In previous posts, we discussed the crucial significance of consecration for our Christian life. We saw that consecration means putting ourselves in the Lord’s hands and becoming a living sacrifice. We also saw that God's purchase of us and His love for us are the basis and motivating power for us to give ourselves to Him.
In this post, we’ll discuss how to consecrate ourselves to the Lord and how we can live a life of consecration.
Presenting ourselves to God is our service to God
When we present ourselves to the Lord in consecration, He has the freedom to do whatever He wants in and through us. Actually, consecration is our service to the Lord. The apostle Paul said in Romans 12:1:
“I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.”
God’s great love for us motivates us to present ourselves to Him. In the New Testament Recovery Version, note 3 on compassions in this verse says:
“In Greek the compassions referred to here are plural. God has had many kinds of compassion on us, as shown in His selecting us, calling us, saving us, and bringing us into His life that we may enjoy His riches and become His expression. Through these many compassions as the means and the motivating power, the apostle exhorted us to present our bodies to God for the fulfillment of His purpose.”
When we review the many compassions that God has bestowed on us throughout our lives, both before and after we were saved, we can’t help but offer ourselves in consecration to Him.
Consecrating ourselves willingly to the Lord after we're saved
First Peter 1:18-19 says:
“Knowing that it was not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot, the blood of Christ.”
When Christ died on the cross, He shed His own blood to redeem, or purchase, us. This means we belong to Him. But the Lord Jesus doesn’t force us to hand ourselves over to Him. He wants us to offer ourselves to Him willingly.
No one else can do this for us. We each must personally offer ourselves to the Lord in a definite way after we’re saved.
It’s not necessary for us to have an in-depth knowledge of the Bible, understand everything about being a Christian, or be saved for a long time before we can consecrate ourselves to the Lord. In fact, it’s best not to wait, but to give ourselves to the Lord as soon as we're saved.
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Praying to consecrate ourselves to the Lord
So how do we consecrate ourselves to the Lord? We simply need to spend time alone with Him in intimate prayer.
During this time of personal prayer, we can freely open to the Lord and have a detailed transaction with Him. We can give ourselves, our desires, plans, relationships, possessions, and every aspect of our lives to Him.
The more detailed we are, the more thorough our consecration will be, and the more we’ll experience the joy of belonging to the Lord.
Praying with the Word of God to consecrate ourselves
We may also find it helpful to read some particular verses in the Bible and use them to pray and consecrate ourselves.
For instance, let’s read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body.”
We can use the words in this verse to pray something like this:
“Lord, I am not my own. Lord Jesus, I belong to You because You bought me. Oh Lord, thank You for paying the highest price to purchase me! I am Yours. All I have and all I am are Yours. Lord, I give You my entire life. I give You my time, my energy, my education, my family, and my job.”
We can also read and pray with the words in 2 Corinthians 5:14:
“The love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died.”
Christ manifested His great love for us by dying for us on the cross. But what does it mean to be constrained by the love of Christ? Note 2 on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version provides a vivid explanation of this experience:
“The Greek word means to press on…from all sides, to hold…to one end, to forcibly limit, to confine to one object within certain bounds, to shut up to one line and purpose (as in a narrow, walled road). (The same Greek word is used in Luke 4:38; 12:50; Acts 18:5; Phil. 1:23.) In such a way the apostles were constrained by the love of Christ to live to Him.”
The love of Christ is truly a constraining power! It causes us to love Him in return, to give ourselves to Him, and to live to Him.
With this verse, we can pray:
“Lord Jesus, thank You for Your great love for me! Thank You for dying on the cross. Oh Lord, Your love for me constrains me to give myself to You. I give my life to You. Take all of my days. Take my whole future. Here I am. I place everything in Your hands. I love You, Lord Jesus!”
A life of consecration
On one hand, we all need to consecrate ourselves to God once and for all. But after our initial consecration, we should live a life of consecration all our days.
We can do this by practicing to give ourselves to the Lord every day. Each morning when we wake up, we can tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, thank You for this new day. I offer myself to You today.”
We can also give ourselves to the Lord afresh at specific times in our lives. For instance, if we’re students, we can give ourselves to the Lord at the beginning of each new school term. Or if we get a new job or a promotion, we can pray, “Lord, I give this new job to You. It’s not mine, but Yours, because I belong to You.”
When we get married, we can offer a consecration to the Lord: “Lord, my life is Yours. I belong to You. I give my marriage to You.” At any such milestone, whether big or small, we can take the opportunity to present ourselves and the new phase of our lives to Him.
We can also use certain times like the beginning of a new year to offer ourselves to Him again. By practicing to consecrate ourselves daily and at specific times and phases in our life, we keep our consecration to the Lord fresh.
To learn more about consecration, you can read these posts: What Is Consecration? and The Basis and Motivation for Consecrating Ourselves to God. And if you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
We all go through high and low points in our lives. It's easy to be content when things are going well. But when faced with the lows—the difficult, puzzling situations—how do we react? Do we simply grit our teeth and try to get through them, or do we spend time wishing things were different?
In Philippians 4:11-12, the apostle Paul made a remarkable statement:
“I have learned, in whatever circumstances I am, to be content. I know also how to be abased, and I know how to abound; in everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to hunger, both to abound and to lack.”
Paul said he had learned to be content not only when things were going well and all his needs were met, but also when he was hungry and lacked even basic necessities. How was he able to be content in all circumstances, whether good and bad? With the help of notes from the New Testament Recovery Version, we'll take a closer look at these two verses to find out what the Bible says about how we can be content.
Paul’s circumstances when he wrote Philippians
It’s easy to see how Paul could be content while abounding—that is, while he had everything he needed. But when Paul wrote this epistle to the Philippian believers, he was far from being in a pleasant, trouble-free environment. He was a prisoner in Rome, abased and in want.
Let’s recall who Paul was and how he came to be a prisoner.
Born to Hebrew parents and educated under Gamaliel, an honored teacher of Judaism, Saul of Tarsus was zealous for the Old Testament law. He even searched for believers in Jesus to persecute and arrest. But God had chosen him.
While he was still a young man, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him directly, and Saul's life was forever changed. He repented, completely forsook his previous life, and believed in Christ. He was regenerated, and Christ came to live in him. Eventually, he changed his name from Saul to Paul.
