Biography
Jill Briscoe was born in Liverpool, England, and was educated at Cambridge University. She and her husband, Stuart Briscoe, moved to the United States in 1970 when Stuart became pastor of the great Elmbrook Church in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Jill has pursued an active career in Bible teaching and speaking ministries both in North America and abroad, and is the author of nine books. Some of the interesting titles are There's A Snake in My Garden, How to Follow The Shepherd When You Are Being Pushed Around By The Sheep, and Here Am I, Send Aaron. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Loving God with All Your Heart" 
I'd like to read from the scriptures a very familiar story. Sometimes when we read familiar stories, we get a little disappointed. We think, "O, the speaker isn't going to tell us anything new tonight." Perhaps you won't hear anything new, but it never harms to peek around the corner of a verse and see who is standing in the shadows, and smell the smells, and see the colors. I hope perhaps you're going to do that with this story. It's the story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus had been challenged by a young lawyer who had come to him and said, "Teacher, tell me what I have to do to inherit eternal life."

In response to this Jesus said, "You have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself." Well, the young man wanted to justify himself and so he said to Jesus Christ, "So, who is my neighbor?" Jesus in reply told him, "A certain man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves. They stripped him of his clothes. They beat him, and they went away leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going by and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite; when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan came where the man was. When he saw him, he took pity on him, or he had compassion on him. The Samaritan went to him and he bandaged his wounds and he poured on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey. He took him to an inn and he took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and he said to the innkeeper, 'You take care of him. When I return, I'll reimburse you for any extra expense.' Which of these three, said Jesus, do you think was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" Well, the expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus said to him, "Go and do thou likewise."

I want to talk to you about loving God. Many people want to but they don't know how to. Many people don't know how to love each other or to receive love from Loving God With All Your Heart

I'd like to read from the scriptures a very familiar story. Sometimes when we read familiar stories, we get a little disappointed. We think, "O, the speaker isn't going to tell us anything new tonight." Perhaps you won't hear anything new, but it never harms to peek around the corner of a verse and see who is standing in the shadows, and smell the smells, and see the colors. I hope perhaps you're going to do that with this story. It's the story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus had been challenged by a young lawyer who had come to him and said, "Teacher, tell me what I have to do to inherit eternal life."

In response to this Jesus said, "You have to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself." Well, the young man wanted to justify himself and so he said to Jesus Christ, "So, who is my neighbor?" Jesus in reply told him, "A certain man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and he fell among thieves. They stripped him of his clothes. They beat him, and they went away leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going by and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite; when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan came where the man was. When he saw him, he took pity on him, or he had compassion on him. The Samaritan went to him and he bandaged his wounds and he poured on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey. He took him to an inn and he took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and he said to the innkeeper, 'You take care of him. When I return, I'll reimburse you for any extra expense.' Which of these three, said Jesus, do you think was neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" Well, the expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus said to him, "Go and do thou likewise."

I want to talk to you about loving God. Many people want to but they don't know how to. Many people don't know how to love each other or to receive love from other people. If we don't know how to give love or receive love, then we cannot experience all that God wants us to. When we talk about loving God, we have a problem. It's a very simple problem. We have a problem with our heart, the part of us that God made to be able to love.

I remember my mom used to get very cross with me when I suggested that the Bible said that man was born with a sinful heart, as if he had a bias within him. In my country, in England, we play a game of bowles when you're very old and you can't run around the block or play tennis or racquetball. Then you get to go to these lovely greens and you bowl a little ball, it's called a jack, as far as you can and as straight as you can. Then you get a great big bowling ball with a spot on it. You take aim and you try and hit the little jack. The problem is there is a bias inside the ball, and however straight you aim it, it always comes "off-key" to the right or to the left. So the game isn't quite so simple as you think.

Nor is the game of life. Because no matter how hard you aim a child at a target, the target being to do right, to think right, to be right, there is a bias within the human heart that takes us "off-key." We do the things that we don't want to do. As the Anglican prayer book has it, there is no health in us.

So that's the problem. God knows it for He looks on the inside. Man looks on the outside, but He looks right down within and He says, "The diagnosis of this human heart is that it is only evil continually." It thinks other thoughts than God would have it think. It decides to do other things than God would have it do. How then can this sinful heart love God? Is this the heart that is going to go to the mission field? Is this the heart that is going to care for the neighbor? Is this the heart that is going to get out there in the drug alleys and do something about the terrible, terrible state our young people are in? No, something has got to happen to the heart.

