Every man has a false self, a tailor-made creature constructed through the wounding of his heart. Referred to as “the flesh” in the Bible, this impostor, this traitor, arises out of a man’s strategies to make life work. He creates inner programs to avoid pain or to obtain pleasure. His methods of self-protection, self-promotion, and self-provision—all of these are the man’s elaborate, false-self constructions to arrange for love for himself. The enemy is delighted to assist, knowing that the false self (flesh) keeps a person from experiencing true love and real Life.
That’s got to stop. In the fight to reclaim our whole heart we must stop seeking out secondary sources of validation and worth. The days of settling for less—what John Eldredge and Brent Curtis have called “taking our hearts to Less-Wild Lovers”—must come to an end.
Nothing is of greater consequence or requires more courage than going to God, rather than things, for our deep heart needs. Before we can enter the great battles for the hearts of our wives, children, friends, or anyone else, we must know how to take our own heart to the primary source of Life and love.
An excerpt from The Heart of a Warrior.
