The Deeper Life
by Fred Rapp | July 1, 2020
Before you read any further I need you to turn off your brain and turn on your heart. The deeper life in God has nothing to do with your abilities and everything to do with your heart. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, on the sixth day He created man from the dust of the earth. Just as we had nothing to do with our beginning we have nothing to do with the deeper life. The deeper life won't be the result of our labors but the result of our yielding to God's plan. This plan was already in His heart and mind before He laid down the foundations of the earth.Paul wrote in Rom 8:29, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." God's plan for man is to live the same life His Son lived who knew no sin. The Greek for conformed means taking on the exact inward likeness. Through Jesus, we've been reconciled to God, and through Jesus' life, we see the plan of God for man. Jesus said in Mt 11:29, "My heart is meek and lowly," this is the direct result of having a pure heart rooted and grounded in agape. This is the heart that will take us into the deeper life with God.
Jesus said in Mt. 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This is why our labors will not produce the deeper life. The deeper life depends on the heart, not the brain. It isn't what we know, but what we become through yielding to the agape of God. In Deu 30:6 Moses said, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live." Even though we have our sins forgiven and we are legally righteous before God, our hearts have not been made pure. If it were so then we should be able to love God in all our heart and soul and our life would be quite different then what it really is.
Jesus said in Mt 5:17, "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill." Jesus knew no sin, His heart remained pure thoughout His life. His pure heart enabled Him to live a life in the Father resulting in a much deeper life, then any of us have yet to experience.
Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted Lk 4:18. Because of sin, our hearts are broken and do not function the way they were created to. Just as we can do nothing to remove our sins from us, neither can we do anything to make our hearts pure. That is why it will be a work of the Spirit. That is why God will get all the glory for our lives.
The deeper life is in fulfilling the two greatest commandments. In Mt 22:37 Jesus answers a question asked. "You shall agape the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Vs. 38, This is the great and foremost commandment. Vs. 39, The second is like it, You shall agape your neighbor as yourself. Vs. 40, On these two commandments, depend all the Law and the Prophets." Jesus used the Greek word agape, (God's love), not phileo, (our love). Our love coming from a broken heart will never enable us to fulfill these or any other laws of God. This is why we need a miracle to make our hearts whole. In Ez 36:26-27, we see a wonderful promise for our lives, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove the heart of stone from within your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Vs 27, I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances." This is the church Paul wrote about in Eph 5:27, "that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. This is the deeper life we are being called to. The deeper life is based on God doing a miraculous work in our hearts so we as Jesus, can live the same life He lived.
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