BASIC WORD NEEDING A PROPER HEART AND SPIRIT FOR THE CHURCH

NEEDING A PROPER HEART AND SPIRIT FOR THE CHURCH

Scripture Reading: Ezek. 36:26-27; Matt. 3:2; 5:3, 8; John 3:6; Mark 12:30; 2 Tim. 1:7; Eph. 3:16-17, 20-21; Rev. 1:10-12; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10

                                        NEEDING A NEW HEART AND A NEW SPIRIT

Ezekiel 36:26-27 says, “I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you.” This was God’s promise to the children of Israel, His called ones. They were distracted, but God called them back with a promise that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit. As God-created men they already had a heart and spirit, but because they were distracted, their heart and spirit became old. However, God would not give them up and came in to promise them a new start by giving them a new heart and a new spirit. We also need this new start today.

                      NEEDING A REPENTANT HEART AND A REGENERATED SPIRIT

The New Testament begins by speaking of our heart and our spirit. John the Baptist first preached the gospel in the New Testament by declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near” (Matt. 3:2). According to the Greek, to repent is to have a change in our mind or a turn in our thinking. The mind is the main part of the heart. Therefore, to repent is a matter of the heart. Our experience confirms this. The preaching of the gospel in the New Testament began with the heart.

A thoroughly repentant heart will become a new heart. Although God promised to give us a new heart, He does not take out our old heart and put in a new one like a surgeon performing a transplant. Because He is a God of life and is all-powerful, He gives us a new heart by transforming our heart. When we repent, something marvelous happens in our heart. We may feel that it is our doing when we say, “O God, I am utterly sinful. I am sorry. I repent before You. Please forgive me.” On one hand, this is our doing, but on the other hand, while we are repenting, the wonderful God gets into us and transforms our heart. We may not have any consciousness that God is doing this marvelous work, but soon after we repent to Him, we discover that our heart is changed. It was previously hardened, but after we repent, we find that it has been softened.

When I was a teenager, I was quite stubborn. I was as hard as a stone. No one could change me or subdue me, but one day I repented. While I was walking on the street after hearing a gospel message, I spoke to the heavens, saying, “God, I made a great mistake to not want You before. Now I want You. I love You. I repent for the past.” When I arrived home, I discovered that my heart had changed, for it was softened. My mother also noticed this change and marveled to see it. To be softened in our heart is a sign that we have truly repented. A softened heart is a transformed heart, a new heart.

Repentance is not something that only unbelievers need. We believers need to repent again and again. We may need to repent for not loving the Lord enough. Every time we repent, our heart will be more transformed and renewed. Repenting is like washing our hands—once is not enough. We need to repent all the time. In Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord repeatedly calls the churches to repent (2:5, 16, 21-22; 3:3, 19). We need to repent, because repentance is the best dose to heal our heart and the best way to regulate our heart. Repenting renews our heart.

After John the Baptist began to preach the gospel by calling men to repent in their heart, the Lord Jesus followed by teaching that we need to be born of the Spirit in our spirit (John 3:6). To repent in our heart is only the first step. Following repentance in our heart, we need to be reborn in our spirit. A proper, balanced man has a good heart and a proper spirit. A good heart is a repenting, renewed, softened heart, and a proper spirit is a spirit that is born again. Our spirit is born again when God as the Spirit enters into it to regenerate us with the divine life. When we repent, God comes in to touch our heart; when we believe in the Lord, God enters into our spirit to beget us with His life. It is marvelous to have our heart renewed to become a new heart, and it is wonderful to have our spirit reborn to become a new spirit. 

As human beings, we have a heart and a spirit. We have a heart so that we can exist, and we have a spirit because we are for God. The heart is adequate for us to exist because it includes our mind, which allows us to know and understand. However, we exist not for ourselves but for God. Therefore, we need a spirit. Every human being has these two organs—a heart and a spirit—but we need our heart and spirit to be made new. Even after being saved, we often have the feeling that we are wrong with ourselves. This means that we have a problem with our heart. When our heart is not right, we are wrong with ourselves. We also sometimes realize that we are not right with God. This means that we have a problem with God in our spirit.

A proper heart and a proper spirit are a new heart and a new spirit. We need to repent in order to have a new heart, and we need to believe into the Lord Jesus so that our spirit will be reborn to become a new spirit. God does not take away our old heart and replace it with a new one but transforms our old heart into a new one. In the same principle, He does not take away our old spirit and replace it with a new one. Instead, when we believe into the Lord, God as the Spirit comes into our spirit to beget our spirit by bringing His life element into our spirit. In this way, our old spirit becomes a new spirit. As believers, we have a new heart and a new spirit; this makes us proper persons.

                             NEEDING TO BE POOR IN SPIRIT AND PURE IN HEART

When the Lord was teaching His disciples on the mount, He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8), and, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens” (v. 3). To be poor in spirit does not mean to have a poor spirit but to not be filled with things other than God. We need a pure heart in order to see God, and we need a spirit that is emptied in order to receive the kingdom of the heavens. We need to be emptied in our spirit so that our spirit will have more capacity for God to come in.

As believers, we have been renewed in our heart and regenerated in our spirit, but we still need to purify our heart and be poor in spirit. To be pure in heart is to be single in our goal and aim. Our goal should be God alone. If we are aiming at anything other than God, our heart is not pure but complicated. We need to be simplified [340] in our heart by seeking after nothing but God. Even in our service and function in the church life, we should not have an intention to gain anything other than God Himself. If we are simplified to care only for God, our heart will be pure in whatever we do. For our Christian walk, we need to be pure in our heart, not having any goal besides God.