What is the True Condition of Your Heart? ~ blog

Today I want us to clear up some incorrect thinking that many believers have about their heart. Many of us know or somewhat remember that there is a verse somewhere which tells us that our heart is desperately wicked and deceitful.

We read that in Jeremiah 17:9;

“The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?”

Now, this is clearly what God has said through the prophet Jeremiah.  However, is that true for us as followers of Christ today?  We certainly have times as believers where we feel like our heart is deceitful and wicked but is that really the case?

We also read in Ezekiel 11:19;

“And I will give them one heart,

and a new spirit I will put within them. 

I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh 

and give them a heart of flesh”

So, which is it for a believer today?  Is our heart still deceitful above all things and beyond cure?  Or has God done a heart transplant removing the old heart of stone and has given us a new heart of flesh?

We must learn to be careful when we take passages out of the Old Testament and believe they are still true today and apply to us.  Many of them do apply and speak universal truths that are constant and do not change … like God is all powerful and loving.  That has always been true and will always be true.  It is a universal truth that never changes.

However, some things written in the OT are words for the nation of Israel and are not for us today.  One of the most abused verses in this sense is 2 Chronicles 7:14;

“…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Those words were spoken by God to the nation of Israel back when Solomon was their king.  Now should we humble ourselves, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from our wicked ways?  Yes, of course, we should but that does not mean that God is going to heal our land. This promise was to Israel and not the United States of America or any other nation in existence today.

So, what about our heart?  Is it a heart of stone and desperately wicked and deceitful now that we have trusted Christ as our Savior?  The answer is emphatically NO! 

When we accepted Christ, we became new creations in Christ and our old deceitful heart was removed and we have been given a new heart of flesh.  We have also been given the mind of Christ. (See 1 Corinthians 2:16)

The true condition of our heart is that we received a new heart when we received Christ.  Our old heart was corrupted by this world and by the sinful flesh that we walked in until we accepted Jesus.  Our new heart is part of the things about us that became new upon our conversion.

So, if not our heart, where do these evil and sinful desires come from?  There is one thing that has remained with us since birth and will be with us until we die.  The Bible calls this our flesh.  Not the meat and skin hanging on our bones but something within us that is corrupt, selfish, and rebellious.  In our flesh or sinful nature, we have our sinful desires.  When we want to do something that is sinful or wrong it is always coming from our flesh where our lusts exist.

Do not be fooled into thinking that because you have lusts that you must not be a child of God.  Everybody has lusts because everyone still has a sinful flesh.

Now there are three ways to counteract our flesh.

  1. The Holy Spirit – we are told that if we walk filled with the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. He is the power to transform us and to strengthen the good things of God in our mind and heart.

  2. The Word of God – reading, memorizing, and meditating on the Word of God will help you do battle against the flesh. It is God’s scalpel to pierce into our flesh and show us the difference between walking in sin or walking in purity.

  3. A Community of Other Believers – Recovery never will happen for you as long as you remain in isolation because of your shame over your sexual sin. Finding a community of other believers fighting this same battle is an absolute must. You can be part of a team of others who are being honest, learning from their mistakes and are daily available to help one another.

You must stop trying to fight this alone and get on one of our Online Support Teams.  I invite you to be a guest and sit in on one of our 12 Online Support Teams to see what they are like and how they are helping men.

Contact me at doyel@me.com

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