Exposure: Our Unveiled Hearts Before God

By Vincent Mooney

"Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a façade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise." -John Eldredge

Have you ever tried to describe yourself to someone? What did you hold back? We hide our imperfections from the world to avoid judgment according to the world's standards. God knows our true hearts and knows al

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: May 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887384689

Vincent Mooney

The author was called away from twenty-five years in manufacturing leadership to ministry. He does not claim to be a qualified writer, but God does not call the equipped - He equips the called. Vince is a humble servant of the Lord who is active in his church and community, and he has led many discipleship groups as well. Vince seeks share the treasure of Christ as he follows the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Book preview

Dedication

For my dad, Thomas Mooney, who was intent on breaking the chains of family brokenness and who, along with my mom, instilled in their children a foundational moral fiber for finding our purpose in this broken world.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my Lord and Savior, first and foremost, for giving me a new heart and giving me eyes to see a world that desperately needs Him. I thank Him for convicting me through the Holy Spirit to point the world to Him and seek the wonders and fulfillment of relationship with God.

I want to thank my wife, Deanna Mooney, for being my reminder of a loving heart for our Lord and an example of kindness, compassion, and love for all of God’s children.

To my dear friends, Stephen and Teresa D’Andrea, who are true examples of the joy that the power of God can bring from brokenness.

To Pastor David Bloom, who exemplifies the humble heart of church leadership in growing and teaching the Christian body, as well as a heart for outreach for those who are seeking fulfillment in this broken world.

Introduction

When I decide to write the words that will become a book, my subject matter does not come from a need to be creative. It does not come from a wealth of knowledge in a theological accumulation. It comes from the things that God has written on my heart, first and foremost as a therapeutic reminder of my own brokenness as an average Joe Christian. It comes from a place of humility as I am a sinner and do not deserve Christ. But in His love, He never stops working to mold the imperfect lump of clay that I am. I see that others in the world may have similar struggles in their desire to follow Christ in a broken and sinful world. God just simply asks me to share this with the world using any promptings and gifts He has designed in me. I encourage us all to seek our own unique relationship with our heavenly Father, and I pray this book can help guide us all to be more complete followers of Christ and all the fulfillment that Christ is within us.

In order to be in a deep relationship with the Father, we have to be completely exposed before Him. This means that we have to undergo continual open-heart surgery before the Father. Of course, that is not meant to mean physical surgery but spiritual surgery. We have to face our biggest fears, let go of our perceived needs in our own life circumstances, and ask the Father to search our hearts in the darkest corners and help us let go of anything that is more important than Him. God wants us to see that we are beautifully and wonderfully created in His image. But Satan and the world around us are ruthless in their pursuit to take us away from the joy that God intended. The world circumstances into which we are born and live are disguised as a place where we seek our own happiness and heaven on earth through its offerings. It is easy to be drawn away from why we were created in the first place. So, we seek to find our place, and the world is ever so obliging to help us discover what that looks like for us. As I can attest, this is a painful process at times as the world has a funny way of tempting us with its comforts, expectations, and norms in which we live. Before we know it, we have a long list of things we just take for granted as to how things should be.

Life is a series of highs and lows, and God is with us through it all. But He wants us to be with Him through every high and every low too. When we are at high points in our life, it is easy to take God for granted instead of thanking Him for His blessings. When we are at low points in life, it is easy for us to ask Why? and feel like we are all alone. In any of these moments, whether high points or low points, I encourage us all to see God’s perfect purpose in everything. The Apostle James gives us some good reminders for both our highs and lows of God’s constancy and care for our lives. Everything we do matters to God. In reminding us of our blessings, it reads in James 1:17, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.¹ Regarding our lows, it reads in James 1:12, Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.² God is present in everything we do, and I encourage us all to live in Christ with every moment, knowing and trusting that His plan is perfect in every way. Whether we are living in a prosperous time or in difficult circumstances, let us all remember what the Lord declared in Isaiah:

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’³

Isaiah 55:8–9

Grounded in full humility before God, we are now ready to invite God into the depths of our hearts and ask Him to help us see the things that are barriers in our relationship with Him. But we all must be ready and willing to face these things. God will give us circumstances and opportunities to be humbled before Him. This process can be difficult but so liberating and rewarding in our growing closer to the Father. He loves us so much, and He does not want any barrier between us.

In a world where sin is more and more acceptable, it is easy for us all to be ever so subtly tempted and convinced that as long as society is accepting, we can rationalize even the smallest of sins as something for which we can continually ask God’s forgiveness. Or we can accept certain things as not really sins at all. This is the cunning approach of Satan in our lives and exactly how he first deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden. As Christians, we should not just look to turn from sin but to behave in a manner that is pleasing to God. We do not belong to the world, and we should not put faith in anything in the world. For as Paul said in Romans,

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.⁴

Romans 12:2

Life is hard sometimes, but God is always speaking to our hearts and presenting us with circumstances to teach us and blessings for us to see His glory. He wants our hearts and minds, but He wants our whole hearts and minds. And this takes full exposure and devotion before Him. Sure, we can go through the motions, consider ourselves to be basically good people, play church on Sundays, and go to God when we are in a fix. But is that really pleasing to God? Or is that a false Christianity?

