Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Proverbs 29:18 KJV

Having a vision for who we want to be is crucial for all personal growth.

As a consequence, such a vision is important for spiritual growth.

The Christian vision for human excellence and happiness revealed throught Scripture, but most intensely in Jesus Christ.

In the first post in this series I wrote about what it means to grow in grace.

In it, I explained Dallas Willard’s V-I-M paradigm for personal transformation.

In VIM, the V stands for vision. Our vision is our picture of what we want to be true about ourselves in the future.[1]

Having a vision for strength, longevity, and durability can help you to joyfully endure the grind at the gym. Similarly, having a vision of future food (like the ant in Proverbs 6:6-9) can help us to ensure that food by gardening little by little each day.

In the case of growing in grace, our vision is the character of a human being fully alive and conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

This is a powerful vision which has fed the souls of God’s saints for quite some time.

There are three important things to remember about this vision:

1. It is about growing into somebody who is like Jesus and who does the kinds of things he said to do.
   Jesus’ ministry cannot be replicated, nor should it be. It was his and his alone. Nevertheless, his character, which was on display in his life and explained in his teachings and that of his apostles is the goal for his disciples. We should envision ourselves as destined to be fundamentally strong, courageous, self-controlled, clever, confident, creative, productive, truthful, loving, humble, and forgiving in all the ways Jesus is in the gospels.
2. The vision is not a vision of sameness of personality or calling.
   In one sense, all Christians have the same calling: love God and love neighbor. In another sense, Christians have diverse gifts and callings insofar as calling refers to your unique life circumstance and whatever legacy you can leave that is unique to you.This is not the same for everybody. Christians might be scientists, farmers, plumbers, pastors, homeschool mothers, philosophers, artisans, waiters, slaves, and so-on. Jesus does not call all of us to be itinerant preachers like was. Similarly, we aren’t all to have the same personality and interests. Some people like novels and poetry, some people don’t. Some people love tidy desks, some don’t. Some people like spicy food, sarcastic jokes, and terrible music. The New Testament never prescribes conformity of gifts or personality.
3. The vision of Christian character must be rooted firmly in Scripture.
   Because the vision of Christian growth in grace is based on Jesus Christ, it must be rooted in Scripture. What this means is that our vision of Jesus is subject to change insofar as we understand Scripture more correctly (or by accident, less correctly) over time. The vision is not merely impressions about Jesus and his will which flash before our intuitions and feelings (as in many super-spiritual versions of Christianity). Instead it is a robust picture of Jesus based primarily upon the gospels, but also upon the whole Bible.

In the previous post, I showed how Scripture support the idea that Jesus is the prototype for human character and happiness. I’ll add one:

18 Now, while we all, with unveiled face, contemplate the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image from one degree of glory into another (this is from the Lord, the Spirit). 4:1 For this reason, having this ministry, just as it was mercifully given to us, we do not lose heart, 2 but we renounce the shameful tricks [of our opponents], neither walking in trickery nor falsifying the word of God, but by shining light on the truth we commend ourselves to the consciences of all humanity in the presence of God. 3 But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in their case, the God of this epoch has blinded the minds of those who are unfaithful so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we are not preaching ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants on behalf of Jesus. 6 Because God is the one who said, “From darkness let light shine,” is he who shines in our hearts for the understanding of the glory of God in the face of Christ.^[2]

Observe the sections in bold. Christians are transformed as they contemplate the glory of the Lord into that same glory. But what, in Paul’s argument, is the glory of the Lord? It is related directly to the content of the gospel of Jesus Christ: the image of God. It is to this image that Christians are to be conformed (also see Romans 8, Ephesians 4, and 2 Peter 1:3-4). And this glory is found, again in the face of Christ. The meaning is clear: the human life of Jesus from birth to ascension which is contained in the gospel which Paul preached is the matter for Christian contemplation and personal transformation. In the exercise below, I will include passages that go beyond this, but this is because the whole canon of Scripture is a witness to the whole person of Christ.

Final Exercise:

I recommend reading passages of Scripture like Psalm 1, Psalm 23, Psalm 119, Proverbs 1-9 and 31, the four gospels and Acts, Romans 12-15, 2 Peter 1:3-11, and 1 John (all of it) in order to get a picture of the type of person that Jesus wants us to become as well as the results of that type of character. What is on offer (eternal life, entrance into the wonderful family of the church on earth, present happiness, strong character, joyful generosity, creative concern for others, a life based on love, justice, and wisdom, an infinite reference point for self-improvement, and experiential knowledge of God) is amazing. When you read these passages try this exercise:

1. Write down the positive character traits mentioned (in teaching or on display in the lives of Jesus and the apostles in Acts).
2. Write down the positive results the text uses to entice you and I toward those character traits.
3. Write down the character traits you need to grow toward.
4. Write down the character traits you need to grow from (lack of self-control, ungratefulness, irritability, pornography use, stinginess, thievery, and so-on).
5. Now, simply pray for forgiveness for your sinful character traits and ask the Lord’s help in becoming more like Jesus Christ. If you’re concerned to put on Christ, then you’re precisely the type of person that Jesus is willing to assist in becoming like him (see especially Matthew 28:16-20).

