Good in Our Heart

Apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc.  There is a wide variety of fruit, and yet they all have one thing in common, they are meant to be enjoyed!  Our families taste buds enjoys strawberries more than any other fruit.  Unlike many foods that our children complain and grumble about, when strawberries are brought to the table everyone makes their excitement known.  God desires for us to bear fruit with our lives for the blessing and enjoyment of others as well.  The fruit of our lives will either leave a sweet or rotten taste in the mouths of others.  What type of fruit is your life producing?

READ: Luke 6:43-45

Although we are all born “bad apples”, it is possible for the fruit of our lives to change. A transformed heart where the Spirit of God dwells has a new supernatural ability to produce good fruit.  With God living inside of us we have a good heart, and a GOOD heart produces GOOD fruit!  Galatians 5:22 says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.”  When God dwells inside our hearts, when He is our treasure, our lives will overflow with righteousness that is designed for others to taste and enjoy.  What types of good fruit comes out of our lives as a result of having a good heart?  

READ: 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

Paul prays that God would establish the Thessalonian’s hearts.  The word “establish” means to cause someone to become stronger in the sense of being more firm or unchanging.  It’s like anchoring a fence post in the ground with cement so that it can’t move.  God is at work establishing our hearts for two specific purposes . . .

A God-established heart produces good WORKS (2 Thes. 2:17) – Most of us are not fans of work.  Work is exhausting, boring, tedious, and hard.  And yet, God create us to work (Gen. 2:15).  One significant purpose of our lives is doing work that not only benefits us but others as well.  Bearing the fruit of good works is hard, and yet, God is the one who gives us the strength to do this work day after day after day.  Titus 3:8, 14 says that we are to, “devote (ourselves) to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people . . . so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful”.  Our lives produce good fruit when we do something that profits someone else. Our lives produce good fruit when do something to helps satisfy a need in someone else’s life.  Such good works require the hard work of self-sacrifice, unselfishness, and humility, but the God who dwells in our heart will give us all the strength and endurance we need to do them and continue doing them!

A God-established heart produces good WORDS (2 Thes. 2:17) – According to James 3:10 our tongue has unlimited potential to bless or curse others. We all know and understand that our words set the tone of our relationships with others.  Bearing the fruit of good words will bring encouragement, inspiration, and joy to those who hear.  Ephesians 4:29 says, “let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  In any and every situation we are in, we must be careful to use our words for the purpose of building others up and never tearing them down.  God wants to speak good through you into the lives of others, He can’t do it when our words are rotten.

CONCLUSION
Luke 8:15 says, “as for that in the good soil, they are those who, heart the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.”   Those whose hearts have received the word of God, those whom have received a spiritual heart transplant, those in whom the Spirit of God dwells, will bear good fruit with their lives.  It will be natural outgrowth of who we are.  In Christ, we are no longer bad trees who can only bear bad fruit, we are good trees who bear good fruit.  Goodness is one of the marks of a changed life.  And the fruit of a changed life will have a deep impact on the lives of all those around them.  What good godly fruit are you bearing in life that puts your good heart on display?

God Dwells In Our Heart

My wife Marianne and I adopted our daughter Sarah from Guatemala.  Sarah was born to a single mother who did not have the physical or financial stability to raise her.  Her mother gave her up and she was placed in an orphanage called Eagle’s Nest after she was born in Solola, Guatemala.  She lived at Eagle’s Nest for 10 months before we were able to bring her home July of 2008.  Before Sarah was adopted, she was in the vulnerable position of being without the provision and protection of a mother or father.  If we had not pursued and adopted Sarah, she would not have been part of a family and vulnerable to much suffering and difficulty.

READ: Galatians 4:3-7

God dwells inside the hearts of all those who are His ADOPTED children!  Aren’t all human beings God’s children?  The answer is NO!  By sin, we all have chosen to walk out on our Creator’s provision and protection and made ourselves spiritual orphans; helpless, hopeless, and vulnerable to the wrath of God.  Ephesians 2:1-2 says, “(we) were dead in our trespasses and sins, . . . and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”  While in such vulnerable circumstances, it was not us who pursued God, it was God who pursued us by sending His Son to redeem us from slavery to sin and adopt us into His family.  What happens to those who have been adopted as God’s children? 

God’s adopted children are given the Holy Spirt by which we are able to call God “FATHER” (Gal. 4:6) – Sarah has been in our home now for 7 years.  During those years she has come to think and know of us as dad and mom.  When she wants to talk to us, tell us something, or get our attention she calls us “mommy” and “daddy”.  Does that make any sense?  Why would she do that?  She thinks of us, looks at us, and calls us father and mother because we pursued her at the most vulnerable moment in her life and adopted her and made her a permanent member of our family.  As a result of our adoption of Sarah, she has a sure place in her heart by which she knows us as her mother and father.  At the moment when we were most vulnerable, God sent His Son Jesus Christ for the purpose of adopting us and making us a permanent member of His family.  As a result of our adoption by God, we are given the Holy Spirit by which we have the supernatural desire and ability to know that God is our Father and we are His children!