God then sent Paul to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the Roman Empire. While many people were saved through his preaching, others opposed and persecuted him. Eventually, he was arrested because of his faith and was brought to Rome as a prisoner. We can only imagine how Paul suffered in such a situation.
Yet it was as a prisoner in Rome that Paul wrote to the Philippians that he had learned the secret of being content in whatever circumstances he was. What was the secret Paul learned?
If we consider the entire book of Philippians, one thing stands out: the experience and enjoyment of Christ. This was Paul's secret to being content.
Now let’s take a look at some verses in Philippians that reveal this to us.
To live is Christ
In Philippians 1:21 Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ.” Note 1 on live in the New Testament Recovery Version explains:
“Paul’s life was to live Christ. To him to live was Christ, not the law or circumcision. He would not live the law but would live Christ, not be found in the law but be found in Christ (3:9). Christ was not only his life but also his living. He lived Christ because Christ lived in him (Gal. 2:20). He was one with Christ in both life and living. He and Christ had one life and one living. They lived together as one person. Christ lived within Paul as Paul’s life, and Paul lived Christ without as Christ’s living. The normal experience of Christ is to live Him, and to live Him is to magnify Him always, regardless of the circumstances.”
Even while imprisoned in Rome, Paul experienced Christ as his life, and he lived Christ and magnified Him to those around him. Despite his circumstances, Paul experienced the indwelling Christ meeting his every need.
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Counting all things loss to gain Christ
Then in Philippians 3:8, Paul testified:
“But moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ.”
Paul was captivated by the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. This is why he counted the religious, cultural, and philosophical things of his past as refuse, or worthless garbage. To Paul, nothing could compare with the experience and enjoyment of the wonderful Christ he knew and loved.
Paul focused on knowing and experiencing Christ, who was his life. His life’s aim was to gain Christ in every situation.
Able to do all things in Christ
Then in Philippians 4:13, Paul said:
“I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.”
Paul’s testimony was that he was able to do all things by being in Christ, no matter what situation he was in. He didn’t try to muster up courage or maintain a positive attitude to handle his troubles apart from the Lord. Instead, he remained in Christ, even under very difficult circumstances.
Note 1 on in Him in the Recovery Version explains:
“Paul was a person in Christ (2 Cor. 12:2), and he desired to be found in Christ by others. Now he declared that he was able to do all things in Him, the very Christ who empowered him. This is an all-inclusive and concluding word on his experience of Christ. It is the converse of the Lord’s word in John 15:5 concerning our organic relationship with Him, ‘Apart from Me you can do nothing.’”
Paul experienced being in Christ. And by being in Christ, he was empowered by Christ. This was his secret.
Living Christ, gaining Christ, and being in Christ were all part of the secret Paul learned of being content no matter what his situation. So as the note points out, Paul’s testimony that he could do all things in Christ is the all-inclusive and concluding word on his experience of Christ.
What does it mean to be empowered?
Note 2 on empowers in Philippians 4:13 explains:
“The Greek word means makes dynamic inwardly. Christ dwells in us (Col. 1:27). He empowers us, makes us dynamic from within, not from without. By such inward empowering, Paul was able to do all things in Christ.”
Paul’s empowerment didn’t come from a positive change in his outward environment. By being in Christ, he was empowered from within and made dynamic inwardly. This is how he was able to do all things, including being content, no matter what was happening around him.
We can experience what Paul experienced
So how can we, like Paul, experience Christ as our secret of being content in all our circumstances?
First, we have to realize where Christ is today. For us believers, He’s not far away. When we believed in Christ, He came to live in our spirit. So to be in Him, we must simply be in our spirit, where He is.
But throughout the day, we often drift away from the Lord in our spirit to our anxious thoughts or depressed feelings. We may even find ourselves complaining about our circumstances. We’re certainly not content when we’re not in Him.
When we realize this, we simply need to turn back to our spirit where the Lord is. We can do this by calling on the name of the Lord, praying, singing, or praying with the Word of God. We'll be brought back to Christ in our spirit and be empowered by Him.
The more we remain in our spirit, the more we enjoy Christ. Outwardly, our situation may not change, and the problems may not go away. But we change. Instead of complaining or worrying, we’re satisfied, contented, and even joyful. As we experience being empowered by Christ, we’re able to do the seemingly impossible—be content in the middle of our circumstances.
The subject of Philippians is the experience of Christ, and the Recovery Version is full of insightful commentary that leads us into this experience. If you live in the US, we encourage you to order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here. You can read the verses we've mentioned in this post and all of their notes to learn more about how we can be content in any environment.
Have you ever felt like you didn’t know how to pray, or like you didn’t know the right words to say to God?
Throughout the years, thousands of books have been written on the subject of prayer. This great matter has many aspects. But in this post, we’ll discuss just one simple aspect of prayer: talking to God.
We’ll look at a few instances in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that can help shed light on this aspect of prayer.
A request for sight
As you read through the four Gospels, you’ll notice that the people who came to Jesus for help spoke to Him in an honest and straightforward way.
For instance, in Matthew 20:29-34 we have the story of the encounter between Jesus and two blind men:
“And as they were going out from Jericho, a great crowd followed Him. And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, hearing that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David! And the crowd rebuked them so that they would be silent, but they cried out the more, saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David! And Jesus, standing still, called them and said, What do you want Me to do for you? They said to Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. And Jesus, moved with compassion, touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed Him.”
When the two blind men heard that Jesus was near, they cried out to Him to have mercy on them. If they hadn’t cried out, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David,” they would have remained in their blindness. But they did cry out and Jesus heard them. He asked them what they wanted Him to do for them. The two blind men didn’t use fancy or formal expressions. They spoke straight from their heart and told Jesus what they wanted: their eyes to be opened.
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A request for cleansing
Now let’s read Luke 5:12-13, where we have the story of Jesus and a leperous man:
“And while He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You can cleanse me. And stretching out His hand, He touched him, saying, I am willing; be cleansed! And immediately the leprosy left him.”
Leprosy is a highly contagious and disfiguring disease. Yet when this leper saw Jesus, he asked Him very plainly to cleanse, or heal, him. Jesus didn’t recoil from him; instead, in His sympathy and love for this man, He touched him and healed him.
