When we think about proving our change of character to possess God’s character, we think about getting it to the heart level. This daily devotional looks at what does that means.
Nuggets
- A changed heart proves that our salvation is genuine.
- Our inward change of heart comes through regeneration and sanctification.
- Our outward change of heart comes through our following God’s laws and commandments in our daily lives.
- We need to discern right from wrong and be remorseful when we sin.
- The change in motives and habits prove that salvation has gotten to the heart level.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in The Test of Character series
During the past year in our redo for godliness, we determined that what was needed was a change in character.
I found a a sermon by Hall that talked about how Christianity is a test of character. We talked about Christianity in the last devotion.
In this devotion, we will be looking at the heart.
The headings are the words of Hall.
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Let's Put It into Context
Here are the nuggets for this series.
- Loving Jesus means we prove that by loving truth.
The gospel is a test of men’s hearts as affected with regard to God.
A changed heart proves that our salvation is genuine.
God’s salvation changes us completely. We go from following the worldview to following Godview.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
It is more than just a change of lifestyle. It is a change of heart. We’ve been calling this getting it down to the heart level.
Only through getting it down to the heart can we show God that we are genuine in our confession. Let’s break apart what Ezekiel had to say to decide what that looks like.
Inward Regeneration
“that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5: 26-27 ESV)
Our inward change of heart comes through regeneration and sanctification.
We just talked about being changed from spirituality dead to spiritually alive as a result of salvation. The churchy word for that process is regeneration.
Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Glossary
It really isn’t a process. It happens instantaneously.
The process of changing our character is sanctification. And boy howdy, is that a process.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
o Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
o Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
Glossary
Outward Regeneration
Our outward change of heart comes through our following God’s laws and commandments in our daily lives.
Worldview people think the regeneration and sanctification should only be about the outward work. They think it should only be about what they see — the change of our interactions with others.
It’s not.
Breay put it this was. He wrote, “Man is often content with outward reformation, but the Lord goes to the seat of the evil. The heart of man is hard by nature.”
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It isn’t about our relationship with others. It is about our relationship with God.
This relationship with God does have an outward representation. We call it walking in the Spirit.
To read devotions in the Walk in the Spirit series, click the appropriate button below.
Walking in the Spirit means we follow God in all that He tells us. We set our hearts to obeying Him.
We have to show that we want to obey God’s laws and commandments. We have to show that we want to give up sinful things.
Does that mean we will never sin again? Nope. We are still human.
When we sin, we ask forgiveness and seek God to do a better job at obeying Him.
A fourth respect in which the gospel is a test of your character is whether you are true, or not, to your own interest; whether you have wisdom to choose the right relief for your misery, the proper supply for your wants.
“ … I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ez. 36: 26 CSB)
We need to discern right from wrong and be remorseful when we sin.
I am going to skip one of Hall’s comments for now and look at it in the next devotion. I am doing this because I feel this one works with the second part of Ezekiel’s verse.
When we are regenerated, God takes our old heart that was full of sinfulness and gives us a new heart. I never quite heard it expressed as Ezekiel did, though.
Why would God give us a heart of flesh? The flesh is our human, sinful nature.
I like Spurgeon’s explanation of that. He wrote,
“It means a heart that can feel on account of sin — a heart that can bleed when the arrows of God stick fast in it; it means a heart that can yield when the Gospel makes its attacks — a heart that can be impressed when the seal of God’s word comes upon it; it means a heart that is warm, for life is warm — a heart that can think, a heart that can aspire, a heart that can love — putting all in one, — a heart of flesh means that new heart and right spirit which God giveth to the regenerate.”
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My first thought when I read this and coupled it with what Hall wrote, which I used for the heading, was discernment. Discernment means we can evaluate the situation and recognize right from wrong.
Spurgeon took discernment to the next level, though. Instead of just knowing this is right and that is wrong, we hurt when we do wrong. We mourn because we are out of God’s Will.
What I think Hall was really saying was we are feeling this way because we have made God’s interest our own interest. We have taken it to the heart level.
Making the Connections
It isn’t about works. It isn’t about things we do or don’t do.
It is about what God does for us.
That circles us back around to what Hall said. He wrote, “The gospel is a test of men’s hearts as affected with regard to God.”
We talked in the last devotion that loving Jesus means we prove that by loving truth. The truth is what the gospel is all about — Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection to pay the penalty for our sins.
We gain the redemptive power by accepting God’s Plan of Salvation. Being obedient to His Will is what we have to get to the heart level.
We can’t get it to the heart level by ourselves. That must be a God thing. Only He can do that.
Yes, that takes a lot. Breay wrote, “When the heart of stone is changed to a heart of flesh, there is a total alteration both in the motives and habits of a man.”
The change in motives and habits prove that salvation has gotten to the heart level.
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How Do We Apply This?
• Grieve over our sin
• Pray for strength to resist temptation
• Align our motives and habits with God’s laws and commandments.
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Father God. We want our salvation to get to the heart level. We want the world to see by our motives and habits that we believe in Your laws and commandments. Amen.
What do you think?
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