It’s all about the heart

There was a time in the history of mankind, when you could appease God, with sacrifices and burnt offerings. Those sacrifices and burnt offerings were instituted by God, in the Old Testament, to atone for various kinds of sins and to invoke the blessings of God.

But today, since Jesus has come to save us through grace and to bless us through grace, there is now no need for sacrifices and burnt offerings. But there is a need for something else to keep us from sinning. And there is a need for something else that will enable us to do Good Works for the Lord. Both of those needs can be fulfilled by a clean heart inside all of us. For with a clean heart, we can do mighty things for the Lord and His Kingdom.

The Bible says a lot of important things about the heart. First, we need to pay close attention to what the Bible says in the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah said in 17:9, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it.”

Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. When God uses the word, “heart” He is talking about our innermost being; who we really are. In other words, our natural disposition, apart from God’s redeeming grace, is described as crooked and incurable. As a result, a man cannot trust his own heart and a man must leave everything to God, who alone knows the heart and He judges all men and women fairly.

I understand now why Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Sometimes we can embark on doing some things that we think are the right things to do. But sometimes those right things can lead us into the ways of death or loss. Our heart deceives us from doing things the best way or the righteous way, because it is desperately wicked.

The solution to this and other problems is to ask God, to create in us a clean heart!

We also need to pay close attention to what Jesus said in Matthew 15:10-20. In this passage of scripture, Jesus tells us what defiles a man. He tells us what makes a man dirty, filthy, unclean and unfit to be used by God.

Jesus says it is not what goes into the mouth of a man that defiles him, but it is what comes out of the mouth of a man that defiles him. Those things that come out of the mouth of a man come from the heart, “for out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessing, blasphemies and all manner of sins.” When can look at it this way, actions speak louder than words.

It’s all about the heart. God wants us to give Him our hearts and not just lip service. When you give God your heart you are saying I want the heart of God. Everything we do is a function of the heart. God wants us to believe, but He only looks at what we believe in the heart; (Romans 10:9-10). God wants us to love Him and to love others, but He only looks for love in our hearts, (Matthew 22:37). God wants us to sing to Him, but He only listens to our hearts. (Col. 3:16). God wants us to obey Him, but He is only looking for obedience from the heart, (Eph 6:6). God expects us to give, but He only respects giving from a cheerful heart, (2 Cor. 9:7).

No wonder the Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. And no wonder David prayed to God, “Create in me a clean heart!”