Learning how to pray from these cases
So what can we learn from these cases about how to pray? As these people conversed with Jesus, they were essentially praying to Him. They simply let Him know what they hoped He would do for them.
It’s easy for us to overcomplicate the matter of prayer. We may think we need to pray in a certain way, or that we need to repeat the right combination of words in order for the Lord to hear us. But these accounts in the Gospels show us that we can freely talk to the Lord in a genuine way.
How we can converse with Jesus today
The blind men and the leper had the privilege of meeting Jesus and telling Him their requests in person. But at that time, when Jesus lived on the earth, they had to be in the right place at the right time in order to do so.
For us believers today, Jesus now lives in our spirit, our deepest part. This means He’s always with us. We don’t need to be in a special place, or reserve our prayer for a special time.
Because He’s always with us, we can talk with Him any time, anywhere, as often as we wish! The Lord lives in us and wants to be involved in every area of our life. He already knows everything we need, but He wants us to talk to Him and tell Him what’s on our heart. As we talk to the Lord throughout the day, we gain more than the answer to our requests. We experience sweet and continual fellowship with Him.
Some examples of conversing with the Lord
We can talk to the Lord in many ways about all kinds of things. Below are just a few examples. No matter what our situation or need may be, we just need to open our hearts to the Lord and be direct and genuine with Him.
As we begin our day, we can pray something like this:
“Lord Jesus, good morning. Thank You for another day. Thank You for this new day for me to experience and enjoy You living in me.”
Later, we might want to pray to the Lord about an unsaved family member:
“Lord Jesus, my father still isn’t saved. I really want him to know You. Oh Lord, save him!”
Sometimes we’re burdened with many cares. But 1 Peter 5:7 is an encouraging word:
“Casting all your anxiety on Him because it matters to Him concerning you.”
So we can pray about our cares like this:
“Oh Lord Jesus, I need You. I’m really anxious today. I need Your help. Lord, I cast all of my anxieties on You. I can't deal with all these things, but You can. Thank You that it matters to You concerning me.”
At other times, when we realize how much we need to grow in the Lord, we can just pray, “Lord, grow in me more today.”
We can pray about anything. We can ask the Lord for something, thank Him, or say, “Lord Jesus, I love You.”
If we don’t know where to start, we can begin by calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Calling on His name is a form of praying, and often, we’ll find the words to say to the Lord as we call on Him.
From these examples, we can see that our prayers don’t need to be complicated or formal. The Lord is living within us, waiting for us to open to Him and talk to Him.
As we go on in our Christian life, we can have hundreds of thousands of conversations with the Lord Jesus about anything and everything. He may not answer our requests immediately or in the way we expect, but He cares about every detail of our lives. He's always ready to listen to whatever is on our heart, and we can enjoy sweet fellowship with Him as we talk to Him.
The New Testament Recovery Version is full of detailed notes that will help you understand the Word of God. If you live in the US, you can order a free copy here and get more insight into the accounts from the Gospels mentioned in this post.
In 2 Corinthians 13:5, the apostle Paul asks the Corinthian believers a question: “Or do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?”
In writing Jesus Christ is in you, Paul wasn’t speaking poetically or metaphorically. He meant that Jesus Christ was literally dwelling within them.
Just like the Corinthians, we believers today need to realize this fact about ourselves. Christ isn’t outside of us as some kind of Helper in our time of need; He actually lives in us and is with us all the time.
Many verses in the Bible tell us unmistakably that Jesus Christ lives in His believers. In this post, we’ll highlight just eight of these wonderful portions from the Scriptures.
1. Romans 8:10—“Christ is in you”
“But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”
We human beings were made by God with three distinct parts: body, soul, and spirit. Our human spirit is our deepest part, created with the ability to contact and receive the Spirit of God. When we received Jesus as our Savior, He came into our spirit. Now He’s in us, so our “spirit is life.”
2. Second Corinthians 4:6-7—“This treasure in earthen vessels”
“Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.”
In verse 7, the apostle Paul describes the believers as earthen vessels that contain this treasure. What is this treasure? In verse 6 we see the treasure is Jesus Christ, in whose face we see the glory of God. Christ lives in us earthen vessels as a precious treasure, revealing the glory of God to us from within.
3. Galatians 1:15-16—“His Son in me”
“But when it pleased God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called by His grace, to reveal His Son in me.”
We might think this verse should read, “It pleased God…to reveal His Son to me.” But in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the preposition is unmistakably in, so the verse reads “to reveal His Son in me.” God’s plan is to reveal His Son in us, from within, rather than to us, from without. From within us, God is pleased to reveal more of the wonderful Person of Christ.
4. Galatians 2:20—“It is Christ who lives in me”
“I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”
Here, Paul did not say, “I live in a Christ-like way,” or, “I glorify Christ through my behavior.” No, he said, “Christ…lives in me,” clearly showing us that Christ lives in His believers. Because He lives in us, the Christian life is not a matter of trying to behave like Christ, but of allowing Him to live in and through us.
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5. Galatians 4:19—“Christ is formed in you”
“My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.”
Just as a woman travails, or labors, in childbirth to bring forth a child, Paul said he travailed in birth to bring forth the believers in Galatia as his spiritual children. This travail began when he preached the gospel to them, helping them be born anew with the life of God by receiving the Lord Jesus as their Savior. Then in this verse, Paul says that he continued to labor on them so that the Christ they received would be fully formed in them. Christ lives in us from the time we're saved, but He wants to be formed in us in a definite way by growing in us. Day by day, we need to give Him the opportunity to grow and be formed in us. As we do, Christ will be able to express Himself more fully through us in our daily life.
6. Ephesians 3:17—“Christ may make His home in your hearts”
“That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.”
Jesus Christ is living in our spirit. But from there, He wants to spread into the rest of our inward being, that is, into our heart. Our heart includes our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. The Lord doesn't want to just visit our heart, like a guest visits a hotel. He wants our heart to be His home, where He has the freedom to live and move.
7. Colossians 1:27—“Christ in you”
“To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
This verse shows us not only that Christ is in us, but that He’s in us as our hope of glory. When we believed in Him, Christ came to live in our spirit. Now He's moving into our heart to make it His home. In the future, when He returns, He will even spread into our body so that God’s glory can shine through our entire being. The One who lives in us is our hope of such glory.
