Make Your Heart a Healthy Heart // When God Speaks, Pt 2

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Heart disease, in most countries these days, is the number one killer. But as much as our physical heart can fail us, what’s going on in the heart of your soul – well, that can either fill you with life, or rob you of it. So let me ask you, today, right here, right now, what do you have going on in your heart?

If you’re a parent, you’ll know what it’s like to experience conflict with your children. If I had a penny or a rupee or a cent for every time I’ve said to my kids, "All I want is the best for you", I’d be a very wealthy man. Here’s how the conflict happens. They do something that you know is wrong, something that you know is going to hurt them, so you step in. As their parent, you have wisdom; you have insight; you have experience to guide them in the right direction, but they resent that because as the saying goes, you can’t put an old head on young shoulders. Children tend to view the discipline of their parents as something negative. It’s not until they grow up that they can look back and see how the wisdom and the discipline of their parents has made them who they are today.

And you know, the same is true in our relationship with God. We so often resent the fact that there’s a handful of things which He says to us, "Don’t do them." Why? Because He has the wisdom that we don’t, and just as we did when we were teenagers, we want to rebel against the wisdom of our Father. Am I right?

So what’s the answer to that? I think it’s a change of heart on our part. It’s coming to the mature position of recognising that God’s ways are the best ways, and if I keep myself to His ways, then I’m going to have a better life. I’ll be more of a blessing; I’ll have fewer hassles, and even when I’m travelling through the odd wilderness experience here and there, as we all do, I’ll be better able to deal with that.

Take for instance the wisdom of a parent to a child who’s moving from teenage into adult years: Wisdom about sexual propriety. These days, kids all want to sleep around, but any parent filled with just a bit of Godly wisdom knows how dangerous, how painful, and how harmful that can be to their child. Psalm 119:9:

How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to Your Word.

Sexual desire is a very strong desire. We all have very strong desires, young or old, but not all of those desires are good ones. Not all of our apparently natural desires are beneficial. Some of them can be downright harmful and destructive: Selfishness; envy; immorality ... There’s quite a list of things that we know are bad for us, but how do we keep our ways pure? By guarding them according to God’s Word; by being in the Bible day after day and gleaning the wisdom and frankly, also the incredible Holy Spirit’s power to steer clear of those destructive ways.

The problem with our apparently natural desires and the destructive ways to which they lead is ... well ... frankly, they’re so seductive. Have you noticed that? Temptation is always seductive, and of course that’s by design. Satan knows that if he can make a terrible thing like (let’s say) adultery appear attractive, then he is going to destroy many-a marriage.

It seems to me that each one of us has some Achilles heel, some sin that’s our weak point – the chink in our armour if you will, that the devil consistently exploits in order to make us stumble over and over again, until finally we fall. Have you noticed that too? So what we find is that our heart is torn in this direction to fall into temptation, and in that direction to honour God, and with a divided heart, we find ourselves flip-flopping all over the place: Some days honouring God, and other days ... well ... not so much. Right?

How do we get over that? How do we powerfully deal with the sin in our lives, so that we can live a life that truly honours God – a life that truly reflects God’s glory which, after all, is probably the desire of your heart anyway? Well, as always, God has the answer. Psalm 119:10-11:

With my whole heart I seek You; do not let me stray from Your commandments. I treasure Your Word in my heart, so that I may not sin against You.

I love this, because it’s the Psalmist talking to God, and what he’s saying is that he’s taken a heart-decision: A decision of the heart to seek God and based on that decision, he’s asking God to stop him from straying from His commandments. Don’t you love that? The man, aware of his own inability to honour God, is inviting God Himself into the equation: The all-powerful God who ultimately sent Jesus to this earth to defeat Satan in our lives.

Heart-decisions are always the most powerful decisions. We can decide things in our minds; sure, but when we make a deep decision of the heart and ask God to step into that decision, wow! You’re in for some serious power to change, and notice too how the Psalmist writes:

I treasure Your Word in my heart, so that I may not sin.

Something happens when we treasure the Word of God in our hearts. God’s ways become more important to us than our ways. God’s words become more important to us than what other people say.

Listen up. God wants to bring some powerful change to your life: Today, tomorrow, the next day ... For the rest of your days here on this earth. Serious, powerful change, but what He’s looking for is a deep decision of the heart to seek Him and to treasure His Word.

Make no mistake. It’s a decision that will change your life. Here’s what Jesus had to say about your heart.

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45)

And your might well add that out of the abundance, out of the overflow of the heart, we think, and we act. If you have good things happening in your heart, you are naturally going to think good things, say good things and do good things.

The problem is that the heart is part of the flesh. Part of our soul if you will. And as the Apostle Paul writes of himself:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate … For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 7:15,18-20)

O what’s the answer? Paul again:

Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:24)

Jesus is the answer. Inviting Him into our heart is the answer. Letting Him do the things in you that you in your own power and I in my own power simply cannot do.

What makes us think that we have to do all this on our own? The answer is that we can’t. But Jesus can.