Challenges of the heart

Personal Notations

9 November 2005

Joel Akin

The Bible speaks of the heart many times. There is the wickedness of the heart, the joy of the heart, the desires of the heart and more. What is it in the heart that makes the heart the subject of soul and sin? Is there something that we can do to understand just a little more the purposes of the heart?

First lets see are we speaking of a metaphorical heart? I think we must agree there is truth to this for over the decades there have been many men and probably women who have received a new heart, some mechanical and some living from those who have passed on. They still continue to hold on to and play with their desires. They have longings and dreams and in many cases continue to live a life of ease. So it is not the physical heart which holds the course of the soul. Yet if it is not the physical heart then there might be another explanation as in a spiritual heart.

Spiritual hearts are like living seeds. They carry within them a balance and we are the caretakers of that balance. If our heart leans towards evil our desires tend towards evil. If we are balanced towards good, as in God, then our hearts are turned towards good.

So what happens to make this change in us? To understand this basic change we have to understand who it is that changes us inside. It is not possible for us to turn our life over to God if we hold unforgiveness in our ways. If I say to you "I will never forgive you for the wrong you have done" God has a right to hold back His love as does the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the hardest person in the world to forgive is our self. I see me as a man who has struggled to put God first in all ways. There is a problem I faced in my later days that I did not foresee. This was the problem of self forgiveness. If I hold myself up to God as a source of contempt then how does God find it possible to make me forgive myself? How do I overcome that dark part of my heart that I didn't know existed?

Perhaps there are reasons men have their old hearts removed. It is because they are men who live on a sick heart and that sick and diseased heart has grown weak, pallid and listless. In such a way it then needs to be removed and replaced with a fresh heart.

Jesus knows our weaknesses and our sorrows. In that there is truth. He knows the desires of our heart both Good and bad and the struggle we face in the balancing act of life's choices. It is true we are like children in that we fight and we bicker as we search for a way to deal with these things. I tend to search inwardly for faults while others tend to look outwardly for the reasons.

So how then Do I grow? How then do I mature enough to become the person I was meant to be? How do I make sure the balance of my heart is towards God? Do I fight and yell and scream for help? In doing so does that or those screams get answered? I know there is a need to worship God. But what is in worship that helps us? I guess you could say a lifting up. Out of the heart there often comes wickedness but that old heart is removed and putting it back in isn't going to solve many problems. So we must lift up holy hands and worship God so that our heart might be made right before Him. We are His children and only He can separate the chaff from the wheat.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name [is] Holy; I dwell in the high and holy [place], with him also [that is] of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.