8. Second Thessalonians 1:10—“Glorified in His saints”
“When He comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed.”
Christ’s second coming will surely be a marvel. And according to this verse, a most wonderful thing will happen: His glory will be revealed from within His believers. The Christ in us, who is living in us, being formed in us, making His home in our hearts, and who is our hope of glory, will be revealed from within us.
What a glory to God, a marvel to man, and a shame to the devil, that there are people on this earth who would choose to receive Christ and allow Him to grow in them and be glorified in them for all to see!
We’ve briefly touched on the tremendous matter of Christ living in us in this blog post. Each of these eight verses has a number of invaluable study notes in the New Testament Recovery Version that help to open up God's Word even more. If you live in the US, we strongly encourage you to order a free copy of this study Bible and read these notes for yourself.
By studying these eight verses and others like them, we can gain a solid realization of the precious truth that the Lord lives in us. We’ll be able to answer Paul’s question, “Do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” with an emphatic “Yes!” Such a realization will enrich our Christian life in a practical, daily way.
The Sermon on the Mount, the traditional name for what Jesus spoke in Matthew chapters 5-7, begins with nine blessings known as the Beatitudes. These blessings are full of rich meaning for our Christian life today.
In a previous post, we discussed the meaning of the very first blessing recorded in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
In this post, we’ll explore the meaning of another blessing. Matthew 5:8 says:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Today we’ll read verses and notes from the New Testament Recovery Version to help us understand what it means to be pure in heart, and how this results in seeing God.
The meaning of pure in heart
Let’s first see what it means to be pure in heart. Note 1 on pure in Matthew 5:8 in the Recovery Version is very helpful. The first part explains:
“To be pure in heart is to be single in purpose, to have the single goal of accomplishing God’s will for God’s glory (1 Cor. 10:31). This is for the kingdom of the heavens.”
When we’re single in purpose and have only one goal for God’s glory, we’re pure in heart.
Now let’s read 1 Timothy 1:5:
“But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart.”
Note 3 on this verse in the Recovery Version says:
“A pure heart is a single heart without mixture, a heart that seeks only the Lord and takes the Lord as the unique goal.”
Here again we see that a pure heart is one that's single, without any kind of mixture.
A substance is pure only when it's not mixed with any other material. For instance, a gold ring may be described as pure gold if the ring has no other element besides gold in it. But if it’s gold plus something else, it’s not pure; it’s an alloy, or a mixture.
To be pure in heart means our heart doesn’t seek anything other than the Lord Jesus. It means we take Him as the unique goal of our life.
Why do we need to be pure in heart?
The next part of note 1 on Matthew 5:8 tells us why we must be pure in our heart:
“Our spirit is the organ by which we receive Christ (John 1:12; 3:6), whereas our heart is the ground where Christ as the seed of life grows (13:19). For the kingdom of the heavens we need to be poor in spirit, empty in our spirit, that we may receive Christ. Also, we need to be pure, single, in our heart that Christ may grow in us without frustration.”
When we believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we received Him into our human spirit and were born again with the divine life of God. But Christ doesn't just want to be received by us; He also wants to grow in us, in our heart.
The Bible tells us our heart is composed of our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. In order for Christ to grow freely in us, we need to be pure in heart, that is, single in our purpose and our goal. This is for the kingdom of the heavens and accomplishes God’s will.
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What causes our heart not to be pure?
Our heart can be made impure by all kinds of things, not just sinful or evil matters. Actually, our heart is not pure if it seeks anything other than the Lord Jesus.
For example, let’s say we want to achieve a certain advanced degree, attain a certain career milestone, or possess something we long for. These things aren't wrong or sinful in and of themselves. But it’s possible for us to allow any one of them to occupy our heart more and more. Eventually, it can become the main objective in our life, and then everything we do is driven by our desire to obtain it. We may even ask the Lord to help us, not realizing we’ve lost sight of accomplishing His will and seeking Him as our unique goal. We start living for that thing, and the Lord is frustrated from growing in our heart.
So how can we be pure in heart?
How to be pure in heart
We'd probably all admit that our heart can be very complicated. We may not even be able to tell when we’re not pure in heart. So what should we do?
Instead of trying to self-diagnose the condition of our heart, we should come to the Lord Jesus and open to Him. We need the Lord to shine on us and speak to us about anything in our heart that competes with Him for our affection.
John 1:4 says:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
The light that can show us where we are comes from the life in us, which is just the Lord Himself. That’s why it’s so important to spend time in the Lord’s presence in prayer and in His Word. We can ask the Lord to make our heart pure by praying something like this:
“Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into me as life. Thank You, Lord, You are the light in me. I want to be pure in heart. Show me if I have any goal or aim other than You. Lord, I want my heart to be single for You and Your will so You can grow in me.”
When the Lord points out something that's occupying our heart, we shouldn’t be discouraged. We should simply respond to Him in prayer and tell Him that we don't want that thing to take His place in our heart.
As we respond to His shining in fellowship with Him, the Lord will continue to speak more to us. Responding to the Lord is how we cooperate with Him and give Him the way to make our heart pure for Him. Then He'll have the opportunity to grow in us.
They shall see God
The Lord Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed because they shall see God.
In the Recovery Version, note 2 on see God in Matthew 5:8 says:
“If we are pure in heart in seeking God, we will see God. Seeing God is a reward to the pure in heart. This blessing is both for today and for the coming age.”
The reward of seeing God is a tremendous incentive for us to cooperate with the Lord so He can have the room and the freedom to grow in us.
How can we see God?
But what does seeing God mean for us today? Does it mean we have some kind of an outward, supernatural vision of Him?
We can see God today in two ways. One is by seeing Him in the face of Jesus inwardly, and the other is by seeing Him in the Word of God. Let’s look at some verses that show us how we can see God in these two ways.
In the face of Jesus Christ
Let’s first read 2 Corinthians 4:6:
“Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The eternal God became a man, our Lord Jesus Christ, and lived on this earth among mankind. No one ever lived, acted, or spoke like He did. In every way, in every situation, and with every kind of person, Jesus expressed God. People saw the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But since Jesus is no longer physically on earth, how can we see Him today? Verse 6 says God shines in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So for believers today, seeing God isn’t something outward, physical, or supernatural. Instead, it’s something inward, in our hearts, since now Jesus dwells within us. When nothing in our heart competes with the Lord for our affection, we have an inward sensation of seeing and beholding the Lord. To see God in the face of Jesus Christ is an indescribable joy.
