Old and New

What is Written on Your Heart?

Are you tired of being where you are? Perhaps you know what kind of life you should be living—an honest employee, a loyal spouse, a generous friend—yet you cannot find the strength to get there, and it is leaving you weary. If this is what you have been feeling lately, I believe you will find hope in the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant With the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers In the day that I took them by the hand To bring them out of the land of Egypt; Which my covenant they brake, Although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, And write it in their hearts; And will be their God, And they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For they shall all know me, From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: For I will forgive their iniquity, And I will remember their sin no more.”

What an incredible passage! God was making a new covenant with His people. In this case, He was referring to Israel, but it has an application to you and me as His Church.

When God brought His people out of captivity, He gave them laws to obey. He wrote the first part of that law—the Ten Commandments— on tablets of stone. They were visible, but they were outside of human ability. God essentially said, “I want you to be honest, I want you to have no other gods before Me. I do not want you to commit adultery. I do not want you to kill. I do not want you to hate but to be a forgiving people. I do not want you to covet your neighbor’s goods. I want you to be truthful. I will be God to you, but this is the kind of people I want you to be in the earth.”

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul spoke about these requirements God had for His people as well as the inability of us to perform them in our own strength. He said, Romans 7:14–15 “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Have you ever lived there? Before I came to Christ, I cannot tell you the number of times I made promises to change and do better, and every time I failed. Every time, I could not help it, why, because I did not have supernatural strength to aid in these moments. I knew something was wrong, and I knew that I needed help, but I did not know the true source of help, and therefore all of my prayers and requests fell on deaf ears because I was not saved.

I promised myself I was going to change this and change that. Just like Paul said, I knew what to do. But I could not perform it, and it was so discouraging. We are all made in the image of God and have an innate understanding of what kind of people we ought to be.

Romans 7:16–18 “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” In other words, I want to do right—perhaps just like you today. You do not want to do what you are doing. You are tired of the depression, the drugs, the pornography, your own speech. You are tired of this constant war inside against the ways of God.

Paul continues in verses 18-24, in Romans 7:18–24 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Paul concludes with Romans 7:25 “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

Sandblasting the Former Things

Remember the promise that God made through Jeremiah 31:33 “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, And write it in their hearts; And will be their God, And they shall be my people.” Inspiring, Incredible, almost fantastical! When we come to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence inside our earthen body.

1 Cor 3:16 “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

I picture Him coming with chisel and a sandblaster, taking 1000 rpms of the Holy Spirit sandblasting our heart and erasing the former things that were on our heart: vengeance, grievances, old habits we cannot break, the yearning for things that promised comfort but did not deliver. He starts erasing these things and instead starts chiseling the law of God on our hearts.

The law of God becomes part of our character. We are no longer trying to obey God out of the sheer force of human will, which only leads to frustration. Rather, we begin to have an innate desire to do things that we never considered before. In other words, we are no longer fighting against our nature to do right; it has become our nature to do these things.

Let me give you an example: I started drinking alcohol when I was a private in the Army, and it became a regular thing to do each weekend. Then the drinking became partying, and then it became a problem. When I was 34, I became a new believer in Christ, and was transformed by God’s presence. Slowly, God helped me to overcome my addiction. The thing is, there was not sermons on not drinking when I became a new Christian, it was God working on me.

Every time, I read the Word of God, I became more focused, and every time I surrendered to God’s will. I received clarity. It was a like a whole world coming into focus for the first time in a long time. Like I could see and hear and feel. I was not dead, and as I realized that I was not dead but alive, I began seeking God in everything.

Application: There is a passage in Luke 1:15–16 where the angel came to Zachariah and Elizabeth and said, “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.”

God prepared a way through John the Baptist and the Word of God places emphasis that many children of Israel shall turn to the Lord. But before many could turn away from their iniquity, their sin, John the Baptist had to be great in the sight of the Lord. He shall neither drink wine or strong drink. IOW, there was a sacrifice on John the Baptist’s part. Before he could be used by God, there had to be a sacrifice on his part so that he could be used as a vessel.

I think of Psalm 22 where King David has this prophetic revelation that parallels the crucifixion of Christ and it starts with “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” The truth is, David asked this of God from his flesh, but God has never forsaken any of us, but... by our actions and our speech, and the darkness in our hearts, we forsake him.

Question: Don’t you just want to be used by God as a vessel? Ask yourself, is there an area in your life where maybe you need to surrender to God so that you can be used fully as vessel for the Lord.

Luke 6:45 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” Jesus continues in Luke 6:46 “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

If your mind, heart, soul, and might is not aligned with God, then everything will be out of kilter.