God’s adopted children are HEIRS to the same INHERITANCE as His Son Jesus Christ (Gal. 4:7) – Sarah is privileged to the best of everything Marianne and I possess.  She is ours and we will give to her every material and spiritual blessing that we are capable of as parents.  Each and every one of our children, because of their relationship with us as our sons and daughters have special rights to everything that Marianne and I possess.  Whatever inheritance that Marianne and I have to give is reserved for OUR heirs who are OUR children.  Jesus Christ is God’s Son and therefore an heir, and we too, as adopted sons and daughters of God are heirs as well.  Romans 8:17 says, “the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”  According to 1 Peter 1:4 as heirs we have hope in an eternal inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept for (us) in heaven!”

CONCLUSION
In Ephesians 3:14-19 Paul prays that, “according to the riches of (God’s) glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith . . . to comprehend . . . what is the breadth and the length and the height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”  When we are adopted, we know we are loved!  When God is our Father, we will have a strong sense inside of us that we are important and valuable, no longer hopeless, helpless, and vulnerable.  Have you accepted God's invitation to adopt you into His family?  Do you KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves you and that He is your Heavenly Father?  If not, it’s time to put your faith in Jesus Christ and become a child of God!

God Transforms Our Heart

My wife Marianne has an uncle who was born with a life threatening heart condition that doctors didn’t believe would allow him to live past 2 years old.  At the age of 48 he received a heart transplant.  As a result of someone’s death, Marianne’s uncle’s diseased heart was replaced with a new healthy heart and he is still alive today at the age of 71.  It was a new heart that allowed Marianne’s uncle to avoid death and experience life.

We all have an eternal-life threatening heart condition called sin.  Our only hope to escape death is a supernatural heart transplant.  We need someone to die in order that we might obtain a new spiritually and eternally healthy heart.  The good news is that God is a spiritual cardiologist!  Nearly 600 years before Jesus was born God made His spiritual surgical plans known through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel to the nation of Israel.

READ: Jeremiah 31:31, 33; Ezekiel 36:26-27

God transforms our lives by removing our OLD heart and giving us a NEW heart!  The new covenant God promised to us through the prophets was nothing less than a spiritual heart transplant!  Jesus Christ, who loved and obeyed God perfectly, exchanged His perfect heart for our sinful heart when He died on the cross.  How do we get a spiritual heart transplant and what happens when we get a new heart?  In describing the post heart transplant of the Corinthians who had believed in Jesus Christ Paul wrote in . . .

READ:  2 Corinthians 3:3-18

God transforms us by putting His SPIRIT in our heart (2 Cor. 3:3, 6, 8) – Have you ever struggled with wanting to do what God wanted you to do?  What about wanting to want to do what God wants you to do?  By placing His Spirit into our hearts God miraculously replaces our old sinful wants and desire with His wants and desires.  It is God’s Spirit dwelling inside our hearts that gives us new thoughts, new attitudes, new intentions, new motivations, new words, and new actions.  Without God’s Spirit in our hearts, we will continue in a life of unforgiven sin.  This transformation happens, “when one turns to the Lord”.  At the moment we repent of the sin in our heart and put faith in Jesus Christ, God does His surgical work of removing our diseased heart of sin through forgiveness and putting His Spirit into our hearts.

God transforms us into the GLORY of the image of JESUS CHRIST (2 Cor. 3:16-18) – Just as a dimmer switch can increase the brightness of a lightbulb in order to illuminate a room, God is working in our hearts to increase the “brightness” of His image in our lives in order to illuminate the world.  Amazingly, the “brightness” of our lives has the divine potential to be greater than the sun.  How?  Romans 8:28 says that, “those whom He foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son”.  Our maximum brightness are the very thoughts, attitudes, intentions, motivations, words, and actions of Jesus Christ Himself!  As a result of giving us a new heart, little by little, one characteristic at a time, God gradually increases the brightness of Christlikeness that comes out of lives.   In ever increasing amounts, our lives should reflect more and more of the thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions of Jesus Christ.  

CONCLUSION
2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”   The God of the universe, who created light, wants the light of His glory to dwell inside of us. Without Him in our lives, we have no other choice but to be darkness.  A transformed heart starts with a belief in the light of Jesus Christ (John 1:1-5, 9-14). Have you allowed the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to shine in your life?  God’s glory shone most brightly through Jesus Christ on the cross.  The reason Jesus died was to forgive our sins, but also so that God could transplant His righteous heart for our sinful heart so that we might shine like the Son (pun intended)!