“What you really have-what all of us have, by birth-is more than anything a heart problem. And if you’re trying to treat the ‘one thing’ in your life by (1) trying harder, (2) using others, (3) escaping, or (4) upping your religion quotient-or any combination of these-all you’re really doing is just mowing over the weeds. You’re trimming things up, making them look almost okay for a little while. But just wait-they’ll be coming back in full force before you know it, in all their scraggly, tangled variety. They may be laying low for a little while, but don’t kid yourself. They still have the run of your yard and your property. And they still have all kinds of openings and options for creeping back up on you . . . some that you don’t even know about yet.
These weeds are the kinds of wild grass that naturally grow from your inheritance of Adam’s bloodline, as well as from your willing alliance with him in rebellion against God. What you’re seeing above the ground is simply evidence of the damning and the damage that have occurred-with your full, outright permission-down in the biochemistry of your life.
It goes back to what Jesus said: ‘There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him’-in other words, we’re not made unclean by the things we do, allow, or entertain, but rather, He said, ‘the things that come out of a person are what defile him’ (Mark 7:15). We haven’t made ourselves sinners; sin is what’s already inside us. as we like to say it, ‘the heart of our problem is the problem of our hearts.’
And for this job, we need a root canal. We need to let God get down underneath what we think needs changing, so that He can bring full restoration and redemption to us where we truly need changing.”
From Matt Chandler & Michael Snetzer in Recovering Redemption: A Gospel-Saturated Perspective On How To Change (38-39).
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