Some people have asked me where I get the topics to write about. I simply tell them that I am just like any other person in God’s creation. I struggle with these topics just like we all do. But God is working on my heart, also. This book invites my own heart, along with all Christians, to be exposed before God. I share my struggles transparently before God, and I pray you will do the same. Christianity is not about being perfect. We have all been broken and struggle with sin in our own ways. But let us be honest about our imperfections, be exposed before God, give Him our full heart, and seek to live each day such that it is pleasing to God. Our God deserves this. If we want to know what life is all about, God will guide us as we seek life’s meaning in Him. He will meet us where we are and love us as His own children. He will give us purpose and come live within our hearts. I pray for this country, this world, my family, all of you, and myself in this crazy world. I pray that we honor our heavenly Father and maximize His glory through the blessing of our creation in His image. I pray we all read this book with a humble and open heart and go to the Father fully exposed.

Chapter One

I’m a Sinner, and I’m Not Afraid to Say So

Have you ever wondered why Christians have such a difficult time when sharing the Gospel with others? Maybe Christians forget that everyone in this world, including themselves, is a sinner and always will be. In spite of this, God still loves each person completely and seeks to have a personal relationship with them. As it reads in Romans 3:23–24, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.⁵ Maybe Christians forget the mercy, grace, and forgiveness that God affords them every day. Maybe Christians forget that God once rescued each of them from their own lost and broken state and gave them hope and a purpose. If we, as Christians, would only remember these things in our humility, we could approach others transparently and authentically with the compassion and grace that we once needed in our broken state. We have not been made greater than others by God, but we have been given a tremendous gift to be shared with others. In addition, as we have been rescued undeservingly, maybe we have also been transformed in our thankfulness that we have a new joy and heart to willingly share with others as well.

Before I came to know Jesus and accepted Him as my Savior, I encountered many Christians who came across as either judgmental or self-righteous. And the message that it sent to me was that I was not worthy of becoming a Christian or that I was less than others in God’s eyes. It made me mad as well as discouraged. I found myself saying, They think they are so perfect and better than me. Well, maybe they are, but I’ll show them. It made me want to prove my own worth to the world and certainly to the do-gooder Christian club. God allowed me to chase my own fulfillment in the world, all the while chasing my heart out of His love for me. I became broken in my feeble attempt to find my worth in the eyes of the world. But when I finally came to my knees before God, He met me where I was and embraced me with His mercy and grace. God knows a secret about the brokenness and redemption we have experienced. He knows that we are now uniquely equipped to share the good news of the Gospel with many others just like us. Our brokenness can be a great gift for God to use for His glory.

I’m a sinner, and I’m not afraid to say so should be a motto for all Christians. You see, this is the secret to Christianity. Becoming a Christian is the very acknowledgment, in our humility, that we can never, through our own doing, become good enough to be in the presence of God. However, Christians have surrendered their life to God and accepted the gift of Jesus, who died for us and washed our sins away. Jesus is the only way that we can be reconciled with and have relationship with God. No matter what we have done or what hand we have been dealt in life, God will meet us where we are when we are ready to surrender to Him. He loves us so much and hates sin for the destructive influence it has on our lives.

God’s mercy and His awesome grace allow us salvation, even knowing that we will continue to sin. How can this be? some may ask. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we become new creations. We now have a sinful (flesh) side of our body as well as a spirit side of our body. Our flesh belongs to the world, and our spirit belongs to God. In fact, God sends His Holy Spirit to live within our spirit side to guide us. As Christians, we seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and shape our hearts to look like the heart of Jesus. Jesus was not only our Savior but also an example by which His followers should seek to emulate. In His time on earth, Jesus was fully man and fully God. Now, we can never be perfect, as Jesus was on earth, but we can seek to follow all that He taught and come to learn from His nature in relationship. We will still sin in our flesh, but we can be renewed each day through our repentance before the Father and through the blood of Jesus.

Some non-Christians and even some Christians may ask, You mean that murderers, adulterers, philanderers, cheats, drug addicts, and drunkards can become Christians? I am happy to say with joyous confidence that this is exactly what the author is saying here. This is the awesome measure of God’s mercy and grace. Why would I proclaim this with joy? Well, in my humility, I feel the need to be honest about my own story here as an example.

I never grew up with the strongest Christian habits in our family, although it was an ethical family. I sporadically attended church in my adolescent years but never really discovered the true meaning of Christianity until my freshman college roommate led me to Christ. But not really understanding full submission and how this was the only true fulfillment of my heart, my life soon returned to seeking my own best interests. Drinking, smoking, and partying became the norm in the fraternity life I had joined. I even experimented with drugs a few times, though fortunately, those instances scared me enough to refrain from drugs ever since. I sought to exploit women for one-night sexual encounters and frequently hurt many women through my callous actions. Fortunately for me, I was able to survive my undergraduate period enough to obtain a degree in engineering. I chose engineering because I thought it would lead to financial security in life. After college, my selfish lifestyle continued as I now had more money to fulfill my worldly desires. And over the next twenty years, I would come to have one adulterous relationship, be divorced two times, continue to have sexual relations out of wedlock, hurt many more women through my selfish disregard for them, continue to move from job to job to seek more and more money and status, and continue to party as I had before. I was not a very nice person, although I tried to keep my selfish heart veiled so that no one could see my true heart from the outside.

My second wife and I had a child that was autistic. This was hard for me to reconcile as to why this had occurred, but I soon began to see his autism not as a disability but as a blessing. I loved this child, but I assumed I’d always have him close to me. However, after my second wife told me that she wanted a divorce and that she wanted our child to live with her, the reality hit me that I was not only failing at a second marriage, but I was also about to lose a significant portion of time with my child. I was forty-six years old, I was getting a divorce for the second time, I was being separated from my child, my social life was nonexistent,