The Bible talks a lot about our Hearts, so I wanted to post about this topic. There are basically two definitions for the heart that we know about today. One is the physical organ that pumps blood throughout the body. This first definition is scientifically correct, but it’s very limited, because it really means only one thing. Now the other definition of the heart. This definition encompasses a whole lot more than the first. And THIS is the important one when studying scripture. Scripture almost always uses the word “heart” symbolically to mean an emotional organ. The heart represents an aspect of your personality that dictates emotional response. So when we set our heart on something, that’s a phrase that means we experience the emotion of wanting or yearning for something. When we experience a heartbreak, it’s a very negative emotional event. It could mean we feel rejected, or sad, or filled with despair. When the heart is inclined toward something, we have a positive emotion towards that thing. We like how that thing makes us feel. When the Bible says that our hearts are hardened, it means that we remain unemotional. A hard heart feels nothing towards some thing, idea, belief or some person. In Exodus, when the Pharoah’s heart was hardened, he felt no remorse towards the Hebrew slaves, he was not emotionally roused towards the miracles he was seeing. A hard heart doesn’t feel. We love to talk about how God knows our hearts. This is absolutely true. God is omniscient, so He knows EVERYTHING- including the secrets of our hearts.  Psalm 44:20-21

20 If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21 would not God have discovered it,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?

This concept is very good to know. Recognizing that God is omniscient means that we can know for sure that we are understood. Everyone desires to be understood and known, but there’s nobody on this Earth who can truly know us fully. But since God knows everything, we are confident that at least He understands us. When we are wrongfully accused of something, we know that God understands the truth. When people distrust our motives, we can at least know that God sees us for who we really are. There is something very comforting about this. But at the same time, there’s a big problem with this. What’s the problem? The problem here is that God sees us for who we really are.

People love to say, “well God knows my heart,” but they use it as some sort of an excuse! A few examples:

• “I rarely ever attend church, but God knows my heart.”
• “I just don’t do all that much prayer or study, but God knows my heart.”
• “I don’t tithe, but God knows my heart.”

Every instance, the person is using God’s knowledge of their secrets as a crutch or an excuse for why they don’t live up to an expectation.

But let’s examine few of these:

• “I rarely ever attend church, but God knows my heart.” I thought about that. I thought about how busy we are. I was talking about this with a friend a few weeks ago. I was thinking If only there were another 2 or 3 hours every week, so we could get everything done, and still have time for church. But after considering this, I realized something. The real issue here isn’t the lack of time, the issue is lack of PRIORITY. The issue is your HEART. God knows that you have 168 hours every week, and if you don’t have 2-3 hours to go to church, it must not have as high of a priority as the other things that filled the 168 other hours. Your heart is not inclined towards worship and not inclined toward hearing his Word! Or maybe it is inclined, but not quite as inclined towards that as whatever you spent the 168 hours on. Next example:
• “I don’t do all that much prayer, but God knows my heart” – Yes, you might think that this is a good excuse for not drawing near to God in prayer. God knows my heart. But what does God know about your heart? He knows the exact reason you don’t follow the recommendations of his Word. God tells us to Pray! He commands us to pray! Throughout Scripture we’re called to: Pray continually, Pray in secret, Devote yourselves to prayer, Pray for one another, etc. But having a prayer time might not occupy a place in your heart as much as an extra 15 minutes of sleep in the morning. Or the thought that your prayer won’t be answered or heard illustrates the condition of your heart towards God’s promises, or the very existence of God. And the last one:
• “I don’t tithe, but God knows my heart” – When God claims us, he claims every part of us. our hearts and our wallets. God is looking for cheerful givers. When you give to your church with happiness, it glorifies God. But maybe God’s glory isn’t as important as whatever you spent the other 100% of your money on. The problem with your wallet is found in your heart. The condition of your heart is demonstrated by your wallet. For some people, their hearts give them an emotion of scarcity, fearing what will happen if they don’t have 100% of their salary. For others, greed is a motivating factor. There are plenty of reasons not to tithe! Now there are SOME people who are truly in poverty, and personally, I really understand why they don’t or can’t give. I don’t know that i would have the faith to do give either. But there’s something interesting to look at. A case study. When Jesus saw the poor widow put in her two small copper coins, he recognized her heart. Instead of giving her offering back or telling her to keep the small amount of money that she had, Jesus allowed her to give generously out of her faith. He saw that her HEART was inclined towards God. Her mindset was that she was rich in God, and had Faith that that was true. There was nothing that Jesus needed to do for her, because her heart was already where it needed to be. In that moment, any act of mercy towards the poor woman would have taken her gaze away from God and brought it back to Earth. Jesus saw that both his disciples and we, the readers, needed the lesson more than the widow needed the coins. Jesus later says, “where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” this is very true. Look at someone’s expenditures and you’ll see what types of things motivate them emotionially.

In His ministry, Jesus hammered this point about heart motivation, especially as it related to money. He told the Pharisees that they could not serve both God and money. Since many loved money, they sneered at this statement, and here’s how Jesus replied: Luke 16:15

15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.

