“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” I’m sure if you have been in church for very long, you have heard (or even preached) this scripture from Jeremiah 17:9. This scripture is often used to describe the hearts of all humanity. I don’t agree with that description.
While I do believe that, apart from a living, breathing relationship with Jesus, all of humanity is totally depraved. (By that I mean that no one in and of him or herself has the capacity to live righteously before the God of creation. Isaiah the prophet confessed that, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…” He said that the best we can hope to achieve before God amounts to nothing more than used menstrual rags.) I believe God has declared his children radically different from the world.
Ezekiel, another prophet, recorded God’s intent for his children. In Ezekiel 36:26 God said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” If it’s true that God inhabits his children by placing his spirit within us (in our hearts, if you will), how can our hearts remain deceitful?
Look at it this way. When Jesus died on the cross, he broke the contract of the Law to which all of humanity was bound (read Romans 6, 7, and 8). Therefore, we as his children do not have to sin. We are no longer bound to that old nature. God removed our old nature and replaced it with a new one. (We sin because we want to not because of compulsion, but more on that another day.) Similarly, God replaced our hearts when he transformed us. He took our heart of stone (the Law was written on stone) and gave us a heart of flesh (the New Covenant was written in the body and blood of Christ.)
So why do so many church people struggle with this concept? I think there are at least three reasons. First, many churches pursue a theology of reformation not transformation. Jesus died to make you better or more moral. You can become a better version of yourself if you follow the teachings of Jesus. This is a mistake. You cannot achieve a level of behavior before God that will rise above dirty menstrual rags. You cannot become “good enough.” Moral people don’t go to heaven, forgiven people do. As long as the church continues to promote a theology of reformation and not radical transformation, people will believe they can attain entrance into God’s presence with a heart “that is deceitful above all things.”
The second reason is that Christ followers have been planted in the same fields with lost people who look very similar to them. I reference the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30) often because I want God hunters to be aware that they will be growing in the same fields as the lost. Maybe you, as one adopted by God, have engaged a conversation with a tare about a basic spiritual truth and the other person is clueless. You speak with great joy of the moment God crossed your path that day and they cannot understand (see 1 Corinthians 2:14). They look Christian and sound Christian but their heart is still stone.
The third reason I see is there are some who have been transformed by God and given a heart of flesh, but they cannot let go of the world. Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4,
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
These saints refuse to live in the resurrection power God has given them and choose to live in the flesh. Remember, your flesh and God’s spirit are always in conflict (Galatians 5:16-18). That is why we must put the flesh to death and live to the Spirit.
The church will continue to preach a flawed version of the heart until it can see a group of God’s adoptees living free of guilt and condemnation (Romans 8:1-2) bathed in the full light of God’s holiness. (A word of warning, when they see it some will become angry and go looking for a cross upon which to kill you.)
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