CHANGING THE HEART
Above all else, guard your heart; Because of it flows life. "Proverbs 4:23 (NKJ 1960).
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Today I want to specifically talk to you about two types of hearts that the Lord wants us to change.
In the first place are hardened hearts: they are those who do not let God touch them, those who show apathy for the things of the Lord, and therefore do not let them advance, trust or listen to the voice of God. In addition to this they make us go a thousand times in the same place, in the middle of the desert, a clear example, the people of Israel went around and around for 40 years because of the hardness of their hearts.
For this reason, as the Holy Spirit says: If you will hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts, as in provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted me; they proved me, and they saw my works forty years. Because of which I was disgusted against that generation, And I said: They are always wandering in their heart, And have not known my ways.¨ Hebrews 3: 7-10 (NKJ 1960).
Do not make the Holy Spirit dislike you with the hardness of your heart, give him the opportunity to take away that heart of stone and make him one of flesh, just as He promised. "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. "Ezekiel 36:26 (NKJ 1960). Do not be hard to forgive, to love, do not resist the presence or the plans of God.
On the other hand we find the unbelieving hearts: "Look, brethren, let there be in none of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God; But exhort one another every day, while saying: Today; so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. "Hebrews 3: 12-13 (NRSR 1960).
Difficult situations, deserts, can make our faith and trust in God disappear, but also our mistakes and sins lead us to have an unbelieving heart, because we believe and accept the defeats of this world, which come from the enemy, deceiving us to away from God, and us for not believing in his word, that we are free, and that Jesus already paid and forgave our sins, we fall and let ourselves be deceived.
God was displeased with the people of Israel for 40 years, but even so he had mercy on some and let them see the promised land, they were the ones who believed, the brave and obedient.
Who was he mad at for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter into his rest, but those who disobeyed? And we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3: 17-19 (NKJ 1960).
Perhaps you have walked all your life in the same desert, and maybe they are more than 40 years old, and you see that the solution is not money, nor material things, the solution is to let God touch your heart, which may be hard, insensitive, incredulous, full of pain and negative feelings, and while that is there, God can not deposit great things in you.
To change your heart, as I have, and repeated here, is to change the ruling preference of your mind. What is needed is that their will must be properly influenced, that they must reject sin and obedience to anything else, and prefer God. The question then is how should your will be influenced? By what process is it reasonable to expect to influence your mind? Until their will is right, it will be in vain to expect felt emotions of true love of God, of repentance and of faith. These feelings, which you may be seeking, and towards which you are trying to force yourself, do not need to wait until the will is submitted, until the ruling preference of the mind is changed.