"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?" Jeremiah 17:9
How do we understand our heart? Right from day one it does its job beating blood around our bodies. But have you ever stopped to really think about it? When does it start beating? How much work does it actually do? And why is it that the Bible says that it cannot be cured?
Let’s go right back to the beginning. As the fetal heart develops by about the 5th week it has developed a steady, regular rhythm of its own. As it continues through different stages of development this rhythm ranges from 180 beats per minute down to 130 beats per minutes. By the time a baby enters the world its heart has already been beating about 52,000,000 times!!!
Wow, 52 million beats! That's a BIG number! Put another way, if you took one pace for each of those beats you would have walked around the world once!!! And that baby heart has only just entered into its life.
But stop and think, the very beginning was before this little baby entered into the world, and before its parents entered this world, and even before all the generations before that. Its beginning was way back when God created the heavens and the earth, and people.
Did you know, that in the very beginning our hearts were designed to beat forever? That was God’s intention when He created us. He designed for us to live for all eternity. He designed our hearts to beat for trillions and trillions of times, never ending.
But why does the Bible say that our hearts are deceitful? If I am a “good” person, how can my heart be bad?
Our “operating system”, our core thoughts and beliefs, the center of what we think is what determines who we are. Many times this core is called our “heart” or “heart of hearts”.
The human heart, our core, is wicked. From the day we are born until the day we die our hearts are self-centered and stubborn. The Bible tells us that as we think in our hearts that’s who we really are (Proverbs 23:7 KJV).
In the Bible verse above (Jer. 17:9) it can be seen that there is NO CURE. Then where is our hope?
It is God’s desire to give us a new heart, a new core operating system, so that we will live for others rather than living for ourselves..
“And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart.”
Ezekiel 11:19 NLT
Our HOPE is in Jesus! It is He who can and will give us a new heart (a new core operating system).
Jesus tells us that the very first thing we need to do is to seek His Kingdom and to be like God in character (Matthew 6:33). So why not ask God right now to give you a NEW tender and responsive heart, one that is open to His love? Why not tell God that you accept His free invitation into His Kingdom? Tell God that you accept His free offer of life that never ends, then ask Him to make your heart and character like that of Jesus!
Scott & Dan
