I don’t understand how people could ever think that the mind is wicked and only ever thinking evil. Why would God, first of all, want to make such a wicked and evil heart and, secondly, why would he then love mankind within whom such a heart abides? For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).
Let us look at the scriptures to understand what God really thinks about our heart and mind.
We are directed to love God with all our heart The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. "And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31). We must ask that if our heart were wicked how could we love God with it?
“Delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart Ps 37:4. Why, if the heart were wicked, would God say that He would give you the desires of your heart? If the heart were evil then such desires would also be evil.
We have the choice to walk in the way of God or not, however we can grieve or quench the Spirit of God by not yielding to its promptings: This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should not walk from now on as other nations walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. For they, being past feeling, have given themselves up to lust, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and were taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus. For you ought to put off the old man (according to your way of living before) who is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And you should put on the new man, who according to God was created in righteousness and true holiness. Therefore putting away lying, let each man speak truth with his neighbour, for we are members of one another. Be angry, and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the Devil. Let him who stole steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, so that he may have something to give to him who needs. Let not any filthy word go out of your mouth, but if any is good to building up in respect of need, that it may give grace to the ones hearing. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed until the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and tumult and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. (Eph 4:17-32)
We are told to be tender hearted, to choose to allow the Spirit to guide us and direct our choices and to help us to love God.
God Tests the Heart
“Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” (Matt 5:8) If we are created by God with a deceitful heart and wicked human nature how can our heart be pure?
Again if we are inherently wicked what is the purpose of God testing us by searching our heart? “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” (Deut 8: 2). God tests us, as he did Israel, to see what is in our heart, he therefore doesn’t know what’s in our hearts, for our hearts can be good or evil depending on our choice.
God wants us to obey him from our heart. If we think our heart is wicked then we are undermining the foundation that God is building upon. You have the capacity to do good, and to do evil, this affects your heart and that is what God is testing when he puts you through various trials.
Indeed God will may even test you by false prophecy and miracles: “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods' -- which you have not known -- 'and let us serve them’, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.” (Deut 13:1-5).
God is always interested in our heart. He did not make it wicked or deceitful; he made it capable of loving him, if we choose to love him. But we must not be slack “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren” (Deut 4:9). It’s clear from this and other scriptures that laziness is just as evil as outright rebellion, and reaps the same reward. Compare the parable of the virgins with that of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, you will see that both the ‘foolish’ virgins were locked out of the kingdom as were those who did not assist people in need.
God made us, including our hearts, and he did not make them wicked. Indeed if you look at Genesis 1:31 after He had made man and woman it tells us that God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. This very good could be translated as exceedingly good. It doesn’t say ‘except for man’s heart- that was deceitful and desperately wicked’. God has made us able to choose between good and evil, and He commands us to choose to do good.
God puts before us the things that will test our hearts, and therefore this testing demonstrates what this ‘human nature’ is which God put in us - it is the ability to choose right from wrong. No animal has this type of ‘nature’, they cannot choose right and wrong they are guided by instinct. They can be trained and we can choose to breed those with ‘nice’ natures, but they can’t seem to change in the way that we can.
The Man After Gods Own Heart
God has always worked with people, and tested their heart to see if they will follow him or not. It is a process that God is going through with Man. God has not finished our creation, for as we live He is working on us to create in us a clean heart, as David asked God to do for him in Psalm 51:10. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
The following scripture provides a summary of the role we have in determining if we have a good and clean heart or not. These scriptures are taken from the time of Abraham then Saul, David, Hezekiah and Josiah. They show what God wants from us in relation to our heart.
"You are the Lord God, Who chose Abram, and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him the name Abraham; You found his heart faithful before You, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites.” (Neh 9:7-8). Once God had seen that Abram chose to have a faithful heart, then he made a covenant with him. We can make the same choice, and turn our hear to God also. Yet there are some things that we should be careful not to do or they could turn our heart away from God:
"Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.” (Deut 17:17-20)
While God can help us, the choice to follow Him is ultimately ours: “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live ... But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.” (Deut 30: 6, 17-18)
The example of the first two Kings of Israel clearly show that we have a choice to obey or not, and this is a reflection of the attitude of our heart: “And Samuel said to Saul, "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you." 1 Sam 13:13-14)
“Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, 'You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.'” (1 Kings 9: 4-5)
Solomon, although given great wisdom by God, nonetheless chose to allow his heart to be turned away from God: “And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. (1 Kings 11:3-4)
We need to prepare our heart, it is not something that happens naturally: “So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 12:13-14).
God expects us to follow the examples of the good Kings, who had loyal and true hearts: “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in Your sight." (2 Kings 20:3)
“Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.” (2 Kings 23:25).
Next month we wil continue to examine Loving God with all our Heart and explore w
hat our responsibility is in how we love God.