The Pharisses felt very justified, and suffered for that. Both in this particular debate, and probably also eternally. The problem is when we try to justify ourselves, we miss the point of how wretched we really are. The things that society brags about are actully very detestable, or disgusting in God’s eyes. When we make the claim that God knows our hearts, we need to be careful to understand what we’re really saying. Jesus used the phrase “but God knows your hearts” not as a justification, but as a condemnation. In Genesis 6:5-6 we take a look at our human hearts:

5 The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.

God knows my heart. But to be honest, that’s not something that I am proud of. God knows my heart, and the things that rouse my emotions and it’s not pretty. And what does that do to him? verse 6. It fills His heart with pain. Our hearts are inclined to evil- almost ALL THE TIME, and it causes God pain. It causes him PAIN instead of the Glory he deserves. Personally, if I were to tell you that God knows my heart, I would be saying that in a very embarrassed way. My priorities are totally out of whack. When I give time, effort, or money to his Kingdom, sometimes I do it grudgingly. I give out of my wealth while others give everything they have. God knows my heart and the emotions that motivate me. He knows every time I envy, every time I lust, every time I follow my desire to chase comfort or ease. God sees through all of my excuses. God sees just how hard my heart can be sometimes. This isn’t a good thing. When you say that God knows your heart, your first thought shouldn’t be one of vindication or of comfort. It should be one of humiliation. And yet, by some stroke of cosmic fortune, God makes this a good thing. How? God knows my heart, and even though he knows all that FILTH, he chose to love me anyway.

It’s not BECAUSE God saw my heart that he sent Jesus to die for me. it’s IN SPITE OF seeing my heart, God sent his Son to die for me. God loves us, even though he knows our hearts. And out of His love, He started to change our hearts using a force that’s incredibly powerful. The Holy Spirit. This was foretold in Ezekiel 36:26-28

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. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will Save you from all your uncleanness

God makes a way for us despite our wayward hearts. God performs surgery on our stone hearts, and transplants them with hearts of flesh. He uses His Spirit to make serious changes to what makes us emotional. We become joyful to follow His laws and avoid sinning against Him. We become grieved when He feels grief. We know that His heart feels pain in response to our sins. So our sins become less enticing to us. He makes a Way for us to be His people, and Him to be our God. He makes a way to save us from our uncleanness. That Way was the Way of Christ on Calvary. Let’s read Acts 15:7-9

7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Let’s read this closely. First, for context, there is a big discussion going on. Peter is telling a bunch of Jews why they shouldn’t insist on circumcision for Gentile believers. He is speaking out against insisting on works for new believers. In verse 7, he says that some time ago, God made a choice. As a sovereign God, He’s the one that acts. Remember, before we knew Him, we were DEAD in our sins. Corpses don’t make choices. God does. So what did God choose? To accept both Jews and Gentiles into His Kingdom. He chose a mix of people to hear the Gospel. To those who are called, He gives us the faith necessary to believe, receive and get cleaned.

End of verse 7: We hear and we have faith to believe. In what? The Gospel that we heard. We believe in Christ’s work to save us from our sinful nature. That means theres a way to not suffer for our evil hearts. God knows our hearts, and yet he gives us exactly what we need to save us from the evil of our hearts.

Verse 8 says we have faith to receive. Receive what? We are saved by Christ’s work on the cross, so we receive forgiveness and verse 8 says we receive the Holy Spirit, whether we are Jews or Gentiles. and God gives us these gifts when we are called to follow him

Finally we have the faith to be cleaned. Verse 9. He purifies our hearts. Using the Holy Spirit that He gives generously, He cleans our heart, this heart that causes us to have all these sinful emotions. This heart that makes us desire the things we shouldn’t and be cold towards the things that should make us joyful. Just like in Ezekiel, God will clean that heart using his Holy Spirit. Let’s see how Peter’s discussion ends to end the post today. Acts 15:10-11

10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

Verse 10 explains that it’s not by works that we’re saved. Peter tells them that we shouldn’t put burdens on people that we can’t keep ourselves. Those burdens and works aren’t what save us anyway, so why insist on them? The issue of circumcision should be put to rest. There is nothing you need to DO to receive salvation. We had Baptisms at our church the other day. It was a fun time. It was an opportunity to restate the things we believe, and publically demonstrate an acknowledgement that we believe what we do. But that act doesn’t accomplish Salvation. Baptisms, baby presentations, Holy Communions, circumcisions, sacrifices, etc. All these things are just things that people do. And we aren’t saved by what we do.

Verse 11; if we aren’t saved by those works, it follows that we must be saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus. Whether we are Jewish, Gentile, male, female, black, white, tan, yellow, good, bad, etc. Jesus gives us grace. Even when our hearts aren’t right.

It is by this grace that we are saved. It is by this grace that our hearts change. God knows our hearts, and BY GRACE, He will change them and fix them, and grow us into people who love Him more and more with every passing day of our lives. This is His plan for us. This is how we know that we are His. Our Hearts adore Him more and more, and our emotions grow stronger and stronger for His will to be done. We desire to know Him closer, through prayer, worship, studying his Word, dying to our self. We also become skeptical of any emotions that come from inside us that contradict his Word or distract us from His love. It makes our hearts joyful to remember how it feels to be loved by Someone so beautiful and perfect, despite who we are. Praise God.