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Loving God with a Clean Heart

For the past few weeks I’ve been posting about the love of God. His love is so amazing that I probably only scratched the surface.

My goal was to give us what we need in order to show our love for the Lord. We needed that foundation to know how to love our God.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

John 15:9 NIV

Jesus, in His time with the disciples, passed on the love of the Father to us. By seeing how Jesus loved, we understand the Father’s love. He has asked us to remain, live, dwell, or abide in this love. This tells me that to love God we must draw from His love.

It’s only as I live in and experience the love of Christ, that I’m truly equipped to show love to Him. If I can’t receive His love, I can’t return it. I love Him because He first loved me. How is it that His love helps me to love Him?

Let’s look at one of the first places in Scripture that it tells us about how to love God.

The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

Deuteronomy 30:6 NIV

Because of the wholehearted love which God has for us we need to return it. The problem is that we’re unable to. Our hearts are sinful, full of baggage, junk, and sin. Only He can perform the necessary surgery my heart needs.

In order to love God, our hearts must be circumcised. But, what does it mean to circumcise our hearts?

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,

Colossians 2:11 NIV

The fact is that there’s no way my sinful nature could ever love God. Or even want to love God, for that matter. There must be a work done in us by the Spirit of Christ.

This is why time with Him is so important. He does not do this work in us without our permission. In Philippians 3:18-19, Paul wrote that many believers live as enemies of the cross. Their focus is on earthly things. The way God loves us, He doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh…

Philippians 3:3 NIV

This is how a life of loving God should be. We must allow the Holy Spirit to lead us into the love and worship of God.

The truth is that our flesh cannot and will not free itself from the stain of sin. The clean-up process must come from an outside source – the Holy Spirit.

As I spend time in the spirit, I am allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work of spiritual circumcision that only He can do. He can bring my heart to the place where I can truly love God in the way that He deserves.

It’s not a matter of more will power or trying harder. It’s making yourself available to the Spirit for Him to accomplish that transforming work. That’s why it’s so important to spend time daily in the Lord’s presence.

Question: How much time do spend daily in prayer and in the Word of God?

Is a Clean Heart Enough?

21 May

We’re continuing our look at Mark’s Gospel. Specifically, the last week before the cross. Jesus is in Jerusalem for the Passover feast.

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.
Mark 11:15-16

Obviously, Jesus was upset by what He saw going on in the Temple. The courts were like a city marketplace.

The Law of Moses said that if you lived far away from Jerusalem, you could sell your offering animals at home. Then, when you journey to Jerusalem for the feast, you could use that money to buy the animals on site. God was making it easier for the Israelites to serve Him.

Then man gets involved. The priests determined that you can’t use regular money to buy animals for sacrifice. You have to use special Temple coins – hence the money changers. But they sold these coins at a premium.

So if you wanted to give your full offering of animals for the sacrifice, it would cost you double what they were worth. That’s the thievery that Jesus was talking about. The Temple had become a place where greed and self-interest was the driving force.

Jesus showed the passion He had for the true worship of God. There was no place for these attitudes in the courts of the Lord. He tried to teach them the lessons that they should have already known.

And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.'”
Mark 11:17

It’s sad that many religious Christians only apply this by saying that they’ll never have a flea market or fair on church property. That’s not the point.

In spite of our religious language, local churches are no longer God’s house. We, as God’s people, are now the temple of the living God. The question isn’t, “What are we allowing on church property?” It’s about what I’m allowing into my life.

Please understand that my heart – the sanctuary – may be clean. But what about the outer courts? That’s what my body is involved in.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
Psalms 100:4

The courts are where you prepare to worship. It’s the outer part of our lives that we let the thieves do their work.

Sometimes we get so distracted by too many things in our schedule. Then we have no time for worship. We miss out on the blessings of fellowship with the Father.

Thanksgiving and praise are things that I have to make my flesh do. I have to actually make the time for these pursuits. Once I’ve entered into the place of praise, the courts, then I’m ready to pour my heart out to God.

Christ is passionate about you becoming a “house of prayer.” Don’t let it get to the point where your “distracting tables” need to be overturned. Spend the time needed in thanksgiving and praise so that you’re truly prepared to enter His presence with no distractions.

You’ll be glad that you did.

Question: How do outward distractions affect your inner peace with God?

The Heart of the Matter

19 Mar

Many people worry about how others see them. They want to make sure that they’re doing and saying the right things. They want to be acceptable in their particular circle of friends.

In my last post, we saw that you can’t just go through the motions of worship if you want to please God. It has to come from the inside. The Lord explained it to the crowd that had gathered around Him.

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.'”
Mark 7:14-15

That concept was totally foreign to the Jewish people. They were taught that there were things that could make you unclean simply by touching them.

But that gives you a false sense of security. If you haven’t touched any unclean things, you were okay. Along with that, if you’ve observed all the prescribed ceremonies, then you were spiritually strong.

Jesus saw things from a different perspective.

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)
Mark 7:17-19

Jesus makes it clear. It’s what we put into our hearts that determines where our life is headed. When we eat or drink something, the usable parts are digested and distributed in the body. The waste products are expelled.

The heart, on the other hand, is the storehouse of our being. What we place in there may last a long time. Then, when we least expect it, those things in our heart my spill out.

He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.'”
Mark 7:20-23

We need to understand what Christ is teaching us here. You can’t just decide not to sin anymore. As someone who grew up in church, I can tell you from first-hand experience that this doesn’t work. I’ve personally made this decision many times throughout my life.

That’s because sin is not birthed in your mind. It’s an overflow of what you’ve been storing in your heart.

If you want to stop sinning, then you need to spend time in the Lord’s presence. That’s where our hearts are purified. It’s all about the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit in us. Because in the same way that sin in our hearts will eventually manifest itself, righteousness will do the same thing.

Let the Spirit put God’s desires, direction, and passions on the inside of you. Then, when your heart starts to spill over, it’s the fruit of the Spirit that people will see.

Question: How have you seen God’s Word overflow from your heart when you didn’t expect it?

The Spirit and the Word

Tag Archives: clean heart

Loving God with a Clean Heart

Is a Clean Heart Enough?

The Heart of the Matter

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