References

[1] This might not seem very academic, but Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about vision in a very compelling way here:Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Dobbins, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, The New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 437, “As I alluded to in Chapter 5, the first step is to have a clear vision of where you want to go, what you want to achieve. “Where the mind goes, the body will follow” is a saying I have always believed in. If you want to be Mr. America or Mr. Universe, you have to have a clear vision of yourself achieving these goals. When your vision is powerful enough, everything else falls into place: how you live your life, your workouts, what friends you choose to hang out with, how you eat, what you do for fun. Vision is purpose, and when your purpose is clear so are your life choices. Vision creates faith and faith creates willpower. With faith there is no anxiety, no doubt—just absolute confidence.” He also talks about this exact thing in this video:

^[2] Kurt Aland et al., Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), 2 Co 3:18–4:6. “18 ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες ἀνακεκαλυμμένῳ προσώπῳ τὴν δόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν καθάπερ ἀπὸ κυρίου πνεύματος. 4 Διὰ τοῦτο, ἔχοντες τὴν διακονίαν ταύτην καθὼς ἠλεήθημεν, οὐκ ἐγκακοῦμεν 2 ἀλλʼ ἀπειπάμεθα τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς αἰσχύνης, μὴ περιπατοῦντες ἐν πανουργίᾳ μηδὲ δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ τῇ φανερώσει τῆς ἀληθείας συνιστάνοντες ἑαυτοὺς πρὸς πᾶσαν συνείδησιν ἀνθρώπων ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ. 3 εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶν κεκαλυμμένον, 4 ἐν οἷς ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου ἐτύφλωσεν τὰ νοήματα τῶν ἀπίστων εἰς τὸ μὴ αὐγάσαι τὸν φωτισμὸν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ. 5 Οὐ γὰρ ἑαυτοὺς κηρύσσομεν ἀλλʼ Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν κύριον, ἑαυτοὺς δὲ δούλους ὑμῶν διὰ Ἰησοῦν. 6 ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ὁ εἰπών· ἐκ σκότους φῶς λάμψει, ὃς ἔλαμψεν ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν πρὸς φωτισμὸν τῆς γνώσεως τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν προσώπῳ [Ἰησοῦ] Χριστοῦ.”

Pro 4:23 Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.

What does it mean to guard your heart?

In your Bible, ‘heart’ tends to mean the seat of reason or the human will.[1] In our world we’re so influenced by the romantic nature poetry of the 1800s, it’s easy for us to assume that the Biblical authors are speaking about our authentic feelings when they use the word heart. But in general, they mean the will and/or the reason. That being said, what does ‘guard your heart’ mean? The first guide should be the meaning of heart and the meaning of guard. Here are some suggestions just from those word meanings:

1. To guard your heart against simple errors in your thinking.
2. To guard your heart against simplistic understanding by seeking advice.
3. To guard your heart against idolatry by seeking to know the truth about God from his revelation.
4. To guard your heart against unsavory influences.
5. To guard your heart against evil choices by acknowledging the commands of God and plain moral sense in your decisions.

Another set of hints are in the passage at hand. Here is the ESV translation of the surrounding verses:

Proverbs 4:20-27 ESV My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. (21) Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. (22) For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. (23) Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. (24) Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. (25) Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. (26) Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. (27) Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.

1. Listen to and memorize the advice of your elders/parents.
2. Don’t engage in evil plans or crooked speech.
3. Try to always make progress in character growth.
4. Plan carefully.
5. Do not deviate from the good, no matter what tempts you.

Two other elements of guarding the heart can be found by looking elsewhere in Scripture. In Genesis 2:15, Adam’s calling is to ‘guard’ Eden. The Hebrew word is different, but the concept is the same.[2] Why was he to guard the garden? Presumably he was to protect it from talking serpents. Similarly, I think that we should guard our own hearts by capturing destructive and evil thought patterns before they can tempt us to sin. Another aspect of guarding the heart could be discerned from Jeremiah 17:9. There, the Lord diagnoses that the heart is deceitful above all else. Because of this, I suggest, we should protect ourselves from our heart. How? Checking our reasoning against Scripture, the advice of others, and the examples of those greater than ourselves. Not only so, but we should guard against the deeply engrained habits of our hearts by diligently seeking them out and replacing them with habits that honor God (Romans 6:12-14).

When I was a new Christian, I swear that every time I heard the phrase, “guard your heart,” it was always in the context of not dating. While telling high school kids to eschew dating was wise advice, it wasn’t quite what the phrase meant. The actual meaning is something closer to a Christian-mindfulness or self-mastery.

How else can we guard our hearts?

References

[1] Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 51. While in your Hebrew Bible, the word translated heart has a wide range of meaning, the core of these meanings is “the seat and function of the reason.” Wolff says that the heart includes, “everything that we ascribe to the head and the brain- power of perception, reason, understanding, insight, consciousness, memory, knowledge, reflection, judgment, sense of direction, discernment.”

[2] The Greek word in the LXX is the same, though.

In ye olde current year, many people think that being a Christian is a matter of irrationality, bigotry, or political conservatism. While all of those things bear some weight upon whether one is likely to be a Christian or upon the sort of Christian they are, I think there are other reasons entirely. In the following posts, despite my not being some philosopher, historian, or theologian, I’ll give my reasons for being a Christian with respect to the three phases of persuasion in Aristotle’s rhetoric: ethos (appeal to personal credibility via knowledge, expertise, and moral connection to the audience), pathos (appeal to emotions), and logos (appeal to logic and facts).

1. Ethos
   1. The moral credibility of Jesus
   2. The moral credibility of Christianity’s best
   3. The power of Western Civilization
2. Pathos
   1. Hell
   2. The Cosmic Story
   3. Tribalism
3.  Logos
   1. Why I think God exists
   2. Why I think Jesus was raised