Dearest sister,
My 2-year-old daughter just learned how much she enjoys cutting with scissors. She cuts tiny pieces that transform our Okinawan home to a snow-covered lair. Since this month is February, I hope to help her learn to cut out hearts, a seemingly easy thing to do. This way our Valentines can be filled with pink, red, and white hearts instead of snow capped tables. I have to be honest with you, this month’s theme is the heart and I would rather simply make paper hearts than look at my own.
What is the heart? The heart is the central core and drive of our lives intellectually (it involves the mind), affectionately (it shapes the soul), and totally (it provides the energy for living. The Bible is pretty consistent with what should control our heart. God the Father declares to Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-6 that His people are to love the Lord their God with all their heart and teach this to their children each day. Jesus commands this again in the New Testament in Matthew 22:37. Easy, right? Just love the Lord with all our hearts and we will be so affected by this that we then love our neighbors with this love. Yet, even though I know the answer, I can’t do it! Why? Jeremiah 17:9-10 declares that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” My heart, all of it, is diseased from the get go. Not only that, but it deceives me…and then the Lord gives me what I deserve from this diseased heart. How many times as women are we told to go with our heart or how we feel rather than loving the Lord and our neighbor? This can be dangerous advice when our heart is sick.
But how can my diseased heart be healed? Deuteronomy 30:6 says, “and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” Look at who starts this process? God. And here: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart (Jer 24:7 I). And one more: “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 (Ez 36:26). This news makes my affectionate heart swell! God covenants to give us a new heart out of His grace and mercy! How? Jesus! God does this through the work of Jesus for me and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in me. He illumines my mind through the truth of the gospel, frees my enslaved will from its bondage to sin, cleanses my affections by His grace, and motivates me inwardly to live for Him by rewriting His law into my heart so that I begin to love what He loves. The Bible calls this being “born from above.” How amazing is that! It is good news. But even as a believer my heart is still prone to wander.
This is the hardest part for me. Positionally, I have a pure heart, I am sinless because of Christ. My sins are forgiven! Yet practically I still sin because I live in a fallen world and am not yet in my glorified body. So scripture says I must guard my heart. Guard it from things that easily draw me astray. That can be different for you and me as our sin snares vary. We also need to keep our hearts healthy by reading and memorizing the Word, going to church, and fellowshipping with believers. And pray. Pray that the Lord will keep your heart pure and from the evil one. Oh sweet sister, I fall away so easily. I forget to guard my heart and feed it a good diet. I want my own desires and not the Lord’s. Then conviction comes when I read the word and see that I have taken my new heart for granted. Yet this conviction is what drives me to the cross yet again. To be reminded that positionally my heart is righteous, pure, and like Christ’s. Not because I deserve it, but because of what Christ has done. I am humbled and weep at what I have settled for rather than the new heart I have. How about you?
So yes, we will cut paper hearts and scatter them around, but I pray that I will remember to look at my own heart as well and bow down and beg the Lord to guard it.
Faithfully, Your sister in Christ,
Colleen