Your New Identity (Victory Series Book #2): A Transforming Union with God (11 page)

Proverbs 4:20–27

Key Point

God is trying to enlarge our hearts and not just our minds.

Key Verse

I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the L
ORD
.

Jeremiah 24:7

E
zekiel prophesied, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19–20). A new heart and a new spirit are clearly gifts from God. Jeremiah prophesied, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the L
ORD
. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart” (Jeremiah 24:7). This is a heart to know and experience God.

Contrary to popular thinking, emotion is not the dominant function of the heart. H. Wheeler Robinson, an Oxford academic, analyzed the functions of the heart in his book
The Christian Doctrine of
Man
. Robinson counted 822 uses of the word “heart” in Scripture when used in reference to human personality. According to his categorization, 204 of the 822 uses refer to our intellect, 195 to our will, and 166 to our emotions.
1
It is better to think of our heart as the center of self and the seat of reflection rather than just the seat of our emotions.

The essential business of the heart is stated in Proverbs 15:14: “The discerning heart seeks knowledge.” The word for “heart” occurs most frequently in the portions of the Bible known as the wisdom literature (for example, 99 times in Proverbs and 42 times in Ecclesiastes) as well as the highly instructional book of Deuteronomy (51 times). These portions of Scripture instruct us in the way of God’s wisdom, which we are to know and understand with our hearts. Thus, the goal of life is to gain a heart of wisdom. “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

The truth of God’s Word must penetrate our hearts in order for it to direct our ways and transform our lives. It is possible to intellectually know the truth and yet not allow it to have an impact on how we feel or what we do. Only in the heart do the mind, emotion, and will come together in holistic unity. When we allow the truth to penetrate our hearts, it immediately stirs the emotions, which drives the will. The biblical idea of knowing God and knowing the truth that will set us free involves our emotions and our will, not just our intellect. To grow and live righteous lives, we must experience God, not just have an intellectual knowledge of His attributes.

Many believers are not experiencing God’s presence or the liberating benefits of knowing Him because they have never gotten beyond an intellectual understanding of who He is. The greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). God is trying to enlarge our hearts, not just our minds. The Truth has to be incarnated and become a living Word within us, and that is possible because the indwelling Jesus is the Truth and the Word.

What does it mean to have a new heart that knows and experiences God?

According to God’s Word, what is the heart?

The goal of life is to attain a heart of wisdom. How is that different from a head full of knowledge?

What evidence have you sensed in your own life that confirms the truth that you have a new heart?

How have you gone beyond simple “head” knowledge of Christ and allowed Him to enlarge your heart?

Therefore the first commandment teaches every kind of godliness. For to love God with the whole heart is the cause of every good. The second commandment includes the righteous acts we do toward other people. The first commandment prepares the way for the second and in turn is established by the second. For the person who is grounded in the love of God clearly also loves his neighbor in all things himself. The kind of person who fulfills those two commandments experiences all the commandments.

Cyril of Alexandria (AD 376–444)

John 3:1–15

Key Point

The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in our bodies and made them temples of God.

Key Verse

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.

1 Corinthians 6:19

N
icodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. Not wanting his colleagues to know of his association with Jesus, Nicodemus went to see Him under the cover of darkness to inquire about the kingdom of God. He recognized that Jesus taught with authority, and he knew that no one could have performed the miracles that Jesus had unless God were with Him. He told Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:1–2).

Jesus turned the conversation to the doctrine of regeneration. He replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (verse 3). Nicodemus did not understand—he wondered how a child could again enter into the womb of his mother. However, Jesus was not talking about going through the natural birth process again; rather, He was talking about a new birth.

What distinguishes the natural birth from this new spiritual birth is its origin. “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6). The term “born again” literally means “born from above.” In regeneration, the supernatural origin is just as important as the newness of the birth. The ideas of “newness,” “regeneration,” and a supernatural origin are all joined together in Titus 3:5–6: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior.”

In salvation, there is a washing and a renewing—a change in the innermost attitudes and inclinations of our hearts of such a nature that it can only be compared with the generation and birth of life. Unlike natural birth, however, this birth does not have its origin in the will of humankind but in the sovereign power of God. It is a birth that is not of the flesh, nor of blood, but of the Spirit.

