By Juany Harbert – Tipp City, Ohio
**Quotations from John and Stasi Eldredge and the Wild at Heart Books
Through Scripture and Wild at Heart references, Juany showed in Part One how men and women were created by God with different desires and natures.
Men have a built-in universal core desire for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to love. A man’s warrior heart yearns to not only be the hero, but to be the hero for someone.
Women have a core desire to play an irreplaceable role in a heroic adventure, to be sought after and fought for, and to unveil beauty – but now strictly outward beauty. A woman’s beauty shines from within – her essence that invites, nourishes, comforts, and inspires.
Man’s wild nature and woman’s inherent beauty both flow from a heart that is alive!
Back in our first home, Eden (Genesis 2) – life was bliss.
Genesis 3:8 says that the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the day and talked to Adam and Eve as close friends. What a beautiful relationship they had!
Lucifer – the enemy – wanted to be the epitome of beauty in creation. He corrupted his wisdom for the sake of his splendor, as described in Ezekiel 28.
“He became extremely jealous of the woman, because God made her the pinnacle of beauty,” so he made her the object of his attack. He tried to deceive her.
“Eve’s downfall was that she believed the lies that in order to have everything, she had to take matters into her own hands.”
“Adam’s downfall was that he didn’t intervene.” He was right there and saw the whole scene happening in front of his eyes. He sided with Eve.
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Adam’s Downfall
“Ever since that fateful day when Adam gave away the essence of his strength, men have struggled with the same. Men don’t want to speak up unless they know that it will go well. Don’t want to move unless success is guaranteed.”
That’s the flesh. “The sinful nature of ‘Fallen Adam’ is in every man, and he always wants the easiest way out.”
“The flesh is deceitful and treacherous. But your flesh is not you. Not the real you.”
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Romans 7:18-20 NKJV
New Covenant, New Man
“Men, you are no longer defined by your sin, the fallen you. Your heart is good.” With the New Covenant, you’ve got a new heart.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Ezekiel 36:26-27
“You are a new creation in Christ. That is the truest you.”
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
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“The ancient war is for the human heart. But the war is not you against God. The true you is on the side of God against the false self.
Knowing this makes all the difference in the world. A man will lose heart quickly if he believes his heart is nothing but sin. The only way to deal with your flesh is: to crucify it.”
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now love in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 NKJV
“We are never told to crucify our hearts, to kill the true man within. Stop taking the side of the flesh.
Walk right into those situations you normally run from. Speak right to the issues you normally remain silent over. For you to grow in true masculine strength, you must stop sabotaging yours.”
When a man doesn’t stand up for himself and what he believes, but goes with the flow, “he deliberately chooses to push his true strength down and enables the false self,” thus eroding his strength every time he does that. Allow the fire in the belly.
“Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.’ But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones…” Jeremiah 20:9 NKJV
“You sabotage yourself when you give your strength away….Men, start choosing to live out your strength and you’ll discover that it grows each time.”
Your strength is wild and fierce. It’s your gift to the world. It draws people to God through you.
Because we are in a war, we will be wounded by the enemy.
“The wounds that we have received as little children and as adults, shape us. They come with messages that pin down the core of our hearts.
When we embrace the message of the wound and agree with it, we adopt strategies to protect ourselves from being hurt again.”
Those are the fig leaves that we call personalities, and we hide behind them.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” Genesis 3:7 NKJV
Eve’s Downfall
“Fallen Eve ranges from dominating and controlling all the way to desolate and deserted.” She’s either calling all the shots or can never rock the boat.
“As another way to hide, indulgence tends to be an escape, a substitute for the real thing that can never satisfy.”
Things that have been said or done to her have assaulted the desires that God had place in her, and so she loses heart, longing for feminine beauty and purpose.
New Holiness, New Heart
The offer from God is to heal our broken hearts and to set free the places that are held captive within us.
“[The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 ESV
In order to receive His healing, we must bring our wounded hearts into His hands.
Jesus’s ministry is to the wounded in heart. If we say that we have no wounds…we have no part in him.
That’s what he does: he heals the wounded and sets the captives free.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…” Isaiah 61:1 ESV
The inner healing process involves recognizing a wound or “asking Jesus to show us the wound. Then, we ask him to heal it.
We renounce it, and we forgive whoever hurt us. Forgiveness releases you.”
The restored heart is free to be resilient, to be a friend of Jesus, and to cultivate a heart like a child: a heart that is full of wonder.
Juany has been a follower of Jesus since her childhood in Chile, South America. She met her romancer and hero, husband Mark, serving in ministry in San Diego, California.
They have been married 23 years and worked in ministry and in business together both nationally and internationally. They now reside in Tipp City with their 20-something daughter, Nicole.