In the words of the Bible
In addition to inwardly seeing God in the face of Jesus in our hearts, we can also see Him in the words of the Bible.
In John 5:39, Jesus said:
“You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me.”
When we read the Bible with a pure heart while exercising our spirit, our deepest part, the Scriptures testify concerning the wonderful person of Jesus to us. As we read and pray with the words of the Bible, God’s light shines, and we see Jesus in all His beauty and glory. Then spontaneously we’re filled with love and praise for Him.
May the Lord help us open to Him daily so He can make us pure in heart. We’re truly blessed and happy when we have the delight of seeing God, and Christ is happy when He has the free way to grow in our hearts.
If you live in the United States, we encourage you to order a free New Testament Recovery Version here so you can read all of the enlightening notes and cross-references for the verses mentioned in this post.
If you’d like to learn more about our heart and the crucial role it plays in our relationship with the Lord, we recommend reading chapter 8, “Dealing with the Heart and the Spirit,” in The Economy of God. This e-book is free to download anywhere in the world here.
As believers in Christ, we all desire to be under His blessing. In Matthew 5, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Have you ever wondered what that means and how it applies to you?
In this post, we’ll take a close look at this phrase in the Bible. With the help of notes from the New Testament Recovery Version, we'll dig into the meaning of being poor in spirit and see how it applies to us today.
The background of this blessing
In the New Testament, each of the four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—presents Jesus' life and work on earth from a different perspective. The Gospel of Matthew is the gospel of the kingdom and reveals Jesus Christ the Savior is the King.
Jesus came to this earth not to set up a physical, material, or political kingdom but to bring in a spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of the heavens.
In Matthew chapters 5 through 7, the Lord Jesus spoke a lengthy word to His disciples that has traditionally been called the Sermon on the Mount. But when you read these chapters, it’s easy to see that what Jesus spoke was extraordinary; it was much more than a mere sermon and has to do with His kingdom.
The Lord began with nine blessings that are known as the Beatitudes. The very first of these blessings is in verse 3:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.”
To see what poor in spirit means, we’ll take a close look at each piece of the phrase separately: blessed, poor, and spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Let’s read the first part of note 1 on blessed in the New Testament Recovery Version. This note defines blessed and gives a brief overview of Matthew 5-7:
“The Greek word implies happy. It may also be rendered blessed and happy. So in succeeding verses. The word spoken by the new King, being the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, is a revelation of the spiritual living and heavenly principles of the kingdom of the heavens. It is composed of seven sections. The first section, vv. 3-12, depicts the nature of the people of the kingdom of the heavens, who are under nine blessings.”
When we’re poor in spirit, we’re blessed and happy—not because of any outward, material benefits, since we see from the note that this verse is related to the kingdom of the heavens. The benefit we enjoy is something spiritual.
Poor in spirit
Now let’s consider the word poor. Since the Greek word for blessed implies happy, to be poor in spirit doesn’t mean we’re spiritually impoverished, or that before God we have nothing of spiritual value. How could we feel happy if that were the case? Actually, to be poor in spirit is something positive and profitable to our Christian lives.
Note 2 on poor in the Recovery Version says:
“To be poor in spirit is not only to be humble but also to be emptied in our spirit, not holding on to the old things of the old dispensation but unloaded to receive the new things, the things of the kingdom of the heavens.”
The old dispensation mentioned in this note refers to the dispensation, or age, of the Old Testament. Since the Lord's first followers were Jews, His word about being poor in spirit was very important. If they had held onto the things of the Old Testament, they wouldn’t be able to receive all of the things of the New Testament. The disciples needed to be poor in spirit.
Today we believers should also be poor in spirit, which means we’re humble, emptied, and unloaded in our spirit, so we can receive something new from the Lord.
In spirit
Now we need to know what spirit refers to in Matthew 5:3. The spirit in this verse is our human spirit. This God-created deepest part of our being can contact and receive God, who is Spirit. Our human spirit has the capacity, the ability, to grasp spiritual things.
Note 3 on spirit explains:
“Spirit here refers not to the Spirit of God but to our human spirit, the deepest part of our being, the organ by which we contact God and realize spiritual things. We need to be poor, emptied, unloaded, in this part of our being that we may realize and possess the kingdom of the heavens. This implies that the kingdom of the heavens is spiritual, not material.”
For us to have the blessing of realizing and possessing the kingdom of the heavens, which is something spiritual, we need to be unloaded in our spirit.
A negative example
It may help us be impressed with the meaning and importance of being poor in spirit by considering the negative example of the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospels.
The scribes and Pharisees were experts in the law of God and the things of the Old Testament, yet they rejected Jesus Christ, the Savior. They opposed Him, the very One they studied about in the Old Testament who was present with them at that time. How could that be?
The scribes and Pharisees were proud, full, and occupied with the things of the Old Testament. They weren’t poor in spirit, so they couldn’t receive something new, namely, the new King and Savior and His kingdom.
The scribes and Pharisees didn’t see that God’s way had changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and that it was centered wholly on the wonderful person of Jesus. Instead, they hated Jesus and eventually had Him crucified.
We can learn a lot from this negative example. We certainly need to know the contents of the Bible, but we shouldn't become proud or full of that knowledge, unable to receive something new from the Lord.
[[Free Study Bible]]
A positive example
In contrast to the scribes and Pharisees, the apostle Paul was a positive example of someone who was poor in spirit. In Philippians 3:13-14 Paul tesified:
“Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward.”
Note 2 on forgetting in verse 13 explains:
“In order to gain Christ to the fullest extent, Paul not only forsook his experiences in Judaism but also would not linger in his past experiences of Christ. He forgot the past. Not to forget but to linger in our past experiences, however genuine they were, frustrates our further pursuing of Christ.”
Paul didn’t want to be held back or prevented from experiencing and enjoying more of Christ. He desired to experience Christ to the fullest extent possible because he had received a revelation from God concerning how rich Christ is. In Ephesians 3:8 Paul said:
“To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.”
