Reading : Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands

My lesson for this week : The heart is the target

Tripp talks about how people can change their outward behaviour but often it doesn't last because the change was due to external pressures or circumstances. For example, a teenager who grows up and lives with his parents can resemble a good Christian boy who has accepted and lives out the Christian teachings because, while living with his parents, the circumstances requires him to go to church and to be an obedient son. But when he moves off to college, he loses his Christian "roots" and rejects the teachings he knew as a child. Once the external circumstances\pressures (his parents and living at home) have been removed, the true image of his heart is revealed (the teachings of Christiantiy had never really taken root). Once the external pressures are removed, the outward behaviour reverts back to what it was previously.

The reason, he explains, is that our behaviour is a reflection of the heart's condition - this is a theme that reoccurs throughout the Bible (Psalm 27:19, Luke 6:43-45, Matthew 23: 25-26) - and when change happens without addressing the condition of the heart, then that change is only temporary. Lasing change must travel through and transform the heart first. This is what Jesus means when he tells the Pharisees to first clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will also be clean (Matthew 23:26).

I find this to be such a simple truth and even something that I have read and reread in the Bible so many times in the past but that this time, it actually resonants with me. Recently I have been asking myself, why is it that I keep reverting back to certain behaviours? Why is it that I feel like change within me is always only temporary? The answer it seems is that while I have been making efforts to change and be a different person - through the readings of books, through my own efforts of trying to win God's approval, love and acceptance, through the advice of other believers, through MORE effort and MORE persistence, through serving - I haven't addressed the issue of my heart. So i find myself getting burnt out, and my behaviour goes back to the what it was before. Everything I have done out of my own efforts gets reverted.

So how do we transform our hearts? The only answer, that I can find and believe in, is Jesus. It is only through Jesus that our hearts can be changed. If I analyze my own heart, I can see that there have been wounds and hurts and issues that I have tried to hide away, sweep under the rug pretending that with time, they will go away, while in reality, I've never resolved them or dealt with them face to face. The wounds of my heart establishes the condition of my heart which will often explain my outward behaviours - why i do the things i don't want to do and why i don't do the things I want to do (Romans 7: 14-25). When I pray and ask Jesus to come and clean my heart, to transform it, to heal my wounds, I ask him to help me clean the inside so that the outside will be clean too.

I believe it will be a constant work in progress, the cleaning and healing of my heart, however, the truth of this was so refreshing that I had to share this with you. I hope that through my sharing, the true condition of your heart can also be revealed and help you to seek Jesus out to help clean your heart and make it new.