Excerpts from this blog post of the same name written by Preston Gillham:
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...
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!
3 comments:
I love to get comments and usually respond. So come back to see my reply.
You can click here to see my comment policy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Very good words to consider, Bob. Thanks for sharing! I think I get so impatient to see God's work completed in me, I forget how he is working so deeply and intricately in my life and in the bonds of others in my life. I forget that where I am at is right where he has led me.
ReplyDeleteOh I love this post, Bob!!!!
ReplyDeleteI get so sick of hearing people say "I'm just an old sinner saved by grace." NO!!! I WAS an old sinner, now I am a redeemed Child of the Living God who lives and moves and has his being in me. That's what this life in Christ is all about.
Susan
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI came here from Wade Burleson's blog...and I am glad I did. Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying what I've been saying for years but no one would/could listen.
Romans 6 is clear. The old me died with Christ and was buried with Him and she did NOT get up for the new me to drag around with me, battling me every step of the way. I am to reckon myself dead to sin and alive to God, alive to righteousness. I am a new creation, who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created me! Yay! My struggle is between the flesh (which is still infected) and the Spirit, in opposition to one another...will I walk controlled by the Spirit or in the flesh, quenching the Spirit by being unkind, loveless, joyless, impatient, etc.?
Kathleen