Supernatural Transformation: Change Your Heart Into God’s Heart (5 page)

There can be no flow of life in the areas of our heart that we
haven’t given over to God.

The Restoration of the Heart

“The wages of sin is death…”
(Romans 6:23)—the death of the spiritual heart and the death of the physical body
.
But that is not the whole story:
“…the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
(Romans 6:23)! God knew that the hearts of human beings would turn from Him. But He never stopped loving them, and He never departed from His original plan for humanity. To restore humans to the heart with which they were created—pure and whole in His likeness—God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He came not only to teach us how to live but also to die for our sin and rebellion—to break the hold that the corrupt sin nature had on our heart. Long before He arrived on earth, He promised us through one of His prophets,
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you”
(Ezekiel 36:26).

Two things have to happen to initiate this ongoing process of heart transformation. Everything we discuss in the subsequent chapters hinges on the fact that the following foundational changes have taken place in your life:

1. You have received a new heart—a spirit made alive in Christ.
   “
   But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4–6).
   

2. You have received God’s Holy Spirit to dwell in you. “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
   

The experience of receiving a new heart is sometimes called being
“born again.”
Jesus said,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.…Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”
(John 3:3, 5). Another term for a new heart is the
“new birth”
(1 Peter 1:3 niv).

Jesus Christ died on the cross to restore us to our heavenly Father. This plan was in effect from eternity. The Bible calls Jesus
“the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”
(Revelation 13:8). He is the One who paid for every sin committed by the human race—all its iniquity, rebellion, and transgressions—so that we could be free from our corrupt nature.

By His death, and by His resurrection through the power of God, Jesus enabled the human race to return to its original state of purity and wholeness of heart—the way the Father had created it in the beginning. We enter the “new birth” when we willingly receive Christ’s sacrifice and His righteousness, applying them to ourselves, and accept Him as our Lord and Savior. We acknowledge that we have lived far from God—
independent of Him and His purposes. We surrender our life to Him, opening up our heart so that His presence can dwell within us. Jesus said,
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him”
(John 14:23).

The above two changes make it possible for us to experience the supernatural transformation of our heart. Once we are a
“new creation,”
we can live according to the life and counsel of God’s Spirit, with the ability to reject the elements of the sinful nature within us that try to win back control. We can eliminate areas of disobedience and selfishness in our life that, as James wrote,
“ought not to be so”
(James 3:10) for people who have received a new heart from God. (See Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5.) Then, the “springs” from our heart will yield only fresh water, and not a mixture of salt water and fresh. (See James 3:9–12.)

[Jesus said,]
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
(John 7:37–39)

The following is the testimony of a man who received a new heart and the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Marceliano was born in Colombia and later moved to the United States. He grew up without a father, and he was full of resentment and anger.

“My father died at an early age, and my ten brothers and I were raised by our mother. Before he died, my father would frequently visit mediums who, when he got sick, did not allow him to go to the hospital because ‘their god was going to heal him.’ His death left such a deep void in my heart that, at the age of twelve, I began to drink. Later, I got involved in drug trafficking, including smuggling drugs hidden in people’s bodies. Money became my god.

“I was accident prone. I was involved in a car accident, I jumped from a hospital building, my ‘friends’ tried to kill me with an overdose of liquid heroine, and I was later stabbed in the chest during a fight. Because of what was going on, my mother, in her ignorance, decided to take me to witches and sorcerers. My world consisted of alcohol, friends, and illegal dealings, but nothing filled the void within me.

“When I arrived in Miami, someone took me to a Christian church where I met the Lord. His love filled the emptiness in my heart. Furthermore, God gave me spiritual parents who lent me a hand and believed in me far beyond my terrible life. I am now free of anger, vengeance, and addictions, and I am learning to become the head of my family and to treat my wife the way the Lord intended. The illegal dealings that were once a source of pride are now shameful to me. The only good thing I kept from my past is the knowledge that God was able to forgive the worst of sinners and transform the blackest of hearts. Today I know that He has a purpose for my life and for my family.”

You can receive a new heart, just as Marceliano did. If you have not yet accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, pray the prayer at the end of this chapter. Many people claim that they are not “sinners” in need of God’s forgiveness, saying something like, “I am good, never hurt anyone, and do what is right whenever possible.” Yet God requires from us a truly righteous heart—not one that is “good” according to our own definition—and we receive such a heart only by accepting the redemptive work of Christ on our behalf. We must repent (turn away from our sins), die to our old nature through Christ, and be born again, receiving the Holy Spirit. We have no goodness unless it comes from God.

A Heavenly “Audit”

Even now, God is carrying out a heavenly “audit” on human hearts.
“I know also, my God, that You test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness”
(1 Chronicles 29:17). God continually searches our heart, but I believe there are special times in which He evaluates the heart condition of His people. Right now, as I indicated in chapter 1, the main purpose of His “audit” is to prepare our heart for the great and final movement of His glory upon the earth, in which He will pour out His Spirit and bring many people into His kingdom. Out of His love for us, He is searching and testing our heart to see if it is faithful and righteous, because He wants us to participate with Him in this great outpouring and manifestation of His power.

