I think it's possible to invite Jesus in while giving Him our whole hearts. I truly believe that's the way it happens for some, and perhaps that's the best way for sure. I'm suggesting that must be possible. But looking back at my own conversion from that first invitation to now..., at the beginning when i first asked Jesus into my seemingly empty and void expanse of a heart, i'm not sure i even knew what was in there or how vast that emptiness was or how much stuff was piled on top of the real me to where i didn't even know who i was. Not to mention that i was so full of myself and what i had piled on, nothing about me was very clear at all. So i think that's the case for most of us if we look back, we probably offered Him the part that we could feel, or the part that was throbbing or in pain or broken, which was maybe all we knew at the time. We wanted Him to fix what we were being made aware was broken. So i think effectively we let Him on to the beach or maybe the edge of the storm that was our heart. But the secret or still place is in the eye of the storm, in the center, and so i'm proposing that from the moment He lands on the beach of our heart, that the center..., the Capital, the "ME" place, where i'm chained to the chair with no real way of escape or freeing myself..., the "ME" place, that's where He's headed. Into the Interior! So it's conceivable that when we invite Jesus on to the Beach, or the edge of our heart, we don't really know where the center is..., for "the heart is deceitful, desperately wicked above all things. Who can know it?" So when we invite Jesus in, let's face the facts, we don't really know the depths of the human heart or all the passage ways or chambers or valleys or mountains. Plus if our hearts are deceitful which they are from birth to everyone born after the Fall (except Jesus), and God Himself declares this heart condition that we are all born into by blood all the way back from Adam and Eve. So then our own hearts are capable of leading or even continuing to lead us into death while telling us all the while that's a "good" thing. Consider suicide victims are victims of themselves etc..., and we could argue about that, but clearly most who have ever come back from that and had the lights turned on by Jesus found out that they were indeed lying to themselves and that the "perceived" reality they were stuck in at the time was very different than the Reality they now find themselves in. So i think for most of us, we're inviting Jesus on to the beach head of a vastness that we really know little or nothing about to begin with and largely gets worse the farther along we go unless Jesus can persuade us that we need "Death Interrupted" By Jesus Himself. So on the beach..., major wars have been won and lost here..., on the beach. When the Allies landed on the beach in WWII, it was the beginning of the end for the enemy. They made their way through the mess and finally to the capital and then it was done. So too is our beach, but when Jesus comes by permission on to the beach, the battle is already won, but He has to be invited there, He won't land on your beach by force or uninvited. Then He steps His two feet on to that beach, or maybe for some He steps one foot on the beach while the other is still in the water, or maybe still for some, He's invited all the way in to the "ME" place and dethroning happens immediately etc..., and we could no doubt argue at what point salvation happens but lets face it, only God really knows and He clues us into that the more He teaches us to trust Him and the longer and deeper that goes etc..., So He (Jesus) makes His way by permission through all the places that only He knows the way to and through. Through the valleys of the shadows of death, through the dungeons, through the quicksands, the swamps, the marshes, the volcano's, the cold bitter poles, the oceans, the treacherous cliffs, the chasms of the mind, human reasoning, into, through, and past all the scars and gaping wounds, through the deepest places, uncharted places, barren places, past all the layers, all the way to the center, He deposes us, sits down there, and then begins the Rest of God. The Rest for the people of God, His kids. Some would say there's Salvation, and Sanctification, but lets face it, there was some point when Jesus proved to us Who He IS and who we are in Him. That's a process, and we don't have to settle on what or how long that takes. And to be sure, Jesus is in charge of that process with each one of us. We know we believe in our hearts that Jesus Died for us, rose again, and confession is made to salvation. But that doesn’t take sometimes, and rather than try to convince someone that they are or they aren’t, let’s just go deeper, and let Him in deeper and yield to Him more, and He will get us the rest of the way.
