A perverse heart will be far from me. I will know nothing of evil. (Verse 4)
Jesus said the first and greatest commandment was to love the Lord with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. Proverbs 4:23 warns us to "Guard your heart with great diligence for from it flow the springs of life." Our hearts show on our lives. "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man." It's unlikely that Jesus can be enthroned in our hearts and that evil will sit right beside Him. One of them will leave the presence of the other. No man can serve two masters. And Jesus won't share that place with another. So there is the Christian quandary. We come to Jesus in need of a new heart because the very essence of sin is rebellion against God. That we have other gods who have been telling us what to do. Power, sex, money, drugs...and pretty much any other thing we love more than we love Jesus...have sat at the center of our lives for the many or few years we've lived until we meet Jesus. Then we have a choice.
Choice is supernatural. It's a miracle of grace. Before I met Christ, my life was controlled by my passions and desires. Completely selfish, I was driven by my ignorance of consequences and my own wants and needs. Satan had me by the hair of my head, dragging me into one scheme after another. In my naivete, I thought I ruled my own decisions. Wrong. But on the day I met Jesus, He presented me with a way out of the cycle and rescue from my bondage to the enemy. I could follow Him. With my heart instead of my basest desires. I could actually go somewhere, instead of leaving the evidence of my being dragged along the dust behind me by one who hasn't even the smallest regard for my well-being. The problem was my heart. It was used to evil. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? But I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind." Jeremiah 17. "Desperately sick" means more literally, beyond cure, without medical recourse. Perversion of heart is a fatal disease. There is no hope for it apart from Jesus. Our hearts will ultimately kill us. Knowing this, Jesus came to bring us the cure.
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to obey my rules." What a choice! Old heart for new. Old stupid, self-destroying, fatally diseased heart for a brand new one! It's like someone offering us a brand new Rolls for our beat up trike! The trade is a no-brainer...or should be.
The problem of this psalm, though, is what do I do with my new heart? It seems to me that I need to take very good care of it. After all, I traded in my trike heart of it, and my trike was rusted and squeaky. Why would I want the Rolls to look like a jalopy? I don't want perversity to sit beside me in my shiny ride. To leave its odor on the seats. To tell me which roads to take that will smear it with dirt or dent its beauty. I must take care of the new heart entrusted to me. Trust the Spirit Who now journeys with me. In fact, let Him drive my heart. Steer me away from the diseases that used to threaten my life. Guard my heart with all diligence. Say no when I should say no. Resist the enemy who'd drive me back to the old way. It's okay to hate evil and to scream back at the enemy when he's tailgating. When I traded the trike for the Rolls, I left nothing good back there. My sparkling new heart knows nothing of evil except what I expose it to. With intentionality, I must drive past, looking straight ahead, even when catcalls from the sidewalk call me a holy-roller or a goody-two-shoes. My Rolls might look like I'm flaunting my stuff, but it's what my Father gave me to drive around in and I'm not going back to the trike. All I can do is shout as I pass by, "You could choose to have a Rolls, too! There really is a choice!"
Jesus said the first and greatest commandment was to love the Lord with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. Proverbs 4:23 warns us to "Guard your heart with great diligence for from it flow the springs of life." Our hearts show on our lives. "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man." It's unlikely that Jesus can be enthroned in our hearts and that evil will sit right beside Him. One of them will leave the presence of the other. No man can serve two masters. And Jesus won't share that place with another. So there is the Christian quandary. We come to Jesus in need of a new heart because the very essence of sin is rebellion against God. That we have other gods who have been telling us what to do. Power, sex, money, drugs...and pretty much any other thing we love more than we love Jesus...have sat at the center of our lives for the many or few years we've lived until we meet Jesus. Then we have a choice.
Choice is supernatural. It's a miracle of grace. Before I met Christ, my life was controlled by my passions and desires. Completely selfish, I was driven by my ignorance of consequences and my own wants and needs. Satan had me by the hair of my head, dragging me into one scheme after another. In my naivete, I thought I ruled my own decisions. Wrong. But on the day I met Jesus, He presented me with a way out of the cycle and rescue from my bondage to the enemy. I could follow Him. With my heart instead of my basest desires. I could actually go somewhere, instead of leaving the evidence of my being dragged along the dust behind me by one who hasn't even the smallest regard for my well-being. The problem was my heart. It was used to evil. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? But I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind." Jeremiah 17. "Desperately sick" means more literally, beyond cure, without medical recourse. Perversion of heart is a fatal disease. There is no hope for it apart from Jesus. Our hearts will ultimately kill us. Knowing this, Jesus came to bring us the cure.
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to obey my rules." What a choice! Old heart for new. Old stupid, self-destroying, fatally diseased heart for a brand new one! It's like someone offering us a brand new Rolls for our beat up trike! The trade is a no-brainer...or should be.
The problem of this psalm, though, is what do I do with my new heart? It seems to me that I need to take very good care of it. After all, I traded in my trike heart of it, and my trike was rusted and squeaky. Why would I want the Rolls to look like a jalopy? I don't want perversity to sit beside me in my shiny ride. To leave its odor on the seats. To tell me which roads to take that will smear it with dirt or dent its beauty. I must take care of the new heart entrusted to me. Trust the Spirit Who now journeys with me. In fact, let Him drive my heart. Steer me away from the diseases that used to threaten my life. Guard my heart with all diligence. Say no when I should say no. Resist the enemy who'd drive me back to the old way. It's okay to hate evil and to scream back at the enemy when he's tailgating. When I traded the trike for the Rolls, I left nothing good back there. My sparkling new heart knows nothing of evil except what I expose it to. With intentionality, I must drive past, looking straight ahead, even when catcalls from the sidewalk call me a holy-roller or a goody-two-shoes. My Rolls might look like I'm flaunting my stuff, but it's what my Father gave me to drive around in and I'm not going back to the trike. All I can do is shout as I pass by, "You could choose to have a Rolls, too! There really is a choice!"
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