The promise was that God would start to write this law in your heart and then the Holy Spirit would teach you. The Bible says in Psalm 37:4 “Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” I see that two ways. There are godly desires that God will grant you, but He will also give you the desires—new desires—as you delight yourself in Him. That comes with the transformation that happens in your life. Paul says, “do not be conformed to this world, but transformed…” (Rom 12:2)

As I delight myself in what God wants, in reading scripture, in praying - let me tell you something, when you are getting to the point where you are delighting yourself in prayer and reading the word of God, you are heading in the right direction. As you delight yourself in the Lord, the fruits of the spirit begin to emerge and mature in your life. As you feed the spirit, you begin to lean more towards the Spirit versus leaning towards the flesh, the world, the darkness that surrounds us and attacks us. Galatians 5:16 “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” God gives us a new desire, and he gave me a new desire, I wanted to do more. I wanted to shed myself of my sin nature and surrender to God.

Application: So many professed and proclaimed Christians never get to that point. To the point where they are now receiving godly desires. When I finally shed getting drunk, God erased the old desire in my life. He began writing something new on my heart.

In today’s culture, there are so many things that God wants us to shed, social media, time with our technology, time watching t.v or Netflix, drinking, drugs, gossiping, murmuring, grumbling. God wants us to shed everything, he wants us to shed the bitterness in our heart. He wants us to shed our anger and our frustration. He wants us to shed our hurts and pain. God wants to give us new desires. But we cannot delight ourselves in the Lord while we are struggling against our flesh.

Jesus says in Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus gives us rest, with new desires, God gives us rest. Everything that you are struggling with, God wants to take it away. Matthew 11:29–30 “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

You see, if you are still under the law, there is no rest in your life, if you are reading on these tablets of stone, “Thou shall not drink” and then you spend your whole life fighting not to do something, yet the desire is still there to do it.

I think of how so many stumble and struggle with something in their life, some stronghold. But God says, “No, I am going to do it a different way. I am going to give you a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new life, a new hope, a new future, new giftings. God is saying, All I am asking of you is that you delight yourself in Me, and I will give you new desires for your heart. And then I will fulfill them!”

We get to the point though where we are like “how?” How do I begin to desire Godly things? You have to ask for it. Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:” If you ask of God, he will give to you. If you seek God, you shall find him. If you knock on doors, the doors will be opened unto you. The same goes for delighting yourself and receiving the desires of your heart. Ask for godly desires, and God will give them to you. Seek godly desires, and God will reveal them to you. Knock on doors for godly desires and godly desires will be behind the doors.

Every time, I read in the bible, I find God answering requests. When we are searching for something, God gives us what we are asking for or he does something better and gives us what we need instead of what we asked.

Solomon asked for discernment between good and bad, and God responded with “Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee” (First Kings 3:12).

David and the First Battle with the Philistines – “And David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up to the Philistines? wilt thou deliver them into mine hand? And the LORD said unto David, Go up: for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into thine hand” (2 Samuel 5:19).

David and the Second Battle with the Philistines “And when David enquired of the LORD, he said, Thou shalt not go up; but fetch a compass behind them… and let it be, when thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite the host of the Philistines” – (2 Samuel 5:23–24).

Hannah – “For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him” (1 Samuel 1:27).

Elijah - “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God… Then the fire of the LORD fell” – (1 Kings 18:37–38).

Hezekiah - “I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee… And I will add unto thy days fifteen years” – (2 Kings 20:5–6).

The Thief on the Cross - “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” – (Luke 23:42–43).

Holy Spirit Empowerment

And so I ask you today: What is written on your heart? Are you willing to let God erase the old things?

I do not want to live my life seeing how many times I can get burned before it is fatal. I want to live close to the throne of God. I want fresh vision everyday, I want fresh oil poured into my life. I want God to use me like the ones used in the Bible. I want to see a true revival and see a true move of God that shakes you to the bones. I want to see the strength and might and signs and wonders that God did in the bible, I want to see that today. I want God to move in our lives, and to see people saved. I want to see people’s lives changed. I want to see chains broken, and lives transformed. I want the cedars of Lebanon that have such a stronghold in people lives destroyed. I want prison doors open. I want the blind to see and the lame to walk. I want our faith to move mountains. I want to see literally mountains move. I want the power of God to touch lives and see those who are dead in their trespasses, alive and walking in shekinah glory. I want the Holy Spirit to grab a hold of some people and shake them and wake them, and bring them out of their proverbial slumber. I want life pouring in those around me. I want life pouring into those who hate me and hate themselves. To those who walk and talk with the devil. I want lives changed!

Stop trying to serve God in your own strength and let Him do what He wants to do. Stop trying to justify wrong and calling it right. Let God put a new law in your heart. Just as I pushed the alcohol away in my life, there are things in your life that you can push away as well. You can push bitterness, depression, self-condemnation away.

You can push hate and anger away. You can push offenses away. You can push your own strongholds away. When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, He will not only give you the desire but the power to walk in newness of life. This whole kingdom is brought to life by the power of God. There is resurrection power giving you strength and bringing you to life from your trespasses. Resurrection Power! Let God move in your life. Let God work. So, what does He require on your part? Ask for it! Come to Him and say, “I want to live for You, Lord. I want my life to count. I do not want to live my whole life just seeing how close I can get to the fire without being burned. I want to have the power to be given for the sake of others so I can make a difference in this generation. So write Your law on my heart and empower me to walk in Your ways—that You may be glorified on the earth!”