Thursday, January 14, 2010

Heart of the matter: Matthew 5:29-30

Can you imagine wedding vows that included:

  • I vow to be faithful to you as long as you let me see other women.


  • I vow to take care of you as long as you don't question my spending.


  • I vow to love you until something better comes along.

That probably would not work. Then why do we think that we can have a relationship with God that looks that way?


  • I surrender all as long as you don't ask anything of me that will cost me.


  • I will be obedient as long as you don't lead me to share my faith.


  • I will sacrifice all I have for you as long as you don't ask me to quit my addictions.

I know it sounds silly right. Is it really? We do something like this often and think that it is ok. Jesus asks us to sever ourselves from the very thing that causes us to sin. If you look throughout the context we see that the root of our actions of sin are planted not by our body parts but by our heart. Not the physical heart, but the heart of who we are. We naturally desire sin, so it is not our body parts fault, but our worldly desires. Centered at our hearts. So we need spiritual heart transplants. Check this out in Ezekiel.


Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Our heart of stone repels anything that God leads us to. The heart of flesh is the softened heart that is open to the call of God.





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