, and now He has shown me the way. I feel like a baby Christian because I have to start at the basics again, but I will swallow my pride and learn how to reprogram my faulty ways of thinking. I have grown up with a poor self-esteem, self-condemnation, self-hatred, bitterness, rebellion, perfectionism, anxiety and a weak functional faith...

My dad often uses the four A’s to help people understand this concept. He will write the following four words on a piece of paper: Authority, Accountability, Affirmation, and Acceptance. Then he will ask: “Do you see God as an authority to whom you are accountable, from whom you seek affirmation and acceptance by your good behavior? Or is it the other way around? Does God accept you in Christ, affirm you as His child, and ask you to be accountable to His authority on that basis?” If the person identifies most strongly with the

Which direction does God’s acceptance for you flow? Authority Acceptance Accountability Affirmation Affirmation Accountability Acceptance Authority

But “finding yourself” is not only possible; it is crucial to living a balanced, fulfilling life.

Mature people are characterized by patience, endurance, and long suffering. The source of these virtues is the inner joy that comes from knowing they are loved un- conditionally and from the hope that someone who loves them is in control.

Nobody wins the flesh game. It doesn’t matter how talented, beautiful, or famous you are. If your identity and your worth are based on these things, they are fleeting at best. You can still wake up in the morning and believe the world would be better off without you.

Christ did not die for the beautiful or the popular or the righteous. Christ died for failures. If you are relying on anything other than Christ’s death for your status with God, you are standing on shaky ground, regardless of your position in the world’s pecking order.

The sad thing is that many Christians who have received this gift still live as if God’s love must be earned. They have put their faith in Christ and are trying to be good, but they do not know how to enter into God’s love and live with a clear mental picture of a God who considers them the apple of His eye.

For many of us, God is like Mr. Darcy. Even though He is everything we could ever hope for, we see Him through eyes that have been distorted by his enemy’s lies. Our misguided views of what He is like pour water on the flames of our passion. We may honor Him with the duty owed to a superior, but we feel no real passion for intimacy with Him. Your view of God may not be as distorted as what I have described, but the reality is that most of us have doubts about God at the heart level that hinder our desire for Him. One of the central goals of a heart-focused journey is to develop a mental image of God as someone we not only serve, but as someone we actually like!

This story embodies God’s heart toward us. John Eldredge writes of Kierkegaard’s story, “The king clothes himself as a beggar and renounces his throne in order to win her hand. The Incarnation, the life and death of Jesus, answers once and for all the question, ‘What is God’s heart toward me?’”[4] This is vitally important because it is in God’s heart toward me that I learn who I really am.

One of the greatest tragedies in the church today is the re-creation of a religion of externals that misses the heart. Grace removes the Law so that we may have a heart-focused walk with God that is rooted in the unshakable foundation of the finished work of Christ and guided by the indwelling presence of God’s Spirit.

To put all of this as plainly as I can: Christ died so we could experience intimacy with God. He removed the law and removed our guilt.

God replaced the Law with grace so we would be free to pursue a sacred romance with the One whose love for us is immeasurable.

But for many, especially those who have grown up with conditional love, the hard part is embracing God’s grace.

It is allowing ourselves to accept it. Some of us hold on to our failures so tightly and fear God’s displeasure so intensely that we cannot forgive ourselves.

It prevents us from receiving God’s grace and taking the faltering steps forward that will retur...

One of the ways we receive God’s love is by forgiving ourselves for our failures. Forgiving yourself is not excusing yourself. It is not being easy on yourself. And it will not remove other consequences that have occurred because of your sin. Forgiving yourself begins with admitting that what you have done is wrong. You must first confess your sin as sin. The process is not complete, however, until you choose to receive God’s forgiveness, so that at a heart level you truly believe that you

Everybody is going to suffer. We have no choice about that. But there is a choice we do have: to suffer alone or to suffer in the hands of a God who is all-powerful, and all-loving and whose hands are forever scarred by his own suffering. The “answer” to the problem of suffering is not a formula or an intellectual argument, but a relationship, a relationship with a God who is all- powerful, and all-loving, but who has suffered and does still suffer with his creatures.

When you have a father you can’t trust and who doesn’t really love you, you will be open

to lots of wrong ways to find the love and security we all need.

Your life may be filled with the consequences of such foolish decisions, but it does not have to be the end of the story. It does not

mean that God’s love for you has ended. He still desires to enter into a sacred romance with you. But

When Satan accuses, he attacks us at the core of who we are. He labels us with our sin and attempts to

get us to receive that label as our true identity.

Satan often traps us in false guilt over things that have been forgiven long ago or over things that are not even sins.

His lies have two main targets: my view of God and my view of myself. They teach me that I cannot trust God or that I am a flawed, unlovable person. If our hearts embrace those lies, they become the foundation for the vows we make about how we will live life.

I call this the counterfeit John 15 experience. Instead of abiding in Christ and His word abiding in me so that I bear fruit for the kingdom, the enemy’s word abides in me bearing fruit for his kingdom.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Forgive. To forgive someone is to cancel a debt. The Greek word apoluso means “to free from” or “to loose from.” When we forgive, we release a person from the debt they owe to us. We also release them from the chains that keep us bound to them and to the power of sin. When we cancel a debt in this way, we release the other person from what is owed to us, but not from what is owed to God. In a sense, we are handing them over to God’s collection agency and letting Him deal with the debt.

I. Introspection that leads to immobilization. Sometimes people dwell on their sin to such an extent that they virtually define their existence by their sin. They know they are “bad.” They dwell on their “badness.” They wallow in it as if they are victims and can develop a “poor me” attitude that sounds humble, but actually keeps the person from dealing with the problem.

Our minds have been trained by the flesh to think incorrectly about life. If we are really going to change the way we live, we have to change the way we believe. As my father often says, “People may not live what they say they believe, but they will always live what they really believe.” To change what we believe will require us to develop practices that reinforce new ways of thinking.

The word legalism is related to law. You can see it in the word itself: legal-ism. Paul referred to it as being “under law.” The term refers to the belief that your relationship with God is based on Law, i.e., on your performance rather than on faith in what God has done for you. It is not simply that you are trying to gain salvation by obedience to the Law; you are trying to earn the right to intimacy by your behavior. Under legalism when you obey, you are accepted; but when you disobey, you are rejected and unwelcome in God’s presence until you repent. When a person’s relationship with God is governed by Law, it tends to lead to extremes. On the one side are those who live in fear that they have not done enough to please God and earn His acceptance; so their shame keeps them from seeking intimacy with the Father. On the other side are those who live in pride (like the Pharisees) believing that they have performed well and earned God’s blessing. Such people often develop extensive checklists of what constitutes sin and what is merely a “weakness” so that they can know

exactly where they stand and how they compare to others. Some people who reject legalism turn to “license.” They reject all authority and anyone’s right to impose rules on them. But the New Testament is filled with rules, and it commands us to submit to authority. The cure for legalism is not license, but grace; and the motive for obedience is not law, but love.

God is not interested in changing you. He already has. The new DNA is set. God wants you to believe that he has already changed you so that he can get on with the process of maturing you into who you already are.

The Backpack = Seeking God The Bible, Water Bottle, and Journal = Listening to God The Walking Stick = Obeying God The Binoculars = Watching God and the Enemy

SLOW: seeking, listening, obeying and watching.

“Yahweh, there is no one like you to help the powerless against the mighty. Help us, O Yahweh our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this vast army. O Yahweh, you are our God; do not let man prevail against you!” (14:11).

Let’s face it. It is hard to carve out time for the important things in life. It was hard enough just to find time to read this book! Separating from the routines of life is really about building new routines into our lives. If you are like me, you may be panicked at the very thought of trying to build a good habit into your life. You know how often you have failed at such noble pursuits, and the thought of trying again seems pointless. I must confess that this has been a stumbling block for me. I fall quite easily into the performance mindset of fearing what God will think if I do not follow through on my commitment. As a result the idea of regular quiet times with God can become a duty that I dread. What helped me was to change my entire approach to connecting with God. I began by thinking of my time with Him as a date. It was hard at first because I had such high expectations. I was afraid that if God didn’t speak to me, it meant that I was doing something wrong. I wanted every encounter to be a dramatic experience. Satan was trying to rob me of my time with God by turning it into a performance event. Once I realized this, I tried to take the pressure off of myself to do everything just right and learn to enjoy each experience for what it was.

Corinthians 10:13 and said, “God promises to show you the way of escape when you are tempted. So, the next time you are tempted, stop and ask God to show you the way of escape. When the Spirit speaks to you, pay attention to what you hear, and train yourself to listen for that voice.”

It is the humility that knows how to submit to authority and accept criticism without becoming defensive. This is only possible when life stops being all about you.

Obedience, therefore, is not the key to salvation, but it is the key to bearing fruit and experiencing blessing.

The Importance of Intimacy A heart-focused journey is centered in a relational connection with Christ and not just a performance connection with Him. This was driven home to me one day when I was walking down the hall of the church where I served as senior pastor. My thoughts drifted to an image of an open field. In the middle of the field was a large boulder. I was tempted to dismiss the image as a daydream and refocus on my next project, when something inside seemed to say, “Look a little closer.” I could see the picture in my mind the way a person can see a day dream. As I looked, I could see someone sitting on the boulder. I thought it was Jesus. There was a well-worn dirt path around the rock that formed a perfect circle. I soon noticed a little boy running on the path. Now and then he would look up at Jesus as if to say, “Look at me! Am I doing a good job?” Then, as clear as could be, I heard the words, “You know, Marcus, any time you want to stop running and climb up here, we could spend a little time together!” God had captured the story of my life with a simple image that left a lasting impression. I was running in circles on the path of performance and missing out on the satisfaction and peace that come from enjoying a relationship with Him. I went straight to my office, closed the door, and spent a few minutes enjoying Jesus! I can’t tell you what a difference it made in my day!

F.R.E.E. Forgive those who provoked you. Repent of your attitude and actions. Eliminate behaviors still rooted in pride and rebellion, and evict the enemy who gained ground from your sin.

The devil is not stupid. He knows that in order to kill the sheep, he has to separate the sheep from the shepherd. Our strength is “in the Lord.” The entire focus of the Christian life is abiding in Christ. It is relational. When we are in intimate relationship with Christ, His life flows through us and we bear fruit.

5. Watch for the enemy in your wounds, lies, and vows. Perhaps the most devastating tactic of the enemy is his success at planting lies in our hearts that warp our view of God

and our view of ourselves. It is important for us to recognize how the enemy has attacked us over the years. What our wounds are, what the lies are that he has used against us, and what the vows are that we have made in response. There is almost always a pattern to his attack, and that pattern usually goes straight at our heart in a way that sabotages our ability to live in intimacy with God.

His lie was that God is the sort of person who tortures people unmercifully if they don’t jump through the right hoops.