Psalm 119:32 “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.”
The heartbeat and hope of our ministry here at The Refuge is that every man who walks through these doors would be radically transformed by the Lord. That’s always our heartbeat and hope, but that’s not always what happens. This is a humbling reality for the staff and all those that serve in this ministry. We can’t make transformation take place in the lives of these men. We can pray diligently, point them to the hope that is found in Christ and HIM alone daily, we can consistently give them assignments that force them to read and engage with God’s Word, we can plug them into all that our local church has to offer, but we cannot transform their hearts. This is something that only the Holy Spirit can do. This is a tough pill to swallow, but this is the reality of all gospel-centered ministry. So, what can we do? In a sentence, we can throw ourselves at the mercy seat of God and beg HIM to do what only HE can. We are utterly dependent on the Lord and this ought to keep us humble as we serve others.
The heart of the issue is that our heart is the issue.
This is the baseline reality. If we don’t understand or believe this, there is no hope for running in the way of God’s commandments. There is this idea that we hear in the world that sounds nice and might make us feel good, but it’s very deceptive and harmful in the end. “Follow your heart” is the popular idea I’m referring to. I love what Pastor Brad Bigney said in one of his messages based on a book he wrote called Gospel Treason regarding the heart, “Guide it, guard it, but do not follow it.” Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The prophet Jeremiah wisely reminds us that our hearts cannot be trusted in and of themselves. I love the way the Holman Christian Standard Bible translates Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” The heart of the issue is that our heart is the issue! Our hearts are prone to wander in ways that will lead us to troubled waters, especially when we are not looking to the Lord to help us guide it and guard it. Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” As we daily trust God with our whole heart, as we resist the temptation to follow our own hearts, as we daily acknowledge HIM in all our ways, we will find ourselves on straight paths rather than those crooked paths that lead to bad places. This is universally true for everyone of us because of the sin issue that we all have. Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is our biggest issue, and it has been since the fall (see Genesis 3). The problem isn’t outside of us, it’s inside of us. This issue must be acknowledged and accepted. If we ignore or reject it, we will be left in a hopeless state.
Our only hope is in God enlarging our hearts for more of HIM and less of ourselves.
We can’t fix our heart problem in our own strength and no other mere human being can fix it for you. We need a heart transplant and thankfully we have a God that’s in the business of giving heart transplants. Ezekiel 36:26-27 “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. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” When our hearts are regenerated by the work of The Holy Spirit, and we become born again we get new hearts! New hearts with new affections and desires! 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” We are by nature all bent towards selfishness. Without God changing our hearts from the inside out we will remain selfish in our disposition. We must be born again!
We will never run in the way of God’s commandments in our own strength.
Romans 10:8-10 “But what does it say? The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” We will never run in God’s commandments unless this happens in our lives. We must confess and believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ! We must decrease and HE (Jesus) must increase. This is when true heart transformation takes place. The good news of the gospel is we can’t do it in our own strength, but God can! I love these words from Martin Luther’s old hymn, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing. You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is HE!” Romans 5:6-8 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The heart that obeys God is a heart that has been brought from death to life by the power that resides in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ! The heart that obeys God is a heart that is being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18) day-by-day. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus, we will grow in our desire to obey God’s commandments. It’s an inevitable reality of the Christian life, as imperfect as it will be, progressive sanctification will happen. If it doesn’t, we must examine our hearts to see if we are who we think we are. Psalm 119:32 is very clear. He says, “I WILL run in the way of your commandments WHEN YOU enlarge my heart” I capitalized “I WILL” and “WHEN YOU” on purpose to emphasize this simple fact that we see in the text. The “I WILL” is dependent upon the “WHEN YOU”. We will never run in the way of God’s commandments until God enlarges our hearts to do so. Do you have a heart that obeys God? If not, ask HIM to change that for you, today. If so, keep running until the final whistle blows!