In fact Jesus said, "Out of this heart of man come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, lies, slander." What we need, says somebody, is a bypass. No, a bypass isn't going to do it. The only thing that will do something about this human heart that is trying to love God but can't, because it's so evil, is a transplant. If there were some way that I could receive a new heart, a heart that would naturally love God and love my neighbor as much as I love my selfish self, then I would perhaps have a chance to do the thing that Jesus told us all — not just this young man that asked Him the question — to do. How can I have a transplant? Did you know that the Bible actually says that we can have a transplant, and that He will be involved in giving us that?

In the book of Ezekiel, there is a very, very interesting verse and it says this, "I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."

There you are. It tells us we can have a transplant, that God is going to remove our stony, selfish heart and give us a heart of flesh, a heart that beats when people are in trouble, a heart that cares when the man falls in the ditch. But if you're going to have a transplant, you need a donor.

We have a young man in our church. He is a doctor. He went to Ghana with Chuck Colson. While he was in Ghana, he went into the prisons and did some medical work there. He found a young Ghanian doctor who had a kidney problem. He brought him back to this country, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Christian doctors gave of their time, their energy and their expertise. Bringing his brother with him, they transplanted the kidney of one brother into the other brother hoping that this would help. Actually, it didn't. The young man returned to Ghana no better. In fact, the healthy young man was minus a kidney.

I tell you that story because I don't think there any of us who wouldn't do the same for our brother. I hope there isn't anyway. If your child had leukemia wouldn't you say, "Take my bone marrow." If somebody needed a transplant that you could help with — if you loved that person — then surely you would help. But how many people do you know who would say, "You need a heart? Take mine." Do you know anyone like that? I don't know anyone like that. Or do I?

When God looked down at the human race and saw that only a transplant would do, Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, said, "Take my heart." And, God did. On the operating table in the shape of a cross, God, the Great Physician, lifted the heart and nature of Jesus Christ and offered Him to the world. He offered His heart to you and to me because he knew that our heart would never love God. You can take it to church and sit it in a pew, give it a hymn book and teach it how it should be as a good little Christian heart. And, it's still the same old wicked heart you were born with. But when you receive, or as the Bible says, become the partaker of the divine nature and receive Christ's heart, Christ's nature, Christ Himself by His Holy Spirit, then all the valves are open and you have the possibility of loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind.

I remember that transplant taking place in my heart years and years ago, hundreds of years ago now it feels, for I'm old. But, I remember when I was a student, being in bed in hospital and somebody explained to me that I could receive the nature of God in me, and that, through me, He would do what I had no intention of doing for myself, for the people I loved, or for my world. Then you begin to experience a desire to love Him with all your heart. What does that mean? Well, it just means you're not half-hearted any more. The God-Spirit begins to move you to keep His laws. The question of obedience, or being morally right, or doing the right thing, becomes a sort of insistent necessity from inside urging you, pressuring you. When you want to do wrong, it is like a little tap on the inside, or on your shoulder, saying, "Uh-uh, no, now do this instead." That sort of experience comes into your life. You begin to love Him with all your soul. You begin to practice the presence of God until a spiritual sense or atmosphere in which you live becomes more or less natural instead of "put on" or stirred up. You don't have to go to church to sort of get feeling religious again.

God is as real in the busy street as He is in the hushed atmosphere of your church building. You love Him with all your heart. You love Him with all your soul. You begin to love Him with all your mind. Christianity is not for people who check their minds in the cloakroom as they come into church. Christianity is for those with bright minds, and not so bright minds, but with minds that will mind God, that will say "I have to look at this Christian faith. I have to give the mind that God has given me back to Him in such a way that He can instruct it as to His nature, as to His ways." That is what it really means to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. It means not a mindless Christianity — sort of being told what to think and told what to believe — but to expose your mind to the mind of God. He, omniscient God that He is, all-knowing God that He is, will share some of the all-knowingness of His nature with you and with me — even though we are little dust people with little dust minds living in little dust bodies eating dust food. He will give us the capacity to understand Him. When we love Him with all our soul and all our mind and all our heart, then we will begin to love Him with all our strength.