We must realize that since our new nature still battles the influence of the sinful nature, we cannot always trust our own motivations or instincts. Moreover, we will experience increased pressure from Satan’s evil spiritual forces at work during these end times. As we have seen,
“the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
(Jeremiah 17:9). I don’t think this verse is implying that our heart will necessarily be deceived, but that it has the ability to deceive us. Until our heart is fully transformed, and we are living in godly humility and self-denial, we will have improper motivations and selfish intentions that deviate from the purposes of God. We cannot allow ourselves to be guided by any untransformed part of our heart!

Salvation is only the beginning of our relationship with our heavenly Father. God wants us to draw continually closer to Him and, as His children, reflect His nature. That is why He calls us to have increasingly transformed hearts that will represent His own heart.

How much of us does God have? Perhaps, He has certain parts of our life—our belongings, our service, or our tithes and offerings. Yet, until He has our entire heart, we will not fully love Him or be able to reflect His true nature. The world, the devil, and the
“lusts of the flesh”
(see, for example,
2 Peter 2:18), or the sinful nature, will continue to exert influence and power over us, pulling us in the direction of our false desires and weaknesses, and leading us into sin.

Sometimes, we give God only the things that don’t matter much to us or don’t interest us, or the areas that don’t cost us much to give up. But when God has our whole heart, He has both us
and
all of our resources. It is then that He can trust us to be faithful stewards of His abundant wealth, for achieving His purposes on earth and for blessing His people. Again, all of us have areas of our life that we need to surrender to God. Anytime we hold back something from Him, that is a part of our heart over which we haven’t allowed Him to be Lord. Instead, we make ourselves the lord over that area.

The beauty of an unselfish life is to serve God and other people without expecting anything in return.

Accountability and Rewards

God has released and will release various judgments upon the earth because of the wickedness of human beings. But He also has a judgment reserved for the works done by His children. He will judge us here on earth and in heaven.
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad”
(2 Corinthians 5:10).

Romans 14:12 says that
“each of us shall give account of himself to God.”
This means that we will each have an individual trial before God in which we will be held accountable to Him for what He has given us. I don’t believe this judgment is for the purpose of condemning us but rather for rewarding us. The judgment seat of Christ is where believers will be judged for everything they did on earth. Each person’s work will be presented on that day. The purpose of this judgment will be to prove the motives and intentions of our heart in what we have done. Paul wrote,
“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God”
(1 Corinthians 4:5).

If we have done something with the wrong motivation or attitude, our work will be burned by fire, as trash is burned. When we do something with the right motivation, we are guaranteed rewards on earth and in heaven. (See 1 Corinthians 3:11–15.) Additionally, we will be protected from the negative consequences of acting from wrong motives. Even if no one applauds us, recognizes what we do on earth, or pays us for the work we have performed, we will receive our reward from God—if the work has been done for Him. For this reason, let us remember to evaluate our motivations regularly, knowing that we should do all things out of love for God.

When someone feels forced to do something, his heart is not in it.

God’s Commitment to Us

While God is always faithful and loving toward us, there is a sense in which He commits only to the portion of our heart that we have surrendered to Him. Some Christians have surrendered only 20 percent or 50 percent of their life to God, so they don’t experience Him at work in the uncommitted areas. Consequently, they often have difficulties and troubles in those unsurrendered aspects of their life, and they feel frustrated and helpless in regard to them. They may start to blame God for not answering their prayers, or they may think He has forgotten about them.

If you are in such a situation, let me ask you: Will you continue to blame God for unanswered prayers in the areas of your life that you have withheld from Him? Will you persist in saying that God has forgotten about you? Or, will you take responsibility for not having fully surrendered your heart to Him—or for taking back areas of it? Are you now willing to go to God and give Him
all
? The time has come for you to decide. If your faith doesn’t flow from your heart, it is merely intellectual acknowledgment or mental assent of God and His ways. Under such conditions, you cannot expect to receive results from Him.

I believe that if you will prayerfully and humbly examine your heart, you will be confronted with a spirit of independence in relation to the areas you are withholding from God. You may discover that, while you thought you were serving Him in a certain way, you were really performing a ritual that only looked like service but didn’t come from a genuine motivation of your heart. If you lack the motivation of love, you will not have a genuine desire to serve God and will make little effort in that regard.

Yet, even in the midst of our selfishness and rebellion, God continues to draw us to Himself! His Holy Spirit guides us, motivates us, and convicts our heart, thus working in us
“both to will and to do for His good pleasure”
(Philippians 2:13). But God never pushes us or forces us to do anything. His manner of reaching out to us contrasts with the way in which Satan operates. His demons push us. They try to pressure us to take certain actions, or they try to snare us, in order to lead us into sin and destroy our life. The enemy desires more than anything else to usurp the dwelling place of God within us—our heart.