Lord, how we praise Thee that Thou hast made us members of Thy family. We are unworthy, but, Lord, Thou hast redeemed us. Thou hast bought us. Thou hast brought us unto Christ.
Lord, what have we to say? We just bow down and worship Thee. Thou hast done everything well, and we want to give Thee all the glory and the thanks of our hearts. We praise and thank Thee for gathering us together here tonight. We need Thee and Thy blessed, glorious presence, and we trust that Thy presence shall be with us.
We pray that tonight Thou wilt open Thy Word to us, and open our hearts to Thy Word, that it may not fall upon stony ground, but may fall into good ground and bear fruit patiently—one hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold.
Lord, we commit the whole time into Thy hand, trusting Thee for Thy blessing. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
I have been looking to the Lord as to what He would have for us this evening. I feel probably it will be good for us to consider together one thing in the Scripture which is very basic, and I believe you will find extremely important in our life with the Lord.
I will read a few passages, and then you will know what we will be fellowshipping about tonight.
Proverbs 4:23
Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded;
For out of it are the issues of life.
In some translations, you will find, “For out of it flow the springs of life.”
1 Samuel 16:7
For man looketh on the outward appearance,
But the Lord looketh on the heart.
Ezekiel 36:26
And I will give you a new heart,
And I will put a new spirit within you;
And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
And I will give you a heart of flesh.
Matthew 22:37
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
And with all thy soul,
And with all thy understanding.
2 Corinthians 3:16-18
But when the heart shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
Ephesians 3:16-19
That He may give you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inward man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
To the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
And to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.
Hebrews 3:7-13
Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith,
Today if ye shall hear His voice,
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation,
Like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tried Me by proving Me,
And saw My works forty years.
Wherefore I was displeased with this generation,
And said, They do always err in their heart:
But they did not know My ways;
As I sware in My wrath,
They shall not enter into My rest.Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God:
But exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called Today; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
These are only a few sample passages. You will find many, many passages in the Word of God on this important matter. I believe you know what it is: the heart.
The heart is very, very important to God. The purpose of God with man is centered upon the heart. God is looking for a man after His own heart. That is God’s purpose.
It is not that He just wants men—any man, any kind of man. He wants one special kind of man: a man after His own heart. Of course, we know this is found first in our Lord. He is the Man after God’s own heart. Then, in Christ, His church and His people become a people after God’s own heart.
God is seeking a relationship with man—not merely a superficial relationship. God wants a heart-to-heart relationship with man. He opens His heart to man, and He wants man to open his heart to Him. He is never satisfied if our relationship with Him is merely a matter of lips.
When you think of God’s dealings with people, God never deals with us on the surface. We may be quite content if the surface is cut, because we do not want to have the root pulled out. But when you consider God’s dealings with man, He is never after the surface. He always goes down to the root and touches the heart.
If the heart is not dealt with, any dealing is superficial and will not last. God will never be satisfied with the superficial.
When you consider the salvation of the Lord, it is concerning the heart. The salvation of the Lord is to reach the heart.
When the gospel is preached, the seed is sown upon the human heart. Of course, some hearts are as hardened as the wayside. The seed of the gospel cannot enter into them, and the birds come and take it away. But, anyway, you find the sower throws the seed upon the heart—not merely upon the ear, but upon the heart.
It is when the Lord opens our heart that we repent and believe. You remember Romans: if we confess Him with our lips and believe Him with our hearts. It is the heart. It is always the heart.
So, when you look from God’s standpoint, from God’s viewpoint, in His relationship with man, He is always looking for the heart. God desires a heart. That is what the Lord is concerned with.
Now, if you turn it around and look from our standpoint toward God, you will find it is the same thing. The beginning of our history with the Lord begins with the heart. When we open our heart to the Lord, when our heart is pricked by His Word, then we repent. We open our hearts, and we receive Him into our hearts.
When you think of the growth of spiritual life, it is again very much related to the heart. We will go into that a little later.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we find that the heart is something that you cannot overlook in the spiritual world.
Perhaps one verse in the Scripture will convince you of that. You remember Samuel. Samuel was supposed to know God. He was a prophet, a Nazarite, a priest serving God, and a seer.
Yet, when God sent him to anoint a king among the sons of Jesse, the first son came up. He was tall and handsome, and immediately Samuel was taken by that man. He said, “This must be the Lord’s anointed.”
How natural that is—for man to look at outward appearance