The Worthiness of Jesus...Heart

Psalm 73: 26 NIV

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

What Is In Your Heart?

This past week our family on the 4^th of July went to the fireworks program put on by the city of Milpitas.  It was not a huge extravaganza but it was fun and a great way to end the holiday.  There is a football field that is used for seating that is first-come, first-served.  I got there early to get a spot for my family but was disappointed to discover that because we did not get our tickets in advance, I would have to wait in line for an hour to get our passes.  My knee had been bothering me a lot and so standing in line was not an ideal way for me to spend the afternoon.  Finally I was able to get my ticket and pick out a spot for our mat and then I began the long wait for my family to arrive.  Because I didn’t have a cell phone and there were lots of people crowding onto the field, I had to be vigilant for my family’s arrival.  Rather than relax and read a book, I was constantly scanning about to see if I could spot them.  Family after family arrived with their coolers, their cold drinks and their dinners.  Kids played with their parents, adults talked together and laughed and told stories and I sat by myself waiting…waiting…waiting.  Finally, two and a half hours later, my family arrived and because I hadn’t eaten much lunch, no breakfast and had been sitting out for so long in the warm sun, I was both famished and thirsty.  But when they arrived, all that was brought for me were chips!  Chips?  Others had barbecue, sandwiches and boxed dinners from restaurants and I was handed some chips.  Not only was I disappointed that I had to sit by myself for so long, I was bent out of shape by the lack of good food and drinks.  Now we would generally speak of my anger and frustration as cause related.  I was tired, perhaps feeling lonely and definitely thirsty and hungry.  The Bible however would describe it as a heart issue.

Have you ever gotten angry or depressed over something that others might call “no big deal”?  Perhaps you lost your cool over someone cutting you off on the road or a friend’s or co-worker’s insult.  Maybe you were so frustrated by your wife or your husband that you would not talk to him or her all evening.  Have you ever hurt someone’s feelings because she reminds you of someone that treated you badly in the past?  Do you let yourself get depressed when things don’t go as you planned?  Have you fallen for someone that didn’t really like you because you were lonely and desperate to be loved?  Do emotions ever spring up within you that don’t seem justified?  Are you surprised by how badly you react to circumstances that later don’t seem so bad?

There is much about us that we can’t give a rational explanation.  It makes for good TV to make some people out to be like robots but none of us are.  We are complicated and the root of nearly all of our senseless reactions is found in what the Bible calls “the heart”.  Our modern view of the heart is different than how the Bible uses the term “heart”.  Just a few passages from the Psalms will illustrate this.  No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth. (Psalm 58:2 NIV) If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; (Psalm 66:18 NIV) Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12 NIV) My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. (Psalm 131:1 NIV) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (Psalm 139:23 NIV)

When the Bible talks about the heart, it is referring to what we commonly speak of as the mind.  But it really is more than just the mind, the heart as the Bible uses the term, is the very core of our personality, who we are and what we shall be forever as people. Within our heart we process our experiences, decide what we will do or not do, settle on our relationship with God and take in from God His attributes and spiritual gifts.  Joy comes to the heart as does sorrow and wisdom.  The heart is bigger than our minds can comprehend and within the heart is far more than we realize.  The body may die but the heart continues to live for it is who we are eternally.

The Bible speaks of the heart of Jesus a few times.  Christ says of Himself, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29 NIV)  This revelation of Jesus that He is gentle and humble in heart should make us pause and consider exactly the ramifications for us.  The God who created the universe is gentle and humble in heart.  He does not lord over us His power and although this world is tough and often full of pain, He is gentle.  We must always take this into account when we think of God and what we face.  His heart is gentle.  His heart is humble.  We also need to acknowledge that the heart of Jesus is compassionate.  In the small town of Nain as Jesus was walking and teaching, he noticed a funeral procession.  A widow’s only son had died and a large crowd was mourning with her.  Gazing at the poor widow, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." (Luke 7:13 NIV)  Jesus then walked over to the casket and raised the son from the dead and restored him to his mom.  Later on, during the week that Jesus was betrayed, He admitted that His heart was in turmoil over what He faced at the end of the week.  "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say?  'Father, save me from this hour'?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27 NIV)