That's where the story comes in. Because to love God with all our strength, as Jesus explained to this young man, means that you will love your neighbor as much as you love your selfish self. If you do not love your neighbor as much as you love your selfish self, then don't say you love God. Sometimes we think we can measure the love we have for God by the feeling we have as we pray or sing a psalm or a hymn in church. Not necessarily. That's all part of it. Jesus said, "I want to know about the man in the ditch. I want to know, are you involved yet? I want to know if you've come down off your evangelical donkey and got along side the man in the ditch. If you're still on your high horse, your high religious horse, riding past trouble, or like the priest and the Levite running to Bible studies or church meetings, too busy for the man in the ditch, then don't say you love God."

Those are hard words and I'm thinking about myself as I share them with you, because it's quite a challenge to realize that God is measuring my love for Him by my actions, my loving actions, toward the man in the ditch.

"So I am to love my neighbor as myself, am I," the young expert in the law demanded of Jesus, "so who is my neighbor?" Maybe you're asking that question, too. Let me suggest some things to you. The person in the ditch is the girl robbed by another woman of her husband. The child robbed of her mother by her mother's boss. The college kid robbed of his opportunity by the recession. The teen-ager robbed of her virginity by her high school date. The person in the ditch is the woman robbed of her reputation by malicious gossip. The old person robbed of their health by disease. There are plenty of people in the ditch, but not nearly enough good samaritans to go around.

Why don't we get off our evangelical donkeys and get in the ditch? Let me suggest to you three reasons. The first reason we Christians don't is the risk factor. You know, the good Samaritan didn't look around and see if the robbers were still there. But he might have, because there was a risk attached to getting off his donkey and getting in the ditch. He might be robbed as well. I think one reason that we don't get off our donkey and get in the ditch and help whoever is there as we go along our life's way is we're afraid that perhaps we will get so involved it will cost us something. It cost this man a lot. It could have cost him a lot more. I think that is the reason that we don't get involved.

I don't know if you ever ask questions of the scriptures. You will never really discover the joy of Bible reading unless you ask the text questions. Who? Why? Where? What? That's the way to go. As you do that, then the text will answer you. That makes it very exciting. As I came to this text, I asked some questions. Questions like, was the man in the ditch fat? Was the donkey old? Was it on it's last donkey legs? And you say, those weird questions to ask, why do you ask those sorts of questions? Because I want to know. Because if the man was fat and if the donkey was old, that might cost him a whole lot more than I was mentioning before. Was the man rich? Could he afford a new donkey? If he was a fat man and he was going to sit on the old donkey, the old donkey might collapse or break a leg. Now, that's a little picture to bring the story to life. But you see, it might be that you walk, and he rides on your donkey, if you really help the man in the ditch.

One time, not too long ago, my husband and I invited a young man who had lost his job to come and live with us. We thought it would be for a week or two. It turned out in the end to be nearly two years. There was many a time when, in a sense, he rode and we walked. Literally for me, because I lent him a car to go find a job and I hitched. That's a little thing but it's an illustration of what I'm talking about. Years and years ago, we had teenagers all over our lives and all over house. The dishes got broken and the couch got mucked up and the carpet got wrecked. It will cost to get down in the ditch. That's one reason we don't do it.

The second reason is compassion. Do you notice that the good Samaritan was moved with compassion? Do you remember about that heart transplant? Jesus promised. I will move you. That new heart of yours will beat because it is the heart of God for the person in the ditch. Now you won't have a heart beat for the person in the ditch unless you get close enough to smell the smells, and feel the tears, and understand. The man got in the ditch and put his arms around that young man and lifted him out. I suppose we could apply this by saying, "What about AIDS and the AIDS patients of our era? Are they the lepers of the '80's and '90's for the Christian church? Will we put our arms around them?" Who knows. If God has given you his heart, you can expect it to beat even for people with AIDS. What a challenge!

So, there is the risk factor, and there is the compassion factor, and finally, there is the fear factor. Inadequacy. You say, I'm not a professional Christian. Nor, am I. I'm not a professional Christian. I didn't go to school to learn how to be a Christian. I'm a wife. I'm a mother. I'm a grandmother since I saw you last and that's wonderful. You know that can be a reason for not getting in the ditch. I'm too old, some of you say. Somebody sent me a beautiful poem and I must share it with you just before I go. Listen.

