Is your heart right with God? If not, your sins are not forgiven, and you are not going to heaven when you die. The Bible teaches something specific about the heart. The heart is mentioned over a thousand times in Scripture.
The heart is sinful. The heart is full of evil imaginations. God hates a heart that devises wicked imaginations, and feet that are swift in running to mischief (Prov. 6:16, 18). What are your imaginations? What do you fantasize about?
The heart is deceitful. The heart of the unrighteous “is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity” (Psalm 10:7).
The heart is far from God. “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8).
The heart is a treasury of evil. Jesus told His disciples that the things which come out of a man, “those are they that defile the man” (Mark 7:15). Adultery, fornication, theft and murder all start in the heart.
The heart is darkened because the Natural Man is spiritually blind. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Eph. 4:18). Television entrepreneur Ted Turner once offered a reward to someone who could write a book with a program to bring peace to the world. Ten thousand manuscripts were submitted. They were all found to be without merit. What Ted Turner could not see is that the Bible is the book with the plan for peace he is looking for. Spiritual ignorance comes from the fact that individuals do not know God, they do not know the Bible, they do not know Jesus. Sin darkens our understanding. Sin paralyzes our will. Sin sears the conscience. Sin defiles the heart.
The heart is unbelieving. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Heb. 3:12).
The heart is blind. Satan blinds the spiritual eyes of people. “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:4).
The heart is proud. God will not honor a proud heart. “A proud heart will not I suffer” (Psalm 101:4).
The heart is rebellious. “But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone” (Jer. 5:23).
The hear is idolatrous. We think of other things more than we think of God, even though the Divine commandment comes, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Some people spend more time with the television than they do with the Bible.
The heart is stony. ““A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
The heart is cold. “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12).
The heart is barren and hardened. The warning comes. ““Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness” (Heb. 3:8). Pharaoh had a hard heart. “And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go” (Exodus 7:14). Despite ten plagues, the heart of Pharaoh remained hard. The Bible says, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Prov. 29:1). There is a last time for every person who hardens their heart.
Since God has emotions and desires, He too has a heart. We have a heart because God has a heart and we are made in His own image. David was a man after “God’s own heart” (Acts 13;22).
Those who know the heart of God, and follow His heart, will be a blessing to the people of God. “And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer. 3:15).
Men may not know their own hearts, but God does. “He knows the secrets of the heart” (Psalm 44;21). Not only does the Lord know the secrets of the heart because of what He does with the heart. The Lord studies the heart. “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts” (Prov. 21:2). Literally, the Lord weighs the heart. He weighs the heart by the Ten Commandments. He weighs it by the Sermon on the Mount. He weighs it by The Great Law of Matthew 22:37. He weighs it by the Life of Christ. He weighs it by the teaching of Scripture on the way we ought to live.
There is one other important facet associated with the heart the Bible speaks about, and that is blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin (Heb. 9:22). The physical heart of Christ bled so that though His shed blood your spiritual heart and my heart can be cleansed of all sin.
Not only does the Lord study the heart, not only did Christ shed His blood to cleanse our spiritual hearts, but the Lord prepares the heart. The Lord prepares the heart for salvation by the many experiences of life. “the preparation of the heart in man is from the Lord (Prov. 16:21). Many experiences in life are terrible, but they prepare the heart to receive the Lord.
The Lord prepares the heart for salvation by opening the heart. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia, a seller of purple, to receive the gospel. She worshipped God, and then listened to Paul preach. The Divine record of her is that she was one “whose heart the Lord opened” (Acts 16:14).
The Lord prepares the heart by enlightening the spiritual eyes of understanding. “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18).
Without the enlightening, opening, and preparation of the heart, no one will be saved. Salvation is of the Lord.
While individuals receive the gift of God by faith, it is God who has sent Jesus to die. It is God who sends the Holy Spirit to convict the heart of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come. It is God who draws the heart to Calvary. It is God who gives the gift of faith to all who believe. It is God who gives the new heart, for the old heart will not do. God will give a heart of flesh. A heart that quivers when touched. ““A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
Have you received this new heart from God?
The question is not whether you have been baptized, confirmed, and are trying to live a good life. The question is this: “Have you been born again?”
You can be born again in this very hour by calling upon the name of the Lord. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).
