Knowing the heart-felt reality of Jesus is like having an inner fire that you want to continually keep burning inside of you. The reality of the living Jesus can be perceived by the heart but is never fully understood by the mind. If you’ve never been awash in the heart-felt reality of Jesus, you’re missing out on life’s most incredible experience.

Religious head-knowledge analyzes God but living with the heart-felt reality of Jesus keeps people amazed and awed by Him. Christianity without heart-perception of the risen Jesus is shallow and without depth perception. To attend church and neglect to experience the heart-perceived reality of Jesus is to miss the point!

To try to program and control the heart-felt reality of Jesus is to replace it with religious brainwashing. Religious brainwashing often leads to pride, but the heart-perceived reality of Jesus produces humble heart-cleansing.

Churches keep lecturing the very same people, week after week. They attempt to inform people on the mental level, but Jesus wants to transform people’s heart and reform their lifestyle.

Without the heart-perceived presence and power of the living God religion is a placebo. No amount of religious head-knowledge can compare with encountering the heart-felt reality of Jesus. Without the heart-perceived reality of Jesus, the academic approach to religion lacks life-changing power.

Religious head-knowledge is slippery and quickly slides out of the brain. That’s why sermons are seldom remembered. We need more demonstrations and manifestations of the heart-felt reality of Jesus, not more religious head-knowledge.

The pride of religious head-knowledge often keeps us apart from the humble, heart-felt reality of Jesus. When we let religious analysis produce spiritual paralysis, we quench the Holy Spirit.

If Christians met to train each other to lovingly and boldly proclaim the reality of Jesus, we’d be much more effective at spreading the Gospel. By making church all about what just one member has to say, we miss out on the body of Christ.

For religious head-knowledge, read the Bible like a dry textbook. For the heart-felt reality of Jesus, read it like a love letter.

Trying looks to effort. Trust looks to God. I’ve spent too much time trying and too little time trusting.

Crusty, frozen snow
Won't blow
In a gentle wind.
Crusty, frozen Christians
Won't flow
With God's Spirit.

Religiously programmed minds,
That know when to stand,
And when to sit,
And when to sing,
Make a church 
Run smoothly,
But often neglect to experience
The heart-felt reality of Jesus!

Church should
Help us partake
And radiate
The heart-felt reality of Jesus,
Not indoctrinate.

Lord, help me to
Listen and obey,
To hear You,
Then do,
To walk in trust
Every day. 

To recite a creed,
Without a need
For the heart-felt reality of Jesus,
Is empty words.