A Change of Heart

Does God change our hearts, or do we change our hearts? From what I understand, in scripture both truths are expressed.

"Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live." Ezekiel 18:31-32 ESV

"Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me." Psalms 51:10

"Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause." Isaiah 1:16-17

"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil." Matthew 12:33-35

"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." James 4:8

Remember, one of the scriptural premises or assumptions of this entire blog is that we can be as close to God and like God as we choose to be. God will not make us draw near to Him or be like Him. Jesus compares the heart to a tree and words/actions to fruit. The heart has to do with our ultimate intent, whether we be centered on God's will or self-will. So, when we submit our wills to God's truth, God changes our hearts (thoughts and intents) by empowering us with the desire and ability to do all of His will, as Paul said to the church in Phillipi:

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philipians 2:12-13

So WE work out OUR salvation with fear and trembling. God does not work out or salvation for us. But He works in us who are working out our salvation. When we do our part by faith, God does His part. For as James said, "Faith without works is dead."

So lets make this practical:
A husband has been committing adultery. He feels convicted. But he "loves" the adulteress and doesn't "feel" like breaking off the adulterous relationship. So he prays as the psalmist prayed, saying to God, "Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. Change my adulterous heart to a faithul heart. I just don't 'feel' love for my wife, but i do 'feel' love for the adulteress." Now, of course, the husband should want to genuinely feel love for his wife and to genuinely feel like ending adultery. But what is he to do? Or does God have to change his heart first? Does he have to wait for God to "change his heart," before he stops committing adultery? We all know the answer. Whether he is "struggling" with adultery or not, we rightly expect him to stop committing adultery, and we believe that he can actually do that, that he doesn't need a miracle supernatural spiritual heart transplant before he can be faithful to his wife. Would his wife accept this need for a change of heart from God while the man continues in adultery? Would she accept these words from him:

"Honey, I know I'm supposed to love you, but I just don't. I just don't feel love for you. But I do feel love for another woman. I try to not love her, and I struggle to love you, but I just can't do it unless God changes my heart. I am struggling with my desire to continue to have sex with another woman. I try not to have sex with her, but I keep doing it." We all know the answer to this. He is to love his wife, whether he feels it or not, and to stop committing adultery, whether he wants to or not. Indeed, he can pray for God to change his heart, but he cannot ignore the scriptures that command him to change his own heart as well. He can pray that God cleanses his heart, but cannot ignore the scriptures that tell him to purify his own heart. He can ask God to give him the desire and abilty to flee sexual immorality, but he cannot ignore the fact that HE IS COMMANDED TO FLEE SEXUAL IMMORALITY! HE IS NOT COMMANDED TO FEEL LIKE FLEEING SEXUAL IMMORALITY. AS A MATTER OF FACT, IT IS ASSUMED BY THE WORD "FLEE" THAT HE IS DOING SO AGAINST HIS DESIRE TO STAY!

If you are struggling to do what you know God wants, indeed pray for Him to give you the desire and abilty to do His will. But by faith, DO IT, believing that He will supply the needed desire and abilty. Don't wait fo feel like doing God's will. DO IT. Don't focus on FEELING like doing God's will. DO IT. We do not control our emotions directly, but indirectly, for emotions are responses to objects that arouse or inspire emotion. The adulterous man focuses his attention on the adulterous woman, focusing on her body and her personality. As a result, he feels aroused or desire. She is the object. His emotions are in response to her as the object of his attention. This is why he must flee her, avoid her, stay away from her, according to scripture:

"My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding, that you may keep discretion, and your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter aswormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword."

"Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house..."

"Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?"
Proverbs 5:1-4, 8, 18-20

Notice Solomon's appeal to the passions AND actions of his son, describing intoxication in relation to the son's wife verses intoxication towards the adulteress. The son is commanded in the context of wisdom to stay far way from the adulteress, to not go near her house. These are actions. Solomon then tells his son to rejoice in his wife, calling her lovely. Solomon encourages his son to be fulfilled by his wife's body (breasts) and intoxicated by his wife's love, NOT THE BODY AND LOVE OF THE ADULTERESS. Do you see this? Do you see that the son's passions are connected to his actions, according to the object of emotion THAT HE CHOOSES: EITHER CHOOSING THE INTOXICATION OF THE ADULTERESS OR CHOOSING THE INTOXICATION OF HIS WIFE. CHOICE.

We have a choice, direct influence over the state of our hearts. We can yield our hearts to God to change them and purify them, and we can change and purify our own hearts by our choice of intent or focus. The adulterous husband can repent, turn from unfaithfulness to faithfulness, stop focusing on the adulteress and start focusing on his wife. By changing the intent of his focus, he changes his heart. And in doing this by faith, God will empower is emotions and actions with needed continual motivation. But we cannot blame God for not changing our hearts if we are unwilling to change them. Surely the adulterous husband finds something pleasing about his wife's body and personality. Something caused her to be attractive to him. Something! Surely there must be one desirable physical trait, one desirable personality trait, at least. Surely he can focus on these. "But you don't know my wife or my situation," the man may say. Indeed, but God clearly did when He inspired the scriptures. He wouldn't command a man or woman to love their spouse if it were absolutely impossible to do so with some feeling, if some feeling is required. If the husband is required to feel like breaking off the adulterous relationship before he does it, but he absolutley cannot do so "in his own strength," then both God and the wife should cut him some slack. Try as he might, the man just can't do it! He just can't muster up enough "feeling/motivation" to be faithful. But we know this is not so.

So here we are before God and each other, called upon by God to change our hearts, that He might change them also. What will we do? What will WE DO?

Where is God? Part 4: The Temple of God (cont.)

(Part 4 of 6)

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
Exodus 33:7-11 ESV

If you asked an Israelite in the days of Moses, “Where is God,” the answer would be the tent of meeting, especially when Moses entered it.

Especially when Moses entered…remember that.

Moses said to the LORD, "See, you say to me, 'Bring up this people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.' Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people." And he said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." And he said to him, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?" Exodus 33:12-16

Please note what Moses said! According to Moses, the man that God spoke to face to face, how was it known that God favored him and Israel? What made Moses and Israel DISTINCT FROM EVERY OTHER PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH?

THE PRESENCE OF GOD HIMSELF!

Where is God?
He is in His people individually.

Where is God?
He is with His people collectively.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. I Corinthians 3:16-17

In I Corinthians 6, Paul spoke of each individual Corinthian believer as a temple of God, each believer’s body. In chapter 3, in the quote above, Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church as a whole. The assembly of believers is the temple of God.

Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
Matthew 18:18-20

Based on everything said so far, I would go as far as to say that the very definition of the church is:
Two or three believers gathered together in the Name of Jesus WITH JESUS HIMSELF AMONG THEM.

What do believers tell nonbelievers? We tell them that Jesus is alive and well, and that it is possible to have a “personal relationship” with Him. But where is He?

He is in those who believe in Him individually and with those who believe collectively.

What makes believers distinct, individually and collectively, from all the people on the face of the earth is not a doctrine or denomination, but a Person, in us and with us.

That means that when nonbelievers encounter believers, individually and collectively, they should encounter Christ Himself, in the believer individually, and with believers collectively. When you “go to church,” you should find Christ Himself in the temple of God. But is this what we find?

Where are the two or three gathered in His name? And what does it mean to gather in His name?

To gather in the name of Jesus is to gather under His authority, for His glory.

Jesus cannot lie.

If He is not experienced in the midst of the two or three who say they are gathering in His name, then they must not indeed be submitted to His authority for His glory. Jesus gave a very specific promise, a very specific condition for His manifestation. We will discuss this next time.

Until we next connect…
Peace.