Dear Family and Friends,

In his book, Erasing Hell, Francis Chan tells of the time he was sitting in a Starbucks writing his book, occasionally looking up from his computer to see so many happy, busy, laughing, chatting people enjoying life.

He writes, “The place buzzes with life. Meanwhile, I sit here reading passage after passage, which all say that some of these people are going to hell. There are at least a dozen people within ten feet of me right here, right now, that may end up in the agony that I’m studying.”

Then Pastor Chan writes these words that convicted yet inspired me to keep pressing on, “What do I do? Do I keep on writing? Keep studying? Should I bag this whole book thing and start building relationships with them? How can I believe these passages yet sit here silently?”

Are you convicted yet inspired as well? Would you agree that stopping our lives, delaying or even giving up our hopes and dreams to help others is not normal behavior in this day and age? Even contemplating doing so is beyond many of us.

But isn’t this what Jesus did? For us?

And isn’t it God’s will that we become more like His Son?

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Romans 8:29 NIV

But let’s be honest, becoming like Christ (or even Francis Chan) is easier said than done.

Yes, we have help from Jesus speaking through the Holy Spirit.

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” John 16:13-14 NIV

But let’s be realistic, becoming more like Christ is a lifelong process.

Here, Peter lays out the general process.

“In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.” ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭5‬:‭10‬ NLT

And Paul tells us the result.

“Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.”  Ephesians 3:17 NLT

Today, to help us gain a fresh perspective of this process of becoming more like Christ, we will look at the thoughts of a pastor named Robert Boyd Munger who published his thoughts in 1954.

Allow me to share a few highlights from Pastor Munger’s booklet called: My Heart – Christ’s Home.


Imagine that we who follow Christ are a house.

And when we invited Jesus into our house to make it His home, He settled in by first going from room to room.

The first stop for Jesus was the library – our minds. It’s an important room, one that controls the house.

It’s somewhat embarrassing to say but Jesus found trash and literature unsuitable for our wellbeing. And pictures depicting our sinful thoughts and imaginations hanging on the walls. None of these belonged in our library.

So upon our request, Jesus began to clean out what was not helpful, pure, good and true. And then He filled the now empty shelves with the books of the Bible.

And to hang on the wall of our mind, He gave us a portrait of Himself, to remind us of our very special guest.

Christ’s next stop was the dining room, the place of our appetite and desires.

As one would expect, He rejected the food that we served and yet craved, the food that we thought would satisfy us – the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

Jesus then gave us a taste of food that alone satisfied us – that of seeking and doing God’s will.

Jesus continued on to the living room, the place where Christ offered to meet with us daily to share the riches and truth of the Bible.

In the beginning, the experience was wonderful. But then life got busy and we were drawn away from our time with Jesus… 

Then one day after some time had passed, we realized that we had neglected our guest. But when we saw Jesus sitting in the living room patiently waiting for us to return, we realized that He had not neglected us.

The workroom came next, the place where we use our gifts and talents for the Kingdom. It was sorely underutilized, until we dedicated our gifts and talents to God…

Next on the list was the rec room or playroom, the place where we associate with friends. At first, we didn’t want Jesus to meet our friends. We hung on to our private lives away from Jesus.

But then we found that being away from Jesus was no longer fun.

When we realized that we wanted to do everything together with Jesus, He brought real joy, happiness, satisfaction, excitement, and new friends into our house.

The last place Jesus came upon was the hall closet, the place where all things dead were kept – the secrets and sins of our lives hidden behind a locked door.

It wasn’t easy but when we surrendered the key, Christ washed our closet clean.

The booklet ends with us giving up our futile attempts to keep our house clean, and instead trusting the Lord to take responsibility and operate our house.

We switched roles by transferring the title to our house to Jesus. Rather than Jesus being the guest, He became the owner of our house, our Master and our Lord.


In this metaphor of a story we see just a portion of all that Jesus will do for us when we allow Him to make our hearts His home.

We see Jesus for who He truly is, full of compassion, patience, mercy, grace, and most of all love.

We see the truth, that we are unable to conform to His image on our own strength.

And finally we see what must be done for Christ to make His home in our hearts: Put our trust in Him.

In love always,