The Need to Rend Our Hearts
- Michael Smith
- Mar 26, 2007
The Lord had a plan for Israel when they left Egypt. That plan was not to just get them to the promise land which is all that children of Israel could see.
His plan was to have a nation or people of His choosing who would love and desire only Him and to represent Him on the earth.
As with us the Lord desires for us to love and desire only Him, and to represent Him here on the earth.
The children of Israel resisted the workings of God in their midst and died in the wilderness. They had hard hearts.
If we are not careful we can follow in their footsteps.
God is concerned with the heart for what comes from the heart is that which defiles and separates from God.
Gen. 8:21 say's ‘for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth'
Matt. 15:8 ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS,
BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.
1 Sam. 16:7 say's ‘ but the LORD looks at the heart.'
Heb. 4:12 talk's of ‘the thoughts and intentions of the heart.'
God is saying to not harden our hearts but to rend our hearts.
Heb. 4:7
"TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,
DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS."
Joel 2:13 And rend your heart and not your garments."
How can we represent the Lord to the world as a great God full of mercy etc. when we walk in the hardness of our heart?
Will we die here on earth having never died to ourselves?
Have we become so comfortable with the wilderness and receiving some manna every so often that we no longer believe we can die to ourselves and enter His rest like Israel failed to do?
The Lords plan is not for us to struggle along until we get to heaven. To walk in the spirit then the flesh then repent over and over. Our real struggle is to pick up our cross and to die to ourselves daily.
Will we allow the Lord to have our heart? If we say yes, then we need not be surprised when He gives us opportunity's to die to ourselves. Right?
We say we are a gathering place for those learning to love God and one another. Well we might as well have a big bulls eye on our fellowship. Because with that goal we will get the opportunity to love or not, won't we?
Each time we are presented with something that causes us to harden our heart, we have an opportunity to die to ourselves.
When we insist on our way, or plan, we are hardening our heart and quenching the spirit of God.
When we murmur and complain etc. we are really upset that things are not the way we would like them to be, right?
We become agitated, angry and frustrated at the circumstances or people around us, even those we know and love.
Many times we just become weary from the pressures of life and we allow ourselves to harden our heart.
How do we rend our hearts and stop from hardening our hearts?
The dictionary say's the word rend ‘is to cause great emotional pain to a person or their heart'.
Galatians 5 speaks of walking after the spirit and not the flesh. Paul also uses Christ as an example to follow.
Phil. 2:1 ¶ Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,
Phil. 2:2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.
Phil. 2:3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;
Phil. 2:4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
Phil. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
Phil. 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Phil. 2:7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Phil. 2:8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Phil. 2:12 ¶ So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
Phil. 2:13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Phil. 2:14 ¶ Do all things without grumbling or disputing;
Matt. 16:24-25 ¶ Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life ( gives up insistence on his or her rights etc. ) for My sake will find it.
Are you wrestling with something or holding onto something?
Let it go. By an act of faith surrender it to the Lord.
Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God emptied Himself to the point of death on a cross.
And He is are example. Let us look to Him rather then to continue to harden our hearts.
May we continue to love God in an act of obedience by dying to ourselves and and by loving one another more than ourselves.
Matt. 5:8 ¶ "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Amen
