Deep Changes Series

In order to fulfill God’s mission for us as individuals and His church, we need to continually mature in our total being (mind, emotions, and will). As human beings, as men and women, made in God’s image He created us for His purpose and His glory. However, because of the Fall, sin has done its damage, marring His image in us and the world. Everyone of our capacities or faculties have been corrupted. But we also realize, because of God’s grace and His redemptive work in our lives through Christ, He has the power to cause deep changes within us and restore our minds, emotions and will to once again reflect His image.

But growth doesn’t happen overnight, and for deep changes to take place it requires a willingness, openness and honesty with God about what is going on inside of our hearts. Deep changes require receptivity to the Spirit of God’s wisdom and guidance. We place our hearts in His hand because He knows each of us, He loves us perfectly, and knows where we need to be changed.

But Jesus knows that,

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be (Luke 12:34).

He knows that whatever or whoever has my heart has me.

Today’s passage of Scripture will be from Mark 12:29-31 where Jesus is answering one of the scribe’s questions about which was the most important commandment.

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).

Jesus was citing a prayer, or shema, in the Hebrew from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 - a prayer that the Israelites prayed in their homes every morning and evening. Everyone listening to Jesus that day understood the most important commandment was to love God and to love others.

To love God is to be loved completely and totally by Him first because He, and He alone, is God and because He has made a covenant of love with His people. He is the one that set them out free from slavery in Egypt and now for the next 40 years He wants to set them free from the things that they were enslaved to on a deeper level by drawing them into a meaningful relationship with Himself. In this covenant, God gives Himself totally in love to His people; therefore, His desire for His people is that from the very core of their being (heart) they would respond and be directed by their love for him. God desires a real relationship, not just one in name. The command starts with loving God with all of our heart. So…

1. What is the heart?

The heart is the command center of our entire being and has the ability to trust in God or in its own ability to know what is best for us (Prov 3:5, 28:26). It is an expression for the deepest, inmost thoughts and feelings of a person. It is the source of all our words. Jesus said, “The mouth speaks from that which fills the heart.” The good man or woman from his or her [inner] good treasure, brings out good things; and the evil man or woman, from his or her [inner] evil treasure, brings out evil things (Matt 12:34-35).

The heart is capable of making good and bad decisions (Prov 16:1). If we continue in anger or malice toward someone in our hearts, God considers it the same as murder (Matt 5:22), to look at the opposite sex with lust in the heart, God considers the same as adultery (Matt 5:28). Our hearts have the potential to deceive us (Jer 17:9) and cause us, “to misorder our loves.” In other words, the concept of ordered loves, ordo amoris, associated with Augustine and Aquinas, describes the proper hierarchy of love which has profound implications for how we live our lives and the impact we have on others.

This is why Proverbs 4:23 tells us to, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

Whatever your heart desires (loves) will be the real driving force in all areas of your life. What is driving my life? What is the cause beneath the cause? Why am I acting or reacting a certain way? (Personal example) Am I being motivated by a desire to be loved, to be accepted, to be married, to have a good reputation, health, success, popularity, for financial security, rest, people’s respect and trust me?

Tim Keller said:

You harm yourself when you love anything more than God.