There is one more characteristic of Jesus’ heart that is critical to note. His heart is without sin.  There is not a hint of corruption to it, cruelty, bitterness, worry, or hatred for people.  He is called in the Bible a high priest who understands all the pain and sorrow we face and realizes in His heart how difficult it is to do what is right.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV)  In contrast, our hearts are thoroughly warped and distorted by sin and they generate all sorts of shocking behaviors.  Jesus, who understood human psychology better than anyone ever, has asserted, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 NIV) We like to insist that we would never do certain bad things others do and have done yet in this vast ocean of human personality called the heart is all that is needed for murder, slander, sexual immorality and theft to immerge.  There is a depth of evil in our hearts we cannot calculate but God knows exactly what is there.  As the prophet Jeremiah, speaking for the Lord put it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV)The misperception of many is that the heart is basically good but that is not the case.  Our Lord says it is tremendously wicked and warped and there is a monumental amount of evil each heart, yours and mine, can produce.

Although we are clear on how Jesus forgave our sins by dying on the Cross, the overlooked aspect of what Jesus Christ accomplished at the Cross is His work to recreate us so that we can live happily without sin.  Perhaps the most profound couple of statements ever made on the psychology of the human condition brought about through the death of Christ on the Cross are found in Romans 5.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5 NIV)

Peace with God is not possible given the condition of our hearts.  We are irrational and uncontrollable with the heart each of us has.  Hatred and worry and lust and selfishness are always possible with us.  But something rarely ever discussed occurred when Jesus Christ died for us and in faith we gained God’s grace.  Part of that grace, perhaps the biggest part of that grace is not just that our sins are forgiven but that God has made it possible for us to have good and holy hearts.  How can that happen given what Christ has said about our hearts?  The miracle of the Cross also includes the amazing decision to pour into our hearts God’s own love.  The Holy Spirit does this and it changes the entire composition of our hearts.  They now have God’s love working out of them the corruption of Sin and making them good…good at the level of God’s goodness.  Another English translation says that God has “shed abroad” His love into our hearts which essentially means He floods our hearts with His own love, washing them of all the filth of collected Sin and hurt.  The Holy Spirit makes our hearts able to empower righteous and moral and loving actions that could not happen with God’s love not there.

Your heart though will be at war and you will never be at peace with God as part of it unless you give up your right to govern yourself.  The most miserable people in the world are those whose hearts are a battle ground between Sin and the love of God.    As soon as you let Christ take charge of your life, your heart will be at peace.  Jesus put it this way, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” (John 14:1 NIV)  A simple practice can make the peace of God a reality for you.  When lust pops up, say to the Lord, “I trust you with this lust.”  When anger boils within, say, “Lord, I trust you with this anger.”  When it is jealousy, “Lord I trust you with this jealousy.”  You are feeling sorry for yourself, “Lord I trust you with my disappointment.”  You feel bitter about mistreatment, “Lord, I trust you with my hurt feelings.”  The happiest and most contented people in the world can be Christians if we let our Lord have control of our hearts by trusting Him with our lives.

Temptation--Conclusion

I have often wondered what the allure to the forbidden fruit was. Satan told Eve that if she ate it, she would know good from evil. But didn’t she already? She knew staying away from the forbidden fruit was good…touching it was evil. The difference between the two was as plain for her as the nose on Adam’s face. So what did she hope to gain by tasting the fruit? So many have made much of the temptation being an entrance into a moral awakening, that God was keeping Eve and Adam from understanding what good was in contrast to evil. That was not the case at all. Good and evil were both known to Eve. She stated as such when she told Satan what she was to do and what she wasn’t to do. That is the knowledge of good and evil.

