The healthy heart is soft soil that is as receptive to God as the good soil is to seed: listening, trusting, and responding to his initiative by sprouting with loving obedience. The proud heart is hard and unreceptive to God – because it hasn’t trusted in Christ it is dead. As we connect with Christ we come alive with his abundant, eternal, God-kind of life. God sends his Word and Spirit to us and we respond by putting our faith (trust and confidence, leaning the whole weight of our being) in Christ. It is in the heart (spirit or will) that real change must begin. God has created us to take dominion with him and for him in his kingdom, to be creative under him (Genesis 1). Spirit is unbodily personal power – the power we have in life to choose, take initiative, and express creativity. It is only with our heart that we can genuinely love and worship and this is why our praise and service mean nothing to God if they don’t come from our heart.Īn important clarification is that the heart, as the Bible speaks of it, is not our feelings, but our power to choose a course of action. The heart with its intentions is the eternal core of our being and the precious part of us that distinguishes us as creatures made in God’s image only God and human beings have a spirit. To call it will is to say that it has the power of choice or the ability to originate a course of action.) So we are essentially asking God to transform us in one area when we pray, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… Grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:10, 12) To call it heart is to emphasize that it is central and sensitive. (To call it spirit is to refer to it as nonbodily personal power. In Biblical terms the human heart is essentially the same as our spirit and in practical terms it refers to our will. In his Greatest Commandment Jesus teaches us, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). This article on the heart is part of a series from my class for counselors on “How People Change.” (See my other articles on the thoughts, feelings, body, social, and soul.) It is inspired by Dallas Willard’s book, Renovation of the Heart. And this “seed” that he planted within you can never be destroyed but will live and grow inside of you forever.This is an updated version of a Bible study I did in 2006 on the role of the heart/spirit/will in spiritual formation in Christ. For through the eternal and living Word of God you have been born again. So express this sincere love toward one another passionately and with a pure heart. Now, because of your obedience to the truth, you have purified your very souls, and this empowers you to be full of love for your fellow believers. It is through him that you now believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, so that you would fasten your faith and hope in God alone. This was part of God’s plan, for he was chosen and destined for this before the foundation of the earth was laid, but he has been made manifest in these last days for you. It was not a ransom payment of silver and gold, which eventually perishes, but the precious blood of Christ-who like a spotless, unblemished lamb was sacrificed for us. For you know that your lives were ransomed once and for all from the empty and futile way of life handed down from generation to generation. Since you call on him as your heavenly Father, the impartial Judge who judges according to each one’s works, live each day with holy awe and reverence throughout your time on earth. Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you. As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled, a greater measure of grace will be released to you. So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvelous grace that is coming to you.
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