Seeing with out heart

I'll start writing up my chairing spots...

starting from today.. even though i am not officially chairing at church.

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints..." Eph 1:16-18

When people look around the world, the things that i keep hearing is "financial crisis, unemployment, etc".

The typical response i hear from Christians is "wealth perishes, God is in control, trust in him" and other typical cliched responses.

Having gone to stuff like SCAAA retreat and hearing andre hong's preaching on affections. (you can have a sample of it here:

http://andrewhongnsw.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EEB36B88C6BA62C4!2680.entry

(sorry, should have hyper linked, but can't be bothered at 8am in the morning)

i believe that the those cliched responses does not encourage people to see past the problems

it's good at this point to see how the Apostle Paul writes.

Notice in v18 he says " having the eyes of your hearts enlightened".

the heart is the place where deep thought occurs. (it's like when you mull over something and something is 'gnawing at the stomach'.. well.. sort of like that kind of feeling')

the important thing is, in order to see the world properly, it requires the eyes of our heart enlightened. (Paul in fact assumes it)

The answer to our current crises is not to give cliches answers and try to patch the problem, but it is to change the way we see and more importantly, what we use to see.

we need to see from our heart, and gut, and that gut needs to be informed by the gospel