December 20, AD2011

The Christmas season should be a joyous time to reflect upon and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But, for many, it has become a season of unhappiness because of worldliness.

If you have been a regular visitor to my web site, you know I’ve been writing on the parable of the sower, as taught by Jesus. In two previous articles, I wrote on His teachings about hard-hearted Christians and shallow-hearted Christians.

Now, continuing on in the parable of the sower, Jesus next spoke of “the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns.” He explained, “this is the man who hears the Word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).

Jesus was speaking about the rejection of God’s Word by a worldly man—a non-Christian. And all too often, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire to pamper oneself and others also choke the Word in the worldly-fattened hearts of Christians.

No wonder the Christmas season has become an unhappy season for so many. No wonder there is so much depression, so many strained marriages, so many suicides.

Even among Christians.

Such Christian casualties of the Christmas season have a problem—a spiritual heart problem. They are a variety of fleshly or half-hearted Christian that can be described as a Worldly-Hearted Christian. Scripture also describes him as fat-hearted.

There is biblical evidence that the ancient Hebrews were knowledgeable about the damaging effects of an overly rich diet on the biological heart. They also saw a corollary in the spiritual heart.

In the book of James, reference is made to the “fattened heart,” which literally is the “wheat-strained” heart (James 5:5). Here we see a correlation between a fattened biological heart and a fattened spiritual heart. To “fatten” (Greek, trepho) is to “pamper oneself with nourishment.” The motivation to do so stems from a fattened spiritual heart.

There are numerous examples and references in Scripture regarding self-pampering. Two of those refer to a fattened heart: The one by James, and another in Psalm 119:70.

The believer’s spiritual heart must be nourished psychologically and spiritually to satisfy certain needs and desires. We “feast our eyes” upon things of wholesome beauty and wonder, “digest” Scripture, “eat” the body of Christ, and “drink the blood” of Christ’s covenant (Matthew 26:26-28). However, the self-indulgent, Fat-Hearted person is obsessed with worldly nourishment, and that at the expense of spiritual nourishment.

The Bible reveals that the Fat-Hearted Christian is:

Worldly
The Fat-Hearted Christian so loves his worldly life-style that his quest for self-aggrandizement and self-sufficiency take him to great lengths to protect his worldly possessions, social standing, and wealth. His dependence on such worldly resources, coupled with fear of losing them, have conditioned him to develop a complex structure of self-protective measures.

He may profit greatly (in worldly terms) from interaction with the world. He depends on the world to help him meet his needs and desires.

Indeed, he loves the world and his worldly life-style. And he pampers himself with a rich diet of worldliness—a diet of reaping financial gain, a higher social status, a greater sense of self-importance, more controlling power over others, a prestigious reputation. Through such worldliness he fattens his heart.

His undoing is in his doing. Such worldly Christians hear the Word, but “the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22). Jesus said, “He who loves his life [worldy, fleshly, or soulish lifestyle] loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal” (John 12:25).

James offers more insight into the soulical condition and behavior of the worldly, self-pampering, Fat-Hearted Christian:

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:1-4).

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasures! Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter (James 5:1-5).

Prideful
The fattened heart is a “puffed-up” heart—a heart that is self-absorbed and prideful. “Puffed-up” (Greek, phusioo) mans to inflate, as inflating one’s ego. Paul admonished the Corinthians for being puffed-up (1 Corinthians 4:6, 18, 19; 5:2; 13:4), and pointed out to the Colossians that a puffed-up heart is caused by a fleshly mind (Colossians 2:18).

This prideful believer is narcissistic—self-centered, arrogant and conceited. He places self above others, regards himself as superior, and credits himself for his self-sufficiency. He probably does not know his true identity, and so he proudly perceives who he is in terms of his physical appearance and prowess, wealth, social standing, intellect, and so on.

His self-centeredness, arrogance and conceit may well be self-protection mechanisms born out of the insecurity of the transient nature of his pseudo identity and the potential insufficiency of his self-sufficiency.

To know one’s true identity and to take it to heart is humbling, and the humble are not prideful.

Self-indulgent
The news media often inform us of wrong doings of Christians in high places who have fattened their hearts by feathering their nests with worldly luxuries, and thus exploiting their God-given positions of leadership and influence for selfish gain.

This self-indulgent person may believe that his perceived “good works” has earned him favor over others with God, for which he is rewarded special worldly as well as heavenly blessings.

I once met a TV evangelist who lived in a Spanish villa on a vast estate. I learned that he and his gaudily-bejeweled wife drove luxury cars and vacationed at exotic places throughout the world, all in the name of “ministry” and, of course, at ministry expense. Though this wealthy evangelist paid himself extremely well from donated funds to the ministry, his staff were so lowly paid that even his top management qualified for food stamps. This man fits the biblical description of a Fat-Hearted Christian.

Libertine
The Fat-Hearted Christian is not uncommonly Libertine in wrongful response to laws in general and to God’s laws in particular. This believer may hold to the philosophy that “the end justifies the means.” He ignores the Apostle Paul’s teaching that “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable” (1 Corinthians 6:12). His choices are wrongly based on profitability to self’s fleshly desires rather than on observing God’s laws out of a spirit of love for Him and His law.

Self-ownership
Fat-Hearted Christians may consider their wealth, possessions, time—their very lives—to be their own to do with as they wish. Paul contends that we belong to Christ and are beholden to Him: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20).

Since we belong to Christ, then all we have belongs to Him. We are to be good stewards of what He has entrusted to us. This is not to say that the Lord will not bless us with certain things for our own enjoyment and comfort. And for reasons known only to Him, He chooses to give to some more than He gives to others. When it comes to the responsibility of stewardship, however, the parable of the talents, as taught by Jesus, makes clear that, “to everyone who has shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away” (Matthew 25:29).

Each of us should examine the motives of our heart and learn to trust Christ Jesus in all things, to be content in all things and not covet, and to be good stewards of all He entrusts to us.

This Christmas, I pray you will not let your freedom in Christ become an opportunity for the flesh (Galatians 5:13)—that fat-hearted worldliness will not divide your heart and rob you of whole-hearted love, joy, peace, and thankfulness in Christ Jesus.
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For more on the varieties of Half-Hearted Christians, as well as the Whole-Hearted Christians: The Whole-Hearted Christian.
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Quotes from Scripture in all my writings are from the New American Standard Version of the Bible unless otherwise indicated.
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