Heart Failure

Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 10I the Lord try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings."

The heart is our problem. The promises we make are often respectable, the romantic things we say beauitful, and the intentions we declare honorable. But these spoken glories are often phantasmal. They are spirits with no body to inhabit. Words with no heart to back them up. An inability to execute.

God mourned to Moses of the Israelites' wretched state. They had just promised to do everything God had commanded them: a venerable and praiseworthy promise, indeed, to declare service to the Almighty! But, alas! God knew that there was no pure heart to reinforce this promise. They were talking off the top of their heads, saying all the right rhymes and moving their vocal chords with all the right graces. Yet the utterances from their throats might as well have been the bleatings of sheep or the scraping of a fingernail on a chalkboard...

"And the LORD heard the voice of your words, when ye spake unto me; and the LORD said unto me, 'I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee: they have well said all that they have spoken. Oh that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!'" Deuteronomy 5:28-29 [emphasis added]


Oh that there was such a heart in me! To have the purity of desire necessary to perform what I know is right! It is like a man promising to provide for his family, a lover professing to always be there for his beloved, a friend promising to walk through hard times with a friend...we make promises we know we may not be able to keep but nevertheless, because of our love, feel compelled to make. What can we do about this disconnect between the heart and the mouth? The only thing that can save us now is a heart transplant. We need to pray for the heart of Jesus.