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Searching and Transforming the Heart

For Fapstronauts who are disciples of Christ

  1. XandeXIV

    XandeXIV Fapstronaut

    I often bring up in my posts about how in our battle against PMO and all sin that it comes down to having our hearts transformed by God so that they become more like His. It is a topic I spend a lot of time thinking and meditating about.

    A long time ago I asked myself “how do I let God change my heart?” and decided to start collecting Bible verses on this very topic. I have decided to share my notes on this topic for the benefit of everybody here. I may update this from time-to-time, and contributions are of course welcome.

    In my own notes I actually note down entire passages because I like to keep things in context. But where those passages are quite long I just post one or two relevant points in italics but encourage you to read the wider context.

    I also break it down into various sections:
    • The problem:
      • The heart is what defiles us
      • Therefore it is the heart that must be ‘circumcised’ to be made right with God
    • How God solves it:
      • God knows the heart (and therefore whether it is defiled or circumcised)
      • God searches the heart through testing
      • God is the one changing you
      • Starting with Jesus’ sacrifice
      • God uses trials to transform us
    • But we still have a role to play:
      • Seek God with all your heart
      • Through his word / law and store it on your heart
      • Obey God with all your heart
      • By faith
      • Acknowledge your brokenness
      • Rend your hearts / return to God
      • Guard your hearts
      • Love comes from a pure heart
    1. The Problem

    The heart is what defiles us

    Proverbs 21:4: Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin.

    Isaiah 29:13: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.

    Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

    Matthew 15:10-20: 11 - “ What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”.... 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

    Therefore it is the heart that must be ‘circumcised’ to be made right with God:

    Deuteronomy 10:12-16:
    16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

    Deuteronomy 30:6:
    And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

    Jeremiah 4:3-4:
    3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. 4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”

    Acts 7:51:
    "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

    Romans 2:25-29:
    “28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.”

    2. How God Solves The Problem

    God knows the heart (and therefore whether it is defiled or circumcised)

    1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

    1 Kings 8:37-40: "If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers.

    1 Chronicles 28:9 “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.

    Psalm 139: (Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart)

    Proverbs 21:2: Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

    Jeremiah 17:10: “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

    Mark 16:13-16: 15 [Jesus] said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

    Acts 15:8-9: 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to [the gentiles], by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

    Romans 8:27: 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

    Hebrews 4:12-13: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

    God searches the heart through testing:

    Deuteronomy 8:2: And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

    1 Chronicles 29:17: I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness.

    2 Chronicles 32:31: And so in the matter of the envoys of the princes of Babylon, who had been sent to him to inquire about the sign that had been done in the land, God left him to himself, in order to test him and to know all that was in his heart.

    God is the one changing you

    Deuteronomy 30:6: And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

    1 Kings 8:57-58: The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us, that He may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his rules, which he commanded our fathers.

    1 Chronicles 29:18-19: 18 O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you. 19 Grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision.” (David prays)

    Psalm 51:6: Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

    Psalm 51:10-12: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

    Ezekiel 36: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

    Jeremiah 31:31‭-‬34: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord : I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”

    Acts 15:8-9: 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to [the gentiles], by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

    2 Corinthians 3:12-18: 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

    Ephesians 1:15-21: 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints

    Philippians 1:4-6: Always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

    2 Thessalonians: 3:5 May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

    Starting with Jesus’ sacrifice

    Hebrews 9:13-14: For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

    Hebrews 10:22: Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

    God uses trials to transform us:

    Romans 8:26-30: 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

    Romans 12:1-2: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    James 1:2-4: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

    3. We Still Have a Role to Play:

    Acknowledge your brokenness:

    1 Kings 8:37-40: "If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers.

    Seek God with all your heart:

    Joshua 24:23: He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

    2 Chronicles 19:3: Nevertheless, some good is found in you, for you destroyed the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek God. (Jehu to Jehosaphat, king of Judah)

    Jeremiah 29:10-14: 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

    Seek God through His word / law and store it on your heart:

    Deuteronomy 11: 16-18: 118 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."

    Psalm 40:6-8: In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, "Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

    Obey God with all your heart:

    Deuteronomy 30: 1-6: 1 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul."

    Joshua 22:5: Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

    Have faith:


    Acts 15:8-9: 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to [the gentiles], by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

    Give glory to God to grow in faith:

    Romans 4:20-22: 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

    Rend your hearts / return to God:

    Joel 2:12‭-‬13 "Yet even now," declares the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

    Guard your hearts

    Deuteronomy 11: 16-18: 16 Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;

    Proverbs 4:23: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

    Love comes from a pure heart

    1 Timothy 1:5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2021
    Faithe, redplanetpower and Tao Jones like this.
  2. This is a great way to store up the Truth of Christ to use to defend against the lies of the enemy when they enter your thinking. Awesome stuff!
     
    XandeXIV likes this.

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