In the dim and distant past
When life's temper wasn't fast,
Grandma used to rock and knit
Crochet, tat and baby sit.

When the kids were in a jam,
They could always count on Gram.
In an age of gracious living,
Grandma was the gal for giving.

Grandma now is at the gym,
Exercising to keep slim.
She's off touring with a bunch,
Taking clients out to lunch.

Driving north to ski or curl,
All her days are in a whirl,
Nothing seems to stop or block her,
Now that grandma is off her rocker.

Interview with Jill Briscoe
Interviewed by Floyd Brown

Floyd Brown: Jill, thank you for a most rewarding message, a challenge and a new phrase — get off my evangelical donkey and get down in the ditch and help people. You travel quite a lot and you a get a feel of what's going on in our nation and our world because you travel the other continents of the world. Do you see a trend developing? Are we helping one another more?

Jill Briscoe: I don't think so. I think we are getting more individualistic and more narcissistic and more interested in the individual than community aspect, especially in America. In Europe, it's missing. So I think what I was saying tonight is that the church needs to wake up because I think we're isolating.

Brown: Is it more a move away from Christianity or is it the fact that the church just isn't doing its job with its people, or the people of the church aren't?

Briscoe: I think it's all of that and more of lots of other things we don't have time to talk about. But I think the church has got separation and isolation mixed up. I think they think that to be separate from sin means to be separate from sinners. It doesn't. Jesus was a friend of the people who needed Him. He came to help the man in the ditch. I think we've forgotten that somehow.

Brown: Am I being a good samaritan if I drop some coins into the Salvation Army's boxes as I go along the street that day? Can I chalk up another good day. Hey, I was pretty good today — I got off my high horse.

Briscoe: I think we've got to do more than that. We have to do that. You can't just throw money at the man in the ditch. I mean, the good Samaritan could have stayed on his donkey and emptied his purse and gone on. It wouldn't have helped the man. Some people are beyond being able to help themselves. I think an awful lot of people are being paralyzed by their marriages falling apart or their families falling apart. I think we have to quit saying it's none of my business, because a hurting world is our business if we're Christian believers. I think we have to aggressively get involved to address need, to say, "I don't know what I can do but I'll do something. I'll do it badly on the way to learning to do it goodly." I think another reason we don't get off the donkey is that we're frightened we'll fail. If we can't do it right, we won't do it at all. So we have to be willing to do it badly rather than not do it at all.

We muddle through. We don't care how badly we do it.

Brown: It takes a lot of courage. Fear of failure is certainly a deterrent to many things that we would want to do to try to meet certain challenges. But here we are, presidential election time coming up. It would seem to me that this would be a great opportunity for us to be good samaritans, to listen.

Briscoe: In what way?

Brown: Well, I think in terms of listening to the issues, deciding who is going to address those things that we need most of all in our society, not to sit back and say, "My vote doesn't count" or "One is just as bad as the other" or "Neither of them are talking to the issues." Shouldn't we dig deeply as persons? Something you said was quite interesting — that coming in to the church we must be thinkers. We're not robots. We don't just come in there to be told what we should think and what we should do.

Briscoe: Well, I think we must. To love God with all our mind, means we look at our society as church people and say, "How can the church address our society?" You're absolutely right. Listen to the issues raised by our politicians. You don't really need to wait to election time. The little girl next door has had her husband walk out on her and who is going to knock on the door and say, "Can I listen? I don't know what to say but can I listen? Can I help?" It's people involvement. It's caring enough about each other, even strangers, to dare to intrude upon their privacy enough to even offer your heart and your love.

Brown: Marvelous message. Are you working on a new book?

Briscoe: Yes.

Brown: Tell me about it.

Briscoe: It's called Running on Empty. If I could quit running on empty, I'd finish the book. It's just really about how God meets us at the low points of our life and fills us up. I take some Biblical characters like Elijah flat on his face under his broom tree, the pooped prophet. Moses, who had it up to here with the people of God. Jonah mad enough with God to ask to die. Just God's greats who all found low points in their lives. How did they get there? How did God help them to get up and dust themselves off and get on with it.

Brown: It isn't how many times you go down but how many times you get up.