Message for
Ottosdal NMI on Sunday 17 June 2018
How does your heart look from the inside…? Who of you has
seen how your heart looks from the inside? These days the doctors often give
patients the opportunity to look into their own hearts when they do and
angiogram or a scope of the heart with a camera.
But I want you to stop this morning… To cut of your mind for
a moment, and allow the Lord to show you what the state of your heart is… We
need the Lord to discern our hearts, because Jeremiah 17:9 states clearly:
The heart is deceitful
above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 NIV
If I ask you straightforward today: How healthy is your heart? What
does the Lord show you about your heart? Do you get palpitations, or a fast heartrate
often? Does your heart feel weak? People
describing a heart attack would often say that they felt a big man that sits on
their ribcage…
Not long ago, the news reporter Suna Venter died of broken
heart syndrome. This is a medical condition, but it is a condition triggered by
events in your life that brings about serious pain and stress, in such away
that it daily affects your physical health. Yes, if we do introspection… if we
look into our hearts this morning, all of us would be able to see the evidence
of what stuff did to our hearts. The Bible is full of references to the
contents of our hearts, and not
necessarily our minds.
Matthew 15:19
For out of the heart come evil
thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
Luke 6:45
A good man brings good things out of the
good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil
stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
If you
looked down in your heart today, and you found stuff in there that is not good,
it is bad news, my friend… because Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart cannot be
healed. It is beyond cure. But
fortunately that is not where Jeremiah 17 ends. It goes on to say in Jeremiah
17:14:
14 Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise.
What a
statement of faith! Heal me, and I will be healed, save me, and I will be
saved… Man cannot heal your heart. The best doctor in the world is not able to
heal you from broken heart syndrome… There is no medicine for this. Even
anti-depressants won’t help. It would only prolong the pain until you
eventually die… But nothing is impossible for God. If we ask Him, He will heal
us! He will mend our broken hearts. In Ezekiel 36:26-27
26 I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and
give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you
to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
WOW! Are you willing to receive a new heart from God? God wants to
remove your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. He wants to pour his
Spirit in you, and MOVE YOU to follow his decrees and carefully keep his laws.
My friend Wikus said last week that God wants stubborn obedience from
us… I am still chewing on this tough toffee, but it is starting to make more
and more sense to me… God wants to move our hearts, to draw our hearts unto Him
and his love, so that we will follow his degrees stubbornly and in detail. And
THEN we will experience the overflowing life that He is promising… Therefore
loving God with all your heart, as the Great commandment in Matthew 22, is
explained by Solomon in the following way:
Proverbs 3:5-7
5 Trust in the Lord with all
your heart
and lean not on your own
understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will direct your paths
7 Do not be wise in your own
eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
Sometimes we need a heart to heart talk with somebody… what
does that mean? It means that we would not just assume that we know another
person’s heart. But that we will sit together, share our hearts and our deepest
emotions with one another. It will mean that we will become vulnerable to one
another and just have somebody to vent what is boiling within us.
Your heart to heart talks with friends are necessary, but it
should always start with God. Sitting with God daily and listening to his heart
for you. Sharing your heart with Him, and allowing Him daily to heal what the
evil one has broken. In Ps. 147:3 He promises it to us: “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.”
There is a saying that says: “An apple a day keeps the
doctor away…”. But what in your life keeps doctor Jesus away? What keeps you so
busy from really spending “heart to heart” time with Him. I have a lot of resources
that I can share with you if you really want to spend more and more time with
Him daily…
What can happen if we sit more and more at Jesus feet? We
can also discover more and more about our own unique heart. Yes, you heard
right. Everybody’s heartbeat graph contains a unique signature. God has planted
unique passions in your heart. You need to go and find it.
I would like to ask
Elzeth this morning to share her unique heart and passions with us…
(Hand out clay to everybody…) I want each of us to form a
heart of clay in his or her hands, and pray to the Lord, allowing him to
replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh. I want you to pull your
heart apart, and mould it together again, thinking of how the Satan often tries
to break our hearts, and how God is ready to heel our hearts, and bind up our
wounds.
I want to conclude today with the story of the farmer who
received a new heart. There is a story told of a Afrikaner farmer who was a
very harsh man. He had a heart of stone towards his workers. As he grew older,
he developed heart problems, and he got a heart attack. The heart attack did so
much damage that he had to receive a new heart. But the only heart that was
available at that stage, was the heart of a black person.
The farmer eventually chose to receive this heart rather
than dying. The transplant went well, and he recovered very well. As he got
back to the farm after a few weeks, he gave the kitchen worker a hug, saying
that he always wanted to do it, but never had the heart for it.
We know in this time
that our NATION AND OUR COUNTRY SOUTH AFRICA is in desperate need of a heart
transplant. May the Lord really touch our hearts and lives. May he take out
the hearts of stone, and replace it with hearts of flesh. My he stir and awaken
new passions within us, in order to make a difference wherever we go!
Amen!
