The biggest struggle for most people is not the devil. I know we hear people say: the devil made me do it. Don’t give him any credit because he has no power to decide for you. If you struggle with something, you got there through the decisions and choices you made.
In the book of Proverbs Solomon makes a profound statement:
- For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
The heart is the origin and issue of what most people struggle with. Did you know that your heart and thoughts are closely related and in some scriptures it refers to the same thing.
What is in your heart will influence your thoughts and what is in your thoughts will captivate your heart. Solomon goes even further with this statement he makes about your heart.
- Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
What he is saying is simply that your issues started with your heart. Not the person that did you wrong, not the circumstances that did not work out, no it starts in your heart. In short: We all have issues and it starts in our heart, which are influenced by the way we think. We all struggle with stinking thinking.
Most of what we deal today in our country is the issues of men’s hearts and what they think about it. Why is abortion an issue? Why is LGBTQ an issue? It is because it is coming from the heart of men who has not renewed their thinking. They take issue with the Word of God.
Look at what Jesus says:
Mark 7:20-23 And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Jesus makes it clear that the heart is the issue and what is in the heart, is what is defiling man. The first thing He mentions of the thirteen things that defiles us are: evil thoughts. It almost sounds like he is looking at all the things we are dealing with today. He then identifies not only what is defiling man but why it is defiling man. It is not what is coming at you but what is coming out of you that defiles you.
When God destroyed the earth in Noah’s day the reason why God did it was:
- And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
The sin in Noah’s day was not what they did, but because the mind of man was continually evil!
Can you see the problem? We deal with people every day of our lives and the issue is their heart, not their sin. The sin is the manifestation of their hearts. Lying, fornication, abortion, homosexuality or any other sin is a heart issue.
How do we deal with the heart of people? Jesus says that He came to heal the broken hearted – Luke 4:17.
I want to suggest something. Unless we learn how to get to the heart of people, we will not change a generation. The Church today are more concerned about entertaining the hearts of men than changing the hearts of men. Call me old school but I cannot sit by and watch people God loves living a lie thinking they are okay.
The only thing that can reach the heart of man is the Gospel. No training or counseling or anything else can change people’s heart, only God can.
We must get back to speaking the truth. We are not called to win a popularity contest. We are called to set people free.
