Do you realize that if God can capture your heart, He can confidently transfer to you the keys to His kingdom?
I was looking back over Dallas Willard’s book, Renovation of the Heart , last night and re-discovered a great quote: “He [Jesus] made disciples by presenting them with the kingdom and introducing them into it by reaching their hearts, changing their vision of reality and their intentions for life” (pp. 67-68).
The Scriptures are clear, we Believers are given a new heart when we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, from irretrievable uselessness to God to being His sought after treasure. No longer do we have hearts that are rebellious and desperately wicked as Jeremiah preached to his generation. Rather, as Ezekiel prophesied would be the case when Christ came, the laws of God are now written on our hearts; they are no longer hardened to God but are soft and pliable (ref. Ezek. 36:26-27).
It is a crying shame that teachers teach and Believers believe that the heart of the child of God is a wicked beast torn between two loves: obedience and sin, God and the devil, darkness and light. This is a mishandling of Scripture, and I think sometimes it is deliberate in order to motivate folks toward outward godliness in lieu of true spiritual formation, which begins inside and works its way out. You would think we were forming Pharisees instead of people who follow Christ with all their heart.
When God redeemed us, adopted us, and grafted us into His family, He transferred us into His lineage and cut us out of the same fabric He is made from (ref. 2 Pt. 1:4). In other words, we are brand new people.
The old person we were—and were destined to be because of our identity in Adam—was crucified in Christ. But just as Christ did not stay dead, neither do we. In the same way God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand, so He has done to us and for us who are Believers (ref. Eph. 2:6).
This fact is absolutely and utterly dependent upon us being “fit” to sit next to Him, and He has made us “fit” through the work of Christ. And do not be mistaken: He has not made us acceptable a little bit. He recreated us from the inside out, from the ground up, through and through.
It is for this reason that the Scriptures are emphatic, and that Ezekiel’s prophecy is important, regarding the condition of our hearts. Our hearts are new, not old; soft, not hard toward God; clean, not in the condition of the folk’s hearts whom Jeremiah preached to in real time versus prophetically.
This is important because we are designed to live from our hearts. The heart is the core of us, the deepest and most thoroughgoing aspect of us. It governs all that God desires to have come out of us. From the heart we passionately convey God to others during our daily trek through life.
When Jesus appealed to His disciples and presented the kingdom to them, He appealed to them at their basic ability to respond to God—their hearts. He does the same with us, and the devil—our adversary—recognizes this and wages an insidious battle to undermine our determination to live from our hearts. Thus the reason behind the heart-level wounds we have all suffered with this, it is all the more apparent why Proverbs 4:23 says, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.”
We attempt to live from our heads, from our theology, from our tradition, from our emotion, from our family history, from what we are taught, from our accomplishments, ad infinitum. But we must adopt God’s viewpoint of life and of our lives. He designed us to live passionately, intensely, confidently…and to do so from a heart that is clean and pure based upon the finished work of Christ (ref. Heb. 10:19-25). Be encouraged in your heart!
Bless you, my friend. In His love,
P.S. It is essential that we live from our hearts. Failing to do so will render a spiritual life lacking in passion and unaware of the profound bond we have with the heart of God. No wonder such a war is waged for our hearts!
