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Christian Living

Spiritual Life

Living Synced to the Heart of Jesus

Author Biography

    Jennifer Kennedy Dean is executive director of the Praying Life Foundation and a respected author and speaker. The author of numerous books, studies, and magazine articles specializing in prayer and spiritual formation, her book Heart’s Cry has been named National Day of Prayer’s signature book, while her book Live a Praying Life® has been called a flagship work on prayer. Her latest book is Synced: Living Connected to the Heart of Jesus

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Jesus’ walking-around, everyday life while on earth was lived in a flow of the Father’s power and provision. What God appointed Him to do just showed up. He didn’t plan it out and then stress about it: “Today I will raise a widow’s son from the dead,” or “Today I will feed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread.”  He lived with His heart synced to the Father’s and found Himself in the right place at the right time with the right resources.

I want to know the secret. I want to discover how I can live with my heart so synced to the heart of Jesus that I tap in to a flowing undercurrent of prayer that puts me smack-dab in the middle of the good works God prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). To align my heart with His so fully that I instinctively act in ways that fulfill His purposes (Philippians 2:13). I want Jesus to teach me to live synced to His heart.

Jesus’ Way

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does” (John 5:19–20).

The secret to Jesus’ life of power lies in this: His heart was perfectly synced to the Father’s. He had neither action nor interest that was separate from the Father’s. The heart of the Son beat in unison with the heart of the Father. Though they were one in nature, this unity of interest was born of a conscious willingness on Jesus’ part to live fully yielded and in unbroken obedience. Jesus decided to submit to the Father’s will. Made a choice to surrender.

“Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

“For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

Jesus, though He had His own desires arising from His humanity, when those desires conflicted with the Father’s, always chose the Father’s will. Jesus had no sinful desires because sin never had a place in His heart, but He had natural desires. In His manhood, He desired, for example, not to go to the cross. Along the way, He had natural desires that were not sinful, but at times had to be subjugated to the Father’s will. On purpose, and with resolve. When His natural desires conflicted with the Father’s will, He had to choose the Father’s will.

Every time He encountered a situation in which His human will and the Father’s divine will differed, He bowed to the Father’s desires. In Philippians 2:8, Paul writes that Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.” He went from being equal with the Father to being humbly obedient to the Father.

We see the aspect of obedience that entails a deliberate choice of God’s will over Jesus’ human will when the two differed. But there is another aspect to obedience. The deliberate doing of the Father’s desires. Accomplishing the Father’s goals. Aligning with the Father’s purposes. In Hebrews we read a quotation from the Psalms attributed to the Messiah: “Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God” (Hebrews 10:7). He did what the Father showed Him to do. So, a combination of relinquishing desires when necessary, and embracing the aspirations of the Father to carry out His agenda, defined Jesus’ complete obedience. His adherence to the Father’s will and full surrender to His desires enabled Jesus to live synced with the Father’s heart.

Two in Perfect Harmony

The picture His intuitive and persistent obedience paints is of two so perfectly synchronized that they are one. Their movements correlate precisely. Their thoughts are integrated so that they are in tandem. Their hearts beat simultaneously.

Even for Jesus, syncing His heart to the Father’s required deliberate intention and decision. Jesus was one in nature with the Father from the beginning, but was a separate being. He chose submission as the very tenor of His life, but chose to obey in the moment as the moment arose.

He kept His eyes glued to the Father. I’m captured by the way Jesus uses the language of seeing to indicate how He knew His Father’s will. He can only do what He sees His Father doing, and the Father shows Him everything He is doing. To live synced, Jesus never let His gaze wander. He kept the eyes of His heart locked on the Father.

As He walked out His days in step with the Father, His perfectly choreographed obedience seemed to come effortlessly. He seemed to know instinctively what the Father was doing at any given juncture. Doing the Father’s will appeared to be the natural cadence of His life.

The secret is that came effortlessly at the appointed time, flowed from what preceded it. The hours spent syncing His heart to the Father’s in prayer were the explanation for His flowing, fluent rhythms of obedience, in step with the Father.

His life of power flowed from His life of prayer. Prayer is the key to living synced to Jesus’ heart like He lived synced to the Father’s heart.

Copyright 2016 Jennifer Kennedy Dean, author of Synced: Living Connected to the Heart of Jesus

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