Prelude
In the beginning, back when God created everything,
It was good, all creation, and the man was king.
God warned man about disobedience and the sin that follows,
But the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they did swallow
This fall led to the flood of Noah and later to the tower of Babel,
Where God delegated His care for nations, and instead chose Israel.
Man left on his own did more evil, leading to Sodom and Gomorrah,
Finally, to understand sin and His standards, God gave us the Torah.
To restore all things, God gave His own Son, Jesus the Messiah,
He fulfilled obligations in the Law of God, reconciled us to God, our Father.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and me, the first time He was here,
He will return soon to judge and to renew, and to hand over the kingdom to God,
His Father.
In a nutshell, this is what I teach.
In a heartbeat, this is what I preach.
That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
To understand His love and the peace that He alone can give, through His grace He calls you deeper to know the path that He has paved.
To recognize what went wrong, to realize what is true,
I explain God’s grace through the Holy Bible; His plan to make our lives new.
Preamble
- Over and over again to let it “sit”.
- It is safe for you, safeguard your faith, stems from your heart. (Phil 3:1)
- Real change in all of us.
- Show, not tell.
- Tell a story but show from the Bible.
Who Am I, really?
Most of us at one time or another have pondered the question, “Who am I, really?” Or perhaps even more importantly, “Who am I becoming?
Knowing ourselves is vital for our spiritual life, and to do so, Scripture tells us in Proverbs that we must look deep into our heart.
- Proverbs 27:19 As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man.
- As we see our reflection in calm water, so we see our real person.
- If the water is murky or disturbed, we see our state when we gaze into our heart.
- Mirror = Word of God
- James 1:23–24 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
It is not how we appear or what status or position we have or what we have accomplished or even what others think of us that determines who we really are.
Nor do any of these criteria give us understanding of our self.
True self-knowledge comes from looking inwardly at the “thoughts and intents” that reside deep in our heart.
- Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Since the real identity of a person is his heart, the heart often equals the person.
- More than meets the eye
Looking more closely, we see that the heart is so much more.
- The life that Jesus gives is no tame and stagnant thing.
- It flows in us and through us like an Artesian spring of good, clean, fresh water.
- God has provided to us all things that we need to grow in Christ.
- The Bible makes it clear that God is the ultimate heart-changer but we must submit to God, walk with Him according to scripture.
- The heart represents the whole person—who we really are.
- The human being is biblically depicted as a “soul” composed of a material body and immaterial spirit.
- The wounded and the strong, inner healing and insecurity, arise from and are affairs of the heart.
- The faith of a person is expressed with the heart.
The heart is also the center of the natural life of the person. To tell someone, “Let your heart live forever” is to wish for that person to enjoy good health.
- Psalm 22:26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever!
The real “you” is not what you are on the surface.
- In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Mephistopheles says: “In the end, you are exactly–what you are. Put on a wig with a million curls, put the highest heeled boots on your feet, yet you remain in the end just what you are.”
Status of the heart
The heart is used in common expressions more than any other part of the body.
- “We had a heart-to-heart talk.”
- “His heart is on the right place.”
- “I meant it from the bottom of my heart.”
- “My heart is set on it.”
- “In your heart you know it’s true.”
- This symbol “♥” ,the heart sign, represents an emotion, feelings, or some type of fondness or affinity. (I♥NY – Logo created in 1975.)
- This heart icon has been adopted for social networking websites, text messaging lingo, and other forms of colloquialism.
Who can say that I have made my heart clean?
- Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?
A cleansed heart, a clean person, is a righteous person
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Delilah finally got to Samson with her question about the status of his heart:
- Judges 16:15 Then she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and have not told me where your great strength lies.”
A person loves when his or her “heart” loves.
Jesus made the same equation of heart and person when he told his disciples, “You now have sorrow, but … your heart will rejoice”
- John 16:22 Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.
The heart has a voice and speaks for the person.
- Psalm 27:8 When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
- Genesis 18:20 And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave,
In Scripture, therefore, the “heart” is often a precise synonym for “‘self’ in its most profound meaning.”
- Covenant,
- My laws into their hearts, and
- in their minds I will write them.
- Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
- Romans 8:37 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
The good news of Jesus Christ is concerned about the status of our heart:
- Genesis 8:21 And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, “I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.
- John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
- The New Covenant’s emphasis is upon the heart (vs the body).
The Heart is our true identity.