This morning, we’re continuing our message series, “Align.” Throughout this series, we’re learning how to position ourselves to get back into alignment with God. This enables us to live our lives to their fullest potential and not to miss out on anything that God has for us.
Last week, we learned about the first step required, which is humility. Humility: it’s all God, not me. We begin by positioning ourselves in surrender to God wholly and fully.
We were cautioned with a reminder that all that we receive is from God and not from His word alone. It is in God’s Presence that we receive anything from Him. His word is simply a reminder of who God is, who we are, and what is available to us. It serves as a sign pointing and directing and instructing us to go TO the Lord.
We’re not interested in God’s word alone, which leads us to a spirit of religion. We read and study and memorize and meditate on God’s word in pursuit of the Living word of God, Jesus, and a desire for a greater infilling of the author of the word; the Holy Spirit as they bring us straight into the throne room of the Father. This requires relationship.
Humility is the first requirement to position us into correct alignment with God. Next:
Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
We must position our hearts into alignment with His.
Most of us are familiar with the account of when Samuel went along with the Lord searching out the second king over Israel. The Lord spoke to Samuel and taught him to:
1 Samuel 16:7
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Jesus was being challenged about He and His disciples not following some of the Hebrew traditions. Jesus quoted Isaiah 29 and said:
Matthew 15:7-9
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’”
How were the people misaligned? Their hearts were not in the right place.
How often do we make this statement and probably lie while saying it? Somebody says something really rude and offensive and we excuse it away saying, “I’m sure that they didn’t mean it that way. Their heart is in the right place.”? After all, Jesus said that:
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.
What comes out of our mouths when emotions are running high might surprise everyone around us. It might even surprise ourselves. However, it is not the emotions or circumstances that were at fault when this happens to us. They simply revealed what was already hiding within our hearts.
Oh, and do we ever need some work done in our hearts!?!?
We need more than just some work on our hearts; we need new ones!
God has promised:
Ezekiel 11:19
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 18:31
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit.
Ezekiel 36:26
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.
In fact, Ezekiel also provides us insight into the fall of Satan and guess where his downfall began?
Ezekiel 28:17
Your heart became proud
on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
I made a spectacle of you before kings.
Pride instead of humility and a heart hardened; no longer positioned as clay in the hands of the Potter.
Our hearts are the source of our lives which impacts our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. If our hearts aren’t positioned correctly before God, they will lead us astray!
The world tells us to follow our hearts, but the Bible teaches us that:
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Our hearts are the source of our lives. When we pray in the Spirit, what is it that the Holy Spirit looks to in order to intercede on our behalf? Our hearts!
Romans 8:26-27
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27 (TPT)
26 And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower us in our weakness. For example, at times we don’t even know how to pray, or know the best things to ask for. But the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super-intercede on our behalf, pleading to God with emotional sighs too deep for words.
27 God, the searcher of the heart, knows fully our longings, yet he also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, his holy ones, in perfect harmony with God’s plan and our destiny.
Jeremiah 17:10
“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
Revelation 2:23
…Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
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.”
What is it that the Lord hardened so that Pharoah, king of Egypt, would not allow God’s people to go and worship Him? His heart!
Having a hardened heart makes us do some pretty crazy things! It clouds our minds with our emotions. It darkens our perspectives. It causes us to reinterpret our reality.
A hardened heart rises us up against God in rebellion.
A softened heart positions us to receive from God.
Jesus explained why He spoke in parables by quoting Isaiah 6:
Matthew 13:13-15
13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.’
A calloused heart. Callouses do not just show up one day. No, they form over time and by having pressure applied to areas. Typically, they show up on our hands and feet. The skin thickens and hardens as a way to protect us. They cause us to lose sensitivity and feeling in those areas as a result.
That hardened, calloused skin isn’t flexible or elastic. When it inevitably cracks open, it is extremely painful and dangerous because they are very prone to become infected. That hardened skin must be removed and softened before healing can take place.
So it is with our hearts. As we face difficult situations or deal with abrasive people, our hearts begin to become calloused as a way to protect ourselves. That temporary protection becomes our downfall preventing our hurts from healing. That hardness separates us not only from those who hurt us relationally, but also separates us from receiving healing from the Lord because that can also only happen relationally.
There is no healing for a hardened heart, it must be replaced. Thankfully, the transplant list is very short in the Kingdom of God. He already has our new hearts ready and waiting for us to turn to Him, the Great Physician, to perform the replacement.
The symptom that Jesus calls out a few times of having a hardened heart is the lack of understanding. This lack of understanding also causes us not to receive from God what is ours. We miss out on miracles because we are too narrow-minded and narrow-focused on our immediate needs and task lists. This is nothing new for a disciple of Jesus, unfortunately!
Mark 8:14-21
14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15 “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
16 They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”
17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they replied.
20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
They answered, “Seven.”
21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
Yeah, they still didn’t understand… Their hearts were still hardened…
They were still worrying that the one loaf of bread that they had wasn’t going to be enough for the twelve-ish people to eat. Even though 5 loaves fed 5,000 people with 12 baskets left over. Even though 7 loaves fed 4,000 people with 7 baskets left over. Somehow they were still worried that 1 loaf was not going to be enough for twelve-ish people.
Jesus was trying to provide warning about spiritual things, but His disciple’s minds were still set on earthly things. Their hearts were hardened. This caused them to have eyes that didn’t see and ears that didn’t hear and minds that were very forgetful. They completely missed Jesus’ warning about the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.
They were not positioned to receive from Jesus; they were missing it. They just didn’t get it; they weren’t understanding. They remembered the facts, but forgot the truth.
Their hardened hearts were causing things to be out of alignment for them. They were physically there with Jesus. They were active parts of a miracle flowing from Heaven to people. The same miraculous provision of bread happened twice through their very own hands. They literally were physically handing out bread to thousands of people from just a few loaves of bread because the true source of bread is Jesus, the Living Bread of Life.
Then, just days later, their thoughts are consumed with concern because they set sail on a boat with Jesus and only grabbed one loaf of bread for the trip. Seriously?!?! Oh, what madness can come from a hardened heart!
How often do we miss the miracles happening in our lives or quickly forget them because of the hardness of our hearts? How often does Jesus pour out revelation and warnings and wisdom and it never makes it into our lives because of the hardness of our hearts?
It’s like water being poured out onto a river rock. It just washes over it and never even comes close to penetrating it. The rock gets wet for a few moments, but remains unchanged. So it is with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and us if our hearts remain hardened.
Proverbs 28:14
Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble.
Proverbs 28:14 (MSG)
A tenderhearted person lives a blessed life; a hardhearted person lives a hard life.
The choice is up to us. Will we surrender our hearts fully to the Lord? Will we invite Him to be Lord of all we are?
Will we allow the Great Physician to perform our heart transplant; replacing our hardened heart with the new, soft one that He has prepared for us?
A soft, humble heart aligns us into a positional correct life ready to receive all that God promises us and to become all that He has purposed us to be!