So How Is Our Heart Really Changed?

If you gave your life to Christ your heart had to go through a transformational process where you changed from wanting to live for your self-interest to wanting to please God as your top priority. If your heart didn’t change salvation was never truly realized regardless how many times you prayed the sinner’s prayer. After all, God is more interested in transformation than he is in just forgiveness.   

2 Corinthians 5:17 

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 

If we take this verse at face value one would think the person who is converted all of a sudden is different, yet we all know that even the 12 disciples that Jesus walked with for three and a half years were still “In Process” of being transformed. If we look at the fact that transformation doesn’t happen instantly, then what is Paul talking about? Paul talked a lot about the necessity of having our minds renewed in order to know and do the will of God, so I believe Paul is referring to the heart of the person being “NEW” and transformed. After all The hardest thing for us to change is our heart, and scripture says time and time again that’s ultimately what God is after, our heart. It is in our heart where our loyalties dwell. If our hearts are not converted we are not converted.

What happens down the road on this thing we call our life’s journey with that heart change? If our heart was truly changed but it takes a period of time for most for our choices and actions to align with our love for Christ, is there a possibility that our hearts could once again be corrupted? Absolutely! So the question is, did we learn what pleases God most or did we just learn religious doctrine in which we claimed the righteousness which is in Christ, but did not dedicate our soul to changing our behavior to reflect that heart change? That is the million dollar question. We know without feeding on God’s word the seed of the gospel gets crowded out by the world and our own desires.

Changing our behavior to reflect our heart is a process by which we learn, or hopefully learn, to yield our mind, will and emotions to the Lord daily. It’s a process just like child development is a process. Unfortunately, sometimes we hit roadblocks and get discouraged when the changes we expect don’t happen soon enough. Although we know the Lord desires our change frequent roadblocks tend to get our eyes off the Lord and onto circumstances. As a result we can easily lose our way in our walk of faith. Faith is a journey, not a destination. Remember this important fact: the Bible speaks about the heart as a hard thing to know.

Jesus talked often about what is most important to God when it comes to being forgiven of our sins and wrong turns in life. He used a parable that puts a spotlight on how our “ATTITUDE” often makes or breaks the possibility of gaining forgiveness and renewed intimacy with God, or losing ground in our faith and intimacy with God.  Jesus tells a story to illustrate how our attitude can poison our heart and block the mercy of God from our lives.

Luke 18:9 

And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 

This parable has everything to do with a person’s attitude when asking for forgiveness. If we are not careful how we approach the throne of grace we may miss by a mile. Our attitude about where our values and purity come from is so important because it all goes back to what brought us to a saving knowledge of faith in Christ in the first place. A soft and pliable heart determines whether we move forward with God or get stopped dead in our tracks. Our heart attitude not only changes us for good or bad, but also determines how and if God is “WILLING” or not not willing to cleanse us from our mistakes. Forgiveness is not automatic with God, even though he loves us dearly. According to 1 John 1:9 we are told confession is necessary for forgiveness to take place.

Here is what I have learned over the years, and continue to learn about my relationship with God: I can do only so much in “FIXING” my mistakes. Everyone makes them, but the most important question is how do we overcome them? The plain and simple answer is by softening our hearts so God can change us permanently, not just temporarily.

Here are some truths we have to get right if we desire real transformation: One, God changes our heart only if we are receptive and responsive. Second, we need to soften our hearts “BEFORE” God can do his healing work. Consider these two scriptures from Ezekiel that speak volumes about how the church gets heart change wrong. We somehow have made believers think that “CONFESSION” is all that is necessary when it is not. Remember this truth: The Old Testament shows us what God’s character is like so we can trust him and approach him with humility and not pride.

 Ezekiel 18:31 

“Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? 

Ezekiel 36:26 

“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. 

God speaks to Ezekiel about two solid truths. First: we are responsible to change our own hearts. Second: God will assist us in that change if we are humble when approaching him for help. If we are waiting for God to do all the work in our transformation we will be sadly disappointed at the outcome. God refuses to do our job for us, but will give us strength and wisdom to make the changes we desire.

Meditate on these ideas of how our hearts get changed. Both we and God have to be involved in the change of our hearts, otherwise the change is only “SKIN DEEP” rather than transformational as Paul stated in 2 Cor 5:17. Then we end up like the Pharisee rather than the tax collector in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18. 

Questions:

1) Is your heart soft or hard towards God’s word? Remember 2 Chronicles 7:14 speaks about our attitude and our approach in order for God to heal us and our land.

2) Would you say you have a teachable spirit or a stubborn one? Remember James 4:6 about God resisting the proud but giving grace to the humble.

May we keep our heart soft towards the Lord that he might do wonders in our lives,

Pastor Dale