In regeneration, the Holy Spirit indwells every believer. His coming produces a radical change from pollution and death to holiness and life. The coming of the Holy Spirit produces a new creation in Christ. The newly “born from above” believer is exhorted to “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Even as newborn children cannot orchestrate their own conception and birth, neither can believers take any credit for the transformation of their lives. The power to change comes from above.

Unregenerate people are like dry sponges wrapped in plastic. In that state, they serve no useful purpose. Then one day, God strips away the plastic wrapping, puts the squeeze on them, and plunges them into a pool of His living water. While they are submerged God loosens His grip, and every pore of their being is filled with His presence. Now they are complete in Christ and able to fulfill the purpose for which they were created. Should these sponges decide to pull away from the water, they would soon dry
out and fail again to fulfill their purpose, even though they are forever free from that which originally bound them.

Born-again believers are Holy Spirit possessed—the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in their bodies and made them temples of God.

How did Jesus distinguish natural birth from spiritual birth? What did He mean when He told Nicodemus he must be “born again”?

What does “regeneration” mean?

How are unregenerate people like “dry sponges wrapped in plastic”? What happens when they are born again?

What does it mean to you that your body is a temple of God and a dwelling place for the Almighty?

What is keeping you from taking in God’s goodness like a dry sponge?

What is Paul trying to prove when he says that we are not our own? He wants to secure us against sin and against following the improper desires of the mind. We have many improper desires, but we must constrain them, and we can do so. If we could not, there would be no point in exhorting us like this. Paul does not say that we are under compulsion but that we have been bought—and bought with a great price, reminding us of the way in which our salvation was obtained.

John Chrysostom (AD 347–407)

Praying for the Lost

In Jonah 1, God told the prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach, but he refused. Jonah knew that God would spare the Ninevites if they repented, and he did not want these enemies of Israel to be spared. Because of his disobedience, he found himself in the belly of a fish praying for his own salvation (see Jonah 2). Jonah did go to Nineveh, and to his disappointment the people repented and God relented (see Jonah 3).

Sensing his anger at the outcome, God gave Jonah an object lesson through a leafy plant that withered and died (see Jonah 4). If Jonah was justified in being upset about the loss of a plant to whose existence he had contributed nothing, was not God justified in showing love and concern for the people of Nineveh, whom He created?

The story of Jonah forces us to examine our hearts. Do we want the judgment of God to fall on all the lost people of this world, or do we want them to repent and believe? If the lost are our enemies, the question becomes a test of our character. Do we have a heart like Jonah, or do we have a heart like God? We are not all called to be full-time missionaries or evangelists, but we are called to share our faith and pray. There are two principles that we need to know in order to effectively pray for the lost.

First, Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:37–38). If you have a burden to pray for someone or some group of people who don’t know the Lord, ask God to send them a messenger. God has to work through His established means of bringing salvation to the lost people of this world. In Romans 10:14–15, Paul explains what that process is: “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?”

Second, John wrote, “If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life” (1 John 5:16). The context of this passage is clearly talking about spiritual life and death, not physical life and death. The lost people of this world are dead in their trespasses and sins. Jesus came that we might have life. So John is telling us to petition God to give them eternal life. Our prayers do not save them; they are saved by their own personal faith in the finished work of Christ. However, in His sovereignty, God has chosen to work out His plan of salvation through the Church. We choose to believe, but God saves us. God miraculously works in response to our prayers, including the salvation of souls.

A
Christian recovery group was just beginning its weekly meeting when a guest speaker was introduced. The speaker took a $20 bill out of his pocket and asked if anyone would like to have it. Many raised their hands.

“I’m going to give it away this evening,” he said, “but first let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the bill in his hand. “Who still wants this $20 bill?” he asked. The same hands went up.

“But what if I do this?” he asked. He dropped the bill to the floor and started grinding on it with his shoe. He picked up the crumpled dirty bill and asked again if anyone wanted it. The same hands went up.

He gave the bill to the newest person in the group and said, “No matter what I did to the bill, you still wanted it—and rightly so, because it still had the same value, no matter how it was abused. We all have been dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we made and the circumstances that came our way. Consequently, we feel as though we are worthless, but that is not true. Your value as a human being, created in the image of God, will never lose its value no matter what happened to you or what you have done. You are not a derelict, you are not a bum,
you are not an alcoholic, you are not an addict. You are a child of God, and just like the newest member of your group, you did nothing to earn the free gift of salvation. My gift only cost me $20; the gift of salvation cost Jesus His life.”

Daily Readings