Paul saw that the Christ he loved is unsearchably rich in relation to who He is and in what He accomplished. He’s rich in love, holiness, righteousness, kindness, long-suffering, endurance, faithfulness, and so much more. He’s rich in all that He accomplished and attained in His birth, perfect human living, death, and resurrection.
So although Paul had enjoyed Christ very much up to the time of his writing the book of Philippians, he wasn’t content. He knew there was still so much of Christ to experience. He lived his Christian life continually forgetting what was behind and stretching forward to the new experiences of Christ before him.
What this means for us today
Each day the Lord gives us is full of opportunities to experience and enjoy Christ. Instead of trying to hold on to the previous day’s experiences or being content with them, we should come to the Lord Jesus with an unloaded spirit. Then when we spend time with Him in prayer and in the Word, we’ll enjoy Him in a fresh way and receive something new from Him.
But if we’re proud and think, “Oh, I already know what this verse says,” we won’t be able to receive what the Lord Jesus wants to speak to us at that moment.
Instead of having a proud attitude, we can exercise our spirit to pray, “Lord Jesus, don’t let me think I know what this verse means. Lord, empty me and unload me. Make me poor in spirit. I don’t want to miss Your fresh speaking to me.”
For theirs is the kingdom of the heavens
The Lord Jesus said that those who are poor in spirit are blessed—that is, happy—for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.
Jesus didn’t say, “For theirs will be the kingdom of the heavens.” He said, “For theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.” This means we don't have to wait to enjoy the kingdom of the heavens in the future; we can participate in it today.
As we come to the Lord Jesus and His Word emptied and unloaded of all we think we know, we can realize and possess the kingdom of the heavens every day. Since the kingdom of the heavens isn’t something material or physical but spiritual, it’s no wonder we must be poor in spirit to possess and enjoy it.
The kingdom of the heavens is a great and profound matter in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, and its significance can’t be covered in a single post. To gain more understanding of the kingdom of the heavens, we encourage you to read note 4 of Matthew 5:3 in the New Testament Recovery Version. This substantial note explains what the kingdom of the heavens is and is accompanied by many other verse references on the same topic. If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
In Matthew 6:6, the Lord Jesus said:
“But you, when you pray, enter into your private room, and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
These words aren’t hard to understand, but we may find they're much harder for us to put into practice.
Life today is full of things that consume our time and attention. Every day we spend hours on our cell phones or other devices, catching up on emails, texts, and social media. We also turn to them for amusement, distraction, or information. Our electronic “companions” are with us all the time, from the moment we wake up until we go to sleep.
The trouble is that this constant connection to the world around us negatively affects our spiritual life.
When our time is eaten up and our minds are preoccupied, it’s impossible to have private times of undisturbed fellowship with the Lord. Yet the Lord’s word in Matthew 6 is clear: enter into your private room, shut your door, and pray.
The Lord Jesus is our pattern
In the Gospels, we can see numerous occasions where Jesus left the crowds and went away to be alone to pray. Matthew 14:23 says:
“And after He sent the crowds away, He went up to the mountain privately to pray. And when night fell, He was there alone.”
And Mark 1:35 says:
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still night, [Jesus] went out and went away to a deserted place, and there He prayed.”
Throughout His life on earth, Jesus seized the opportunity to be alone with the Father, praying in secret.
What a pattern Jesus is to us! The Lord left the bustling crowds, the pressing needs surrounding Him, and even His disciples to pray in private.
But how can we maintain a private prayer life in an age of such distraction?
We need to recognize the dangers of the modern world
To foster the practice of private prayer, we first need to recognize the particular danger our cell phones and other devices can pose to our spiritual life.
Life’s responsibilities keep us busy enough, and modern technology certainly makes life and work much easier and more efficient. The Bibles for America Blog can reach people all over the world because of modern technology, and we’re thankful for that.
But if we're not careful, our smartphones, smartwatches, computers, and tablets, convenient as they are, can easily take up all our time and attention. Daily they offer more to read, more to watch, and more people to catch up with.
We all have to admit that because we're constantly connected to our devices, often there's no time left to spend with the Lord. The time we could spend in private prayer is replaced by viewing video after video, scrolling through endless social media feeds, or watching the latest movies and TV shows.
But if we’re aware of the danger to our spiritual life from present-day distractions, we’ll be on the alert and pay attention to how we spend our time.
[[Free Study Bible]]
We need to recognize the importance of private prayer
Second, we need to realize that having a hidden life with the Lord Jesus is essential if we want to have a meaningful Christian life. Getting away from life’s hustle and bustle to have private time with the Lord isn’t optional; our spiritual lives depend on it. Without it, our spiritual life will eventually dry up. It will be difficult for us to live for the Lord, love Him, or overcome temptation.
Having personal, even secret time with the Lord in private is invaluable. This is when we can confess our sins to Him, be spiritually nourished in His Word, and fellowship intimately with Him about anything on our heart. At times like this, we enjoy His nearness in our spirit. Calling on His name in such an atmosphere is so sweet. And unlike with other things, we can say that we never regret spending time like this with the Lord.
Once we recognize the hazard of modern distractions and see our need for alone time with the Lord, we can ask Him to help us to have a private prayer life. Surely He would be happy and faithful to answer our prayer!
5 points for practicing private prayer
In addition, here are five practical points that can help us establish and maintain a private prayer life.
1. Set a fixed time
Perhaps we’re waiting for that elusive “someday” when our lives are less busy and more peaceful; we think then we’ll be able to go and have time alone with the Lord. But realistically speaking, that “someday” will never come; busyness and distractions won’t decrease. So we have to be deliberate and definite about having private time with the Lord starting now.
We should choose a time of day when we can turn away from everything and spend quality time with Christ. The best time for this is early in the morning before the busy day begins, but we can also use our lunch break or pick a quiet time in the evening before we go to sleep. And once we set this time for private prayer, we should do our best not to miss it!
2. Find a “private room”
We may not have access to a deserted place or a mountain, but we can find a place away from people and things that distract us from prayer. Our "private room" could be our car, a room, a closet, our backyard—anywhere we can pray undisturbed.
3. Turn everything off
We should silence our phones, or even turn them off completely. It’s hard to develop a relationship or have a deep conversation with another person if we’re constantly glancing at our phones. It sends them the message that what we’re looking at is more important to us than they are.
