Part 1: A Change of Heart
Have you ever been so upset with your children because they misbehaved or were disrespectful? There may have been times when you were infuriated and ended up scolding them, but when things cooled off, you felt bad and questioned yourself, “Was I too harsh?”, “Was I too hard on them?”, “Did they deserve it?” Then later on, you told them that you love them and explained to them the reasons of what they did was wrong and that it was inappropriate. As you observed their behavior and their attitude, they are remorseful. However, a few minutes later, they moved on. They were quickly relieved after forgiveness. Likewise, they had forgiven you. Today, we will learn about our hearts. Do we seek humility and righteousness or do we stay prideful? In Luke Chapter 9, Jesus told His disciples that He is going to be handed over to the hands of men, the disciples couldn’t grasp it and were afraid to ask. Then in verse 46, they started arguing among themselves about who is the greatest among them. Jesus, of course, knew their thoughts and took a little child and had the child stand beside Him.
As you can see, a child can teach us what our heart should be. A child is humble and dependent. The child has faith in the parents and has no worries because he or she trust them. My point is that we are God’s children and He wants us to be HUMBLE, have FAITH, have TRUST and be DEPENDENT on Him. But we’re very prideful people. We tend to measure ourselves against other people. But when our feelings get hurt, we automatically go on offensive mode. When we ended up arguing or debating with someone and we know that the other person is right, we tend to avoid admitting it. The questions we should ask ourselves,
Are we delighted in the things that God has blessed us with? What happens if we were the ones who were scolded by our boss? What if our co-worker falsely accused us? What if our closest friends misunderstood us and said something that was hurtful? If we are tested in such a way, what will our reaction be? How do we handle it? Do we stay in spirit and “say and do” the right things? Do we seek righteousness and humility? If not, we need a heart transplant. For us to have a change of heart, we need to be willing and allow God to operate in our heart because our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). Part 2: Straight from the Heart Matthew 15:18-19 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. Notice that it says, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts.” Everything starts from our heart. How we think, we become. In other words, our inner self is eager to express it through the outside, which we call our actions. When someone says something that you may not agree with, you’ll end up saying something back. The question is, will it come out good or will it come out bad? Do we tear down the other person because of disagreement? Here are some examples of the things that people usually argue about; politics, religion, and racial issues. I see a lot of that on Facebook. What about money?
It’s either you build and encourage the person, which is life. Or you tear the person down, which is death. Has anyone ever said something to you that was hurtful and it had an effect on you? Maybe today, you’re still affected by it. Or maybe someone had said something that was encouraging and it gave you life… As I stated before; how we think, we become. We’re sinful people and for us to renew our mind, it has to start with our heart.
God can operate and change our heart if we let Him. We need a heart transplant, so that we will not align ourselves to the pattern of this world. A heart transplant is a process performed by removing the sinful heart from a person and then replaces it with a healthy one.
In this world, we are sickly, but only God can perform the process by changing our heart. If our heart is hard, only God can soften it. In Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” As you can see, Jesus taught us by using an application of a child’s heart and that’s sincerity, sensitivity, and simplicity. Several minutes after a child has been scolded, he or she turns around and say and do the sweetest thing, “I love you mommy” or “I love you daddy” along with a warm hug. It’s because they are humble and quick to forgive… Likewise, our heart needs to get right. Our heartbeat and our walk should be in cadence with Christ. It is not religion, not a pastor nor a priest, not the church, nor can the world have anything to offer that can purify our heart. “Create in me a pure heart, O God, spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).
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