What Eve was being led to enter was a whirlwind of terror. The Hebrew words translated good and evil are not so centered on moral opposites They are rather decribers of outcomes. “Tov”, translated good means pleasant, good, agreeable. Evil, “rah” means misery, calamity, injury, That was what Eve had never tasted. The good she knew. Peaceful living, quiet contentment, loving relationships. That was all hers. She had tov. The misery, calamity and injury was nowhere to be found in her world though. What Satan was inviting Eve was entry into a nightmare, into rah. He was taking her from Technicolor dreams to black and white devastation. I once saw a black and white painting depicting a battle scene of blown up buildings, fire scorched trees and broken bodies littering the landscape. That was what Satan had for Eve, a world of Rah.

So why would Eve have any interest in entering a nightmare world? There are two parts to the temptation that battled fiercely against her. In Genesis 3: 6 we see the power brokers that make temptation work. The first is found in the comment, “the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye.” The word translated pleasing, means desirable. It has an attractiveness that works within the body, a physical longing. Within Eve’s body, Eve was being pulled toward the fruit. Shakira’s lyric that explains why she must decide to give in to her boyfriend’s sexual urgings, “my hips don’t lie” profoundly describes this. The body, whether it be the hips, the tongue or the eyes is a monster of strength when it comes to temptation. Physical desire combines with physical need to drive the mind to sin. Eve felt the fruit in her eyes pulling her to it.

The second part of the temptation is a bit complicated to explain but quite easy to understand. It is said that for Eve, the fruit was “desirable for gaining wisdom…” The Hebrew word translated “desirable” is most often used in a bad sense…a selfish desire, an ungoverned desire, a pleasure considered that is wrong. The Hebrew expression translated, “for wisdom” describes a pondering, a considering, a thoughtfulness. What Eve was doing was ruminating about the forbidden fruit. She couldn’t take her mind off of it. This longing for the fruit was all she thought about. It kept popping up when she was eating dinner, when she and Adam were walking through the garden and picking any of the other fruit they had. Selfish desires given free rein in the imagination are monsters to defeat.

Temptation powered by the mind and the body when both are pulling against the will can be deadly. Look at what Eve got for her money. The scripture says she and Adam when their eyes were opened realized they were naked. This was not the recognition of right from wrong as so many mistakenly interpret the outcome. Adam and Eve, by their sin, were brought into the world of nightmare. If you have ever had a dream that goes bad, quickly, you know the terror these two felt as they lived with their new choice. Once I dreamed I was drowned by a tidal wave that swept over my dad and me as we were enjoying a pleasant conversation. Sin is the dream turned nightmare…the hope made slimy and filthy. Eve, perfect in her form, lovely to her husband, confident in her endeavors, became naked. She suddenly was despised and forlorn and isolated.

Living for God could be defined as the fight against temptation. The battle to follow God is brutal and once we submit to temptation, it brings us into a nightmare that is uncontrollable and deadly and we never can be certain where it will bring us. Sin is not a servant, it is a master and it controls us, we do not control it. As the Apostle Paul put it, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6: 16 NIV) Temptation on the other hand can be mastered but it is tough. Both our body and our mind push us unceasingly toward sin and there is only one way out. What Eve did not do, we can. Hebrews 4: 15-16 reminds us that Jesus, having been tempted in every way that we are tempted, sympathizes with our weaknesses…the press of our bodies and the pull of our distracted minds make it almost impossible not to give in to the nightmare sin brings. But verse 16 gives us the secret to not giving in to sin. Only one force breaks the power of our bodies and mind. The grace of Jesus! Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The old game show offered three doors and only one could be chosen. If you chose poorly, you went home with junk, choose wisely, your fortune could suddenly be made. Life is an unbroken chain of door number ones or door number twos. Eve chose door number two and her life became a nightmare. What, might be behind door number one? Only God knows. But, it won’t be door number two. Just ask Eve what she thinks of that!