The same is true with the Lord. That's why it's best to turn everything off or even leave our devices in another room so we can focus solely on Him. This allows us to listen to Him, talk with Him, and gaze at Him undisturbed.
4. Pray with the Bible
We may not be sure how to pray or what to say to the Lord, and our minds can wander. But we can use the words of the Bible to pray. All we need to do is open our Bible and use the words we read to compose our prayers.
For instance, let’s say we open to 1 John 1:7 and read, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.”
We can pray something like this: “Lord Jesus, I want to walk in the light. Lord, I want to be in the light so I can have fellowship with You and other believers. Thank You for Your precious blood. Hallelujah, it cleanses me from every sin!”
Perhaps at this point, the Lord shines on something we did or spoke that was displeasing to Him. We can immediately confess that sin and experience the cleansing of the blood of Jesus. By praying with His Word, we can speak to the Lord, and the Lord can speak to us.
5. Use a printed copy of the Bible
Using a printed Bible instead of a digital version is a good way to avoid the temptation of looking at something else on our phone. It also makes it easy to jot down notes and highlight portions we're touched with during our time with the Lord.
If you don't already have a physical Bible and you live in the United States, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version from Bibles for America. This New Testament study Bible is full of wonderful notes and commentary that will enrich your reading of God's Word. You can click here to place your order.
When we enter our private room and shut the door, we'll enjoy the Lord's sweet presence as we fellowship with Him in prayer and in the Word. He will supply us with His life each day so we can live a healthy, normal Christian life.
The Lord Jesus said in Mark 12:30:
“And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.”
What does it mean to love the Lord from our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength? Do we even have the ability to love Him with our whole being like this?
In this post, we’ll briefly discuss what it means to love God with our entire being using verses and notes from the New Testament Recovery Version.
The source of our love for God
We have to admit that although we love God to some extent, He’s not the only One we love, and sometimes He's not the One we love the most. Many other things tug at our heart. So how can we obey the Lord’s command to love Him with all our heart?
The Lord is well aware that we aren’t capable of such love by ourselves. We need to realize that when God makes a demand, He intends to meet that demand for us. So in 1 John 4:19 we can see our love for God originates from God Himself:
“We love because He first loved us.”
Note 1 on this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version says:
“God first loved us in that He infused us with His love and generated within us the love with which we love Him and the brothers (vv. 20-21).”
God is the actual source of our love for Him. He loved us first, and He infused us with His love. To infuse means to fill, to pervade, even to soak. We're being soaked with the love of God! Now the love of God in us is the love with which we can love Him in return.
Love isn’t merely a feeling. God is love. God loves us and became a man named Jesus Christ. He demonstrated His love for us to the uttermost by dying on the cross. No wonder when we heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, our hearts responded to His love, and we opened to receive Him as our Savior. From that day on, we began to love the Lord with the love He infused into us.
As we enjoy God’s love, we’ll love Him in return more and more.
Loving God from our whole heart
Loving the Lord with our whole being begins from our heart. In a previous post, we talked about what the heart is according to the Bible. We may think our heart is simply the seat of our emotions. But we can see from the Bible that it's more than that.
Our emotion is a part of our heart, but our heart also includes our mind, will, and conscience. Our feelings, thoughts, decisions, and the sense of condemnation or guilt we feel when we’ve done something wrong all arise from our heart.
God is a loving God, and He created us with a heart so that we would love Him wholly and absolutely. But in our experience, we know our heart loves many other things besides God.
So what do we do? Simply trying not to love those things doesn't work. But the apostle Paul wrote this reassuring word in 2 Corinthians 3:15-16:
“A veil lies on their heart; but whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
When our heart is turned away from the Lord and set on things such as sins, selfish preoccupations, and worldly pleasures, it has a veil on it. We can’t see the Lord.
But when we turn our heart to Him, the veil is removed, and we can see the Lord again. We see His beauty, His virtues, and how wonderful He is. Then He infuses more of what He is, including love, into us. In this way, our love for Him grows.
We can turn our hearts to the Lord Jesus at any time by praying to Him, calling on His name, confessing our sins to Him, and spending time in His Word. These simple practices can remove the veil from our heart, restore our fellowship with the Lord, and rekindle our love for Him.
[[Free Study Bible]]
Loving God from our whole soul
Our soul is composed of our mind, emotion, and will, and so it's a large part of our heart. God created our soul so we could express Him, but because of mankind's fall, we express ourselves. We have our own opinions, feelings, and decisions that are independent of God.
But when we turn our hearts to the Lord, our love for Him grows. As He infuses Himself into us, His thoughts become our thoughts, His feelings become our feelings, and His decisions become our decisions.
As He does His transforming work in us, we spontaneously begin to express God and glorify Him. Others will see Christ expressed in us as we love Him with our whole soul.
Loving God from our whole mind
Our mind is the leading part of our soul. It directs the rest of our being and influences what we love and what we choose. It can be set on many things. But God wants our mind to be set on the spirit, where Christ is.
Romans 8:6 says:
“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.”
When we set our mind on the flesh or fleshly things, we feel lifeless and uneasy because we’re turned away from Christ in our spirit. But when we set our mind on our spirit, we’re peaceful and full of life. By setting our mind on our spirit, our whole being is focused on God.
One way to set our mind on the spirit is to read the Bible. God’s Word reveals who Christ is to us. When we use our mind to read the Word, we see more of the Lord’s preciousness. For instance, when we read in the four Gospels about the kind of life the Lord Jesus lived, the words of life He spoke, and how He cared for all kinds of people, we're filled with appreciation for Him. The more we consider Him, the more we love Him.
Loving God from our whole strength
Our whole strength refers to the physical strength of our body. When we turn our heart to the Lord and set our mind on Him, our body will follow.
As love for the Lord pervades our heart and soul, even the outward actions of our body will be affected. Our attitude toward the things that used to occupy our time, interest, and energy will also change. We love the Lord and want more of Him. So even our physical strength, that is, our time and energy, will be spent on pursuing Christ.
Loving God with our whole being starts today
To love God with our whole being is an exercise. We don’t always wake up in the morning with our heart inclined toward the Lord. But we can start the day by turning our hearts to our dear Lord Jesus. We can say, “Lord Jesus, I turn my heart to You this morning. I love You!” We can tell the Lord we love Him every single day.
