Pastor Michael encouraged us last week in his blog post to take up and read Dane Ortlund’s, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Some of you have accepted the challenge and are knee-deep in its pages. Good! I remember reading this book while on a mission trip, and I simply could not get away from it. After all, how can one go wrong with “a book about the heart of Christ and of God”?1 As Pastor Michael alluded to and Dane Ortlund hoped for, my affections for Christ grew exponentially with the closing of each chapter. Toward the end, however, I developed an intense hunger for application to live in the craggy terrain of daily life. If Christ is so good, tell me how to keep the flame of my affections for Christ bright while traversing fallen landscape.
But that’s not the purpose of the book. In fact, Ortlund writes in the epilogue, “To ask, ‘Now how do I apply this to my life?’ would be a trivialization of the point of this study.”2 He continues, “If an Eskimo wins a vacation to a sunny place, he doesn’t arrive in his hotel room, step out onto the balcony, and wonder how to apply that to his life. He just enjoys it. He just basks.”3
Fair enough, and much appreciated. But what if the Eskimo decides to turn his vacation locale into his permanent residence? He will need to assimilate. New habits are required to maintain a healthy and productive lifestyle. He doesn’t altogether abandon the delight of basking in his new environment, but rather is propelled by such delight to continually stoke the flame of his newfound wonder.
I hope it is somewhat apparent that I am not advocating for Eskimos’ quality of life. As Ortlund uses the metaphorical Eskimo’s vacation to describe believers and their need to savor the wonder of who Jesus is, so we need to continually soak in Christ’s goodness to maintain a spiritually vibrant life. Ortlund takes us to the shoreline to see the beauty of the horizon. (Often, we must return to refresh our senses.) Nevertheless, I would like to add another level of encouragement—such that will assist in keeping our passion for Christ white-hot while daily navigating the surging waves of life. My encouragement is to continue your study of the heart of Christ by reading The Tender Heart by Richard Sibbes.
Excerpted from Sibbes’ book, Josiah’s Reformation: Cultivating and Maintaining a Tender Heart, first published in 1629, the contents reflect that, “true reformation must begin in the heart, with love for Christ.”4 Here is the connection: If Ortlund humbles us under the weight of Christ’s tender and condescending love toward undeserving sinners, then Sibbes moves us as grateful saints into expressions of such love toward Christ and others.
In approximately 20 minutes of reading, Sibbes vividly tints our understanding to the properties of a tender heart. He proves it to be sensible, pliable, and yielding. After expounding on the attributes of a Christ-shaped heart, he advances to explain: 1) “How a tender heart is wrought,” 2) “How it may be preserved and maintained,” and 3) “How it may be discerned from the contrary.”5
I would thoroughly enjoy narrating these concepts, but to do so would likely hinder your joy of discovery. Allow me, then, to at least lead you by the hand into Sibbes’ refreshing tides, considering these excerpts:
As when things are cold we bring them to the fire to heat and melt, so we bring our cold hearts to the fire of the love of Christ; consider we of our sins against Christ, and of Christ’s love towards us; dwell upon the meditation. Think what great love Christ hath showed unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt, and be as pliable as wax before the sun.6
For as the outward takes away the inward heat, so the love of one thing abates the love of another. The setting of too much love upon earthly things, takes away the sense of better things, and hardens the heart.7
Means do not make the heart tender, but God through the use of means softens it by his word. God’s word is a hammer to break, and as fire to melt the hardened heart.8
Your next Netflix episode can wait. Take twenty minutes to read this gem. No matter where you are in life, you will benefit. I have no doubt. Then, be moved by the kindness of Christ to live out His heart.
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1 Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 215.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “Josiah’s Reformation Book Description,” Banner of Truth, accessed June 9, 2022, https://banneroftruth.org/us/store/christian-living/josiahs-reformation/.
5. Richard Sibbes, The Tender Heart (Louisville: GLH Publishing), Loc93, Kindle.
6. Ibid., Loc 314
7. Ibid., Loc 164
8. Ibid., Loc 101