5. Their Hearts Differed from Jesus’ Heart

Is the following order of events mere coincidence?

Luke 9:44-46 “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. (Emphasis mine)

While Jesus was talking about humiliation and selfless sacrifice, they were striving for the exact opposite. We see something remarkably similar another time that Jesus discussed his suffering:

Matthew 16:21-25 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Emphasis mine)

So here again we see a worldly mindset apparently preventing Jesus’ disciple from understanding.

If God’s passions are not our passions, communication problems will be rife in our relationship with him. How can God share his heart unless we share his heart? If we don’t understand his heart, we have little chance of understanding his words.

When evaluating two possible interpretations of a passage, one of which devastates you and the other delights you, which interpretation will you be biased towards? Consider someone with a raging sex drive who from infancy has let Hollywood be his moral teacher; or someone whose goal in life is to make millions; or someone lusting after revenge. Imagine the enormous psychological pressure on such people to twist Scripture into meaning something that does not threaten their heart’s desire.

The pressure to ease their conscience could be so intense that they might be completely unconscious of distorting Scripture to conform with their desires. Again, ponder the implications for someone given to laziness or comfort or selfishness or fear or negativity or whose self-image differs markedly from God’s view of them. The range of extreme situations is vast but perhaps even more dangerous are less obvious differences between God’s heart and our heart. Although miscommunication is highly likely with someone who has a different set of values to our own, miscommunication is almost inevitable if we don’t even realize that our values differ.

The psalmist confessed:

Psalms 73:3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

That’s hardly a godly attitude. Not surprisingly, it affected his ability to discern spiritual truth: Psalms 73:16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me

He leaves us in no doubt about the spiritually blinding effect of his ungodly attitude:

Psalms 73:21-22 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

God shares his secrets with those who share his passions. Since Jesus is the truth (John 14:12), we know truth to the extent to which we know Jesus. If we don’t know his heart, we won’t know his truth.