Yesterday while reaching into my potato bin, I spotted a delicious medium potato. However, when I grabbed it, my fingers sunk into the sides. Gross! It was rotten on the inside. Its outward appearance fooled me, but we never fool God.
If God squeezed you, what would happen? Would he find a heart, mind, and spirit following him and his ways? Would he find your insides were rotten under your outer facade? How can people proclaim to be believers but end up with a rotten mind, heart, and life?
The World’s Lies
The world would have Christ’s disciples believing they can live in sinful desires and serve God too. However, the world is influenced by Satan because it is his domain. He wants you to think that you can continually live in sin as long as you: ask for God’s forgiveness, try to be a good person, attend church or a Bible study, or occasionally read your Bible or a devotion. However, Jesus tells us:
"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. (Matt. 6:24, MSG) In the NIV, "You cannot serve two masters."
People Reveal Their Hearts by Their Fruits
A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit. (Matt. 7:18, NLT)
If man could be moral and good on their own, why is the world still in pain, evil, and immorality? Choosing to be the god of our life will never bring supernatural peace, joy, and eternal life. Nothing can make us pure but the blood of Jesus Christ. In him, our hearts and spirits are made new.
We are born sinful, and nothing will change until we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. We must also work with him and walk in obedience to his teaching, correction, and guidance as our Shepherd. As we walk with him in a personal relationship daily, he will transform our minds, hearts, souls, spirits, and lives to look more like him.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. (1 John 2:15-16, ESV)
Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good. (Titus 1:15-16, NLT)
Our mindsets, beliefs, attitudes, words, and actions reveal if we are children of God and Christ’s disciples or if we are serving the enemy, pretending to be Christians. Jesus was born, crucified, and rose again to give us the opportunity to live and serve him in our human condition with his guidance and power. If we do not choose to follow him in every aspect of our lives, God will know our truth, and we will have consequences. Our outer facades or flowery speech never fools him. He alone knows our hearts, which are our truth.
Although we live in this broken world in our imperfect human condition, this is not our eternity. Every person’s body will die, and their soul will go to heaven or hell. The choices we make throughout our lives determine our immortal eternity. In our human condition, our sinful desire of pride or to be self-serving continually tries to compromise our loyalty to Jesus. The apostle Paul illustrates our internal spiritual battle with our sinful flesh.
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Rom. 7:18, NIV)
God’s faithful, unconditional love, promises, covenants, standards, and salvation through Christ have never wavered. Yet, for centuries many people proclaiming to be his followers have been unfaithful, disobedient, and adulterous to their own flesh desires. So let’s see how to anchor our hearts to Christ.
Study, Understand, and Follow Christ’s Standards to Keep Your Heart Grounded in God
Many Christians have come from unhealthy homes or endured unhealthy environments that have leaked into their minds and hearts. If you don’t know what is healthy, how can you be healthy? This reality makes it vital for Christ’s disciples to learn his healthy standards. When we know and follow his standards, we will mirror his attitudes, mind, heart, soul (will, emotions), words, actions, and how we let others treat us.
The best teachers concerning our hearts are God and Jesus. Learn to study God’s word, and you will foster a deep personal relationship with them. You will come to know their hearts, love, grace, mercy, healthy boundaries, covenants, promises, and standards. They will show you that being a disciple of Christ requires your trust, faithfulness, and obedience because of our human condition.
God created us, and Jesus died for us because they want to share their heart, love, and beings with us in a personal way. To honor our Creator, God, and Savior, Jesus Christ, and his sacrifice, we must love them with all our heart, mind, body, and strength. Being a disciple of Jesus is about committing to being faithful and obedient regardless of what we endure, just as he was to us.
Because Jesus gave us a new spiritual life on earth and into eternity, we owe him our hearts and lives. Through Salvation, Jesus made it possible for us to bear his good fruit of love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Let’s give God and Jesus our hearts and show the world how to live in Christ’s love!
