A Heart Transplant
Metamorphosis (n.) Comes from the Greek words Meta (change) + morphe (shape)
Does following God ever sound like drudgery to you? What are your deepest desires?
Has anyone ever used shame or coercion to try and make you hunger for God or sculpt you into the image of Jesus?
How is that working out for you?
The flaw in trying to make you feel awful in order to motivate you to obedience is that it will never kick your butt into joy filled actions for God!
Beware of what is not a work of the Spirit but of the flesh. The source is important.
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.- John 6:63
I gave up on preachers that talk down to build up. Shaming is not conviction, although I use to confuse the two.
Nothing can transform our hearts like God’s grace has the power to do!
Feeling awful might look like it will motivate, but it lacks empowerment of God’s Spirit and our new hearts are not being brought in to the equation. It tugs on the flesh to “try harder” while a work of the Spirit of God in us responds to God’s kindness and love:
“For Christ’s love compels us” – 1 Corinthians 5:14a
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” –Romans 2:4
“Wait a second…. do you mean to say God’s love and kindness are the things I need to hear about more often? Doesn’t that make Christian living too easy?! Won’t that just make people give up trying hard? We don’t want people to follow God and do whatever they want.”
Although this might sound like a call to holiness it completely denies the power and work of the Holy Spirit. If you have the Spirit of God living in you, your desires will change!
And any true believer does have the Holy Spirit at work in them.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,they do not belong to Christ. –Romans 8:9
That is why Augustine said “Love God and do as you please!”
The psalmists put it this way:
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. –Psalm 37:4
Have you heard that your heart is “deceitfully wicked”? Have you ever heard that you can’t trust the desires of your heart?
These people want you to think the real you is your flesh and treat yourself as if this wasn’t true:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! –2 Corinthians 5:17
Remember who you are.
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7a
How do you see yourself? You are not the same person if you have turned from your old self and given your life to God! This new life you have been given is Christ living in you…
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
Do you see yourself as beloved? This is your true identity. This new rebirth means you have a new heart with new desires, and a new mind.
16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. –1 Corinthians 2:16
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. –Ezekiel 11:19
When we are taught that “the heart is deceitful and wicked” over and over and asked to not trust anything within us it is problematic because if we are born again God’s Spirit lives within us.
Avoid believing those who are trying to teach you to see yourself (and talk to you) as though you were unregenerate.
Watch out when the reality of a Spirit filled life is omitted, where God says he gives us not only new hearts but the “mind of Christ” along with God’s very powerful Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead that now dwells within us.
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. – Romans 8:11
It is easier for people to resort to enticing “flesh obedience” (shame motivated and rule based) rather than trusting God (love motivated and Holy Spirit driven), to stir in us both the desire and enabling to do His will.
So beware of those who don’t teach about what God has done in you but gear you towards a laundry list of “works”. They teach a lot about “to-do”‘s and stick your attention on you rather than on God.
Our flesh desires to take credit. We don’t want full dependence. We can handle part us and part God, but fully God?!
Or as C.S. Lewis puts it: “Our problem is not entrusting God, it is entrusting God alone.”
In John chapter 6
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Vs.29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” –John 6:28-29
Their words said so much!
Must & require….
*We* & “Do”….
It’s not about a “must”… or a “requires”…Talk about drudgery. It’s actually a joy, but I will get back to that.
Faith is not about a “what”, it’s about a WHO.
Their word “we” put it on themselves. “DO” was their actions.
They said “works“… plural.
He had only one work- trusting in God! (That is believing/ having faith in Jesus.)
A little too simple is actually too hard for some! It wasn’t about them. He took the attention off “we” and put it all on Jesus.
How can a thief on the cross get into heaven just by believing in Jesus without having to put in a good effort with his life? This offends our senses! Our pride is offended.
Now getting back to the “must”.
Let me tell you a little secret about the yoke God asked you to take up: He said it was easy.
Wait for it—
Easy *and* light. (Matthew 11:29-30)
Let me tell you another of the devils best kept secrets:
The desire to do the will of God is not something to “work up” but something “to fall back on”.
Doing “whatever you want” is not a scary thing when you believe God has transformed your deepest longings.
If you know God, you have been given a heart transplant.
God transforms what is our rightful obligations into what is our innate enjoyment.
I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. Jeremiah 24:7a
I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. Jeremiah 32:40b
God will give…
God will give… let me say it one more time….
God will give.
for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. – Philippians 2:13
“He gives us new desires and that only he can satisfy.
God’s will is designed to delight the taste buds of our new nature.
God has made His glory and our satisfaction to be synchronized with one another.
Obedience in this final analysis, is the glutting of our new nature.”
~ Dwight Edwards
“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. … If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
~ C.S. Lewis
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
~ Jesus (John 6:35)
for he satisfies the thirsty, and fills the hungry with good things. –Psalm 107:9
berean thinking 