We can also pray, “Lord Jesus, cause me to love You more today than I did yesterday. I want to love You with my whole being.” He will surely answer such a prayer.
To read more about our heart, we highly recommend chapter 8, “Dealing with the Heart and the Spirit” in The Economy of God. You can download this book for free here.
You can also read more notes on the verses quoted in this post in the New Testament Recovery Version, which you can get for free here if you live in the United States.
If you search online for heart, you’ll find millions of articles on the physical heart, complete with photos and diagrams. You can read detailed explanations of its function in the body and how it works. You’ll also find an abundance of information on caring for your heart so you can live longer.
But we also know we have a heart that’s different from the physical organ pumping blood through our body. We consider that heart to be the source of feelings like love, compassion, loyalty, or sorrow.
But what does the Bible say about our heart? In this post, we'll look at what the heart is according to God's Word, and the importance of our heart in our relationship with the Lord.
What does the Bible say about our heart?
In a previous post we discussed how God created us with three parts: spirit, soul, and body. So where does our heart fit in?
The Bible defines our heart across many verses, not just in one single verse. It can be easy to miss. But if we pay close attention, we can see the Word of God doesn't say that our heart is a fourth, separate part of our being.
Instead, it shows us our heart is a composition of all three components of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—plus the most important part of our spirit—our conscience. Let's take a look at some key verses that reveal this.
1. Matthew 9:4
“And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Why are you thinking evil things in your hearts?”
Thinking is an activity of the mind, but the Lord Jesus asked the scribes why they were thinking evil things in their hearts. This shows that our mind is part of our heart.
2. Acts 11:23
“Who, when he arrived and saw the grace of God, rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain with the Lord with purpose of heart.”
To purpose is to decide strongly to do something, which is an exercise of our will. So this verse shows that our will is part of our heart.
3. John 16:22
“Therefore you also now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you.”
Rejoicing is related to our emotion, but here we see that our heart rejoices. This shows us that our emotion is also part of our heart.
4. Hebrews 10:22
“Let us come forward to the Holy of Holies with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience indicates that our conscience is also part of our heart.
This is further confirmed by the phrase “if our heart blames us” in 1 John 3:20. Since our conscience is what blames, or condemns, us when we’ve done something wrong, this verse also makes it very clear that our conscience is part of our heart.
[[Free Study Bible]]
The importance of our heart
The verses above show us that our heart does much more than we might have thought. In addition to sensing the wide range of human emotions, our heart thinks, decides, and perceives right from wrong.
Now let's look at two reasons why the function of our heart is so important.
We love with our heart
Jesus said in Mark 12:30:
“And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart.”
If we didn’t have a heart, we couldn’t sense love or love in return. God created us with a heart so we could have a loving relationship with Him. So in a very real sense, our heart is at the center of our relationship with God.
Our heart is the gateway of our being
Besides being the center of our relationship with God, our heart is also the gateway of our whole being.
In the book The Economy of God, author Witness Lee explains this role. On page 75, Lee says:
“Our relationship with the Lord is always begun and maintained by the heart. Of course, to contact the Lord is a matter of the spirit, but this must be initiated and maintained by the heart, for our heart is the gateway of our whole being.”
For our heart to be the gateway of our entire being means what we allow in and out is determined by our heart. For example, we can close our heart to certain people and open it to others.
Continuing on page 75, Lee says:
“In other words, the heart becomes both the entrance and the exit of our being. Whatever enters into us must enter through the heart. Whatever comes out from us must proceed through the heart.”
When we consider our experience of salvation, this point becomes clear to us. As we heard how the Lord Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we were convicted of our sinfulness; at the same time, we began to appreciate Jesus and what He did for us. We sensed the depth and sweetness of His love for us. So we opened the doors of our heart to believe in Him and accept Him as our Savior. At that time, we received Him in our spirit and were born again with His divine life. But it was our heart that was first touched and opened to let Him in.
Our heart and our relationship with the Lord
We were created by God in such a marvelous way! We have a spirit to contact, receive, and contain Him as life, and a heart to love Him. He wants to be our life and He wants us to love Him with our whole heart.
As we read in the first excerpt above, our relationship with the Lord is begun by our heart. It’s also maintained by our heart. This is why the condition of our heart is so important.
With any relationship, when a problem arises, we need to address it. We shouldn't think the problem will go away by itself. Maybe we have a certain attitude toward the other person, or certain negative thoughts about them. Maybe we’ve said or done something that hurt the other person, but we’re unwilling to make amends. To leave such things unresolved can only result in damaging the relationship.
In the same way, in order for us to be in harmony with the Lord and enjoy a loving relationship with Him, we need to address any problem that arises between us and the Lord. Such problems are always on our side and involve our heart.
In fact, many difficulties in our Christian life that prevent us from progressing are really issues in our heart—that is, in our mind, emotion, will, or conscience.
For instance, we might have a problem in our heart because our thoughts about a certain matter don't match the Lord’s thoughts. Or maybe the feelings we have toward someone don't correspond with the Lord’s feelings. Perhaps we insist on going our own way because our stubborn will is hardened. Or we may have a problem in our conscience because we haven't dealt with things that have offended and displeased the Lord. With our heart in such a state, how can our relationship with the Lord be sweet and harmonious?
Now we can see how important it is to be aware of the condition of our heart in order to maintain our loving and warm relationship with the Lord. When a problem arises between us and the Lord, we can simply turn our heart to Him and pray, “Lord Jesus, I open my heart to You. I don’t want anything to come between You and me. I love You, Lord.”
In this post we’ve briefly discussed what the heart is according to the Bible. To learn about how to address the condition of our heart, we encourage you to read chapters 6-8 of The Economy of God by Witness Lee. You can download this tremendously helpful book from anywhere in the world here.
We also encourage you to explore these specific posts to learn about much-needed healthy practices to care for our heart: How to Keep Our New Heart Pure, Loving, and Soft toward the Lord and What Does It Mean to Love God with All Your Heart?
And if you live in the US, you can read the verses mentioned in this post with their accompanying insightful notes in the New Testament Recovery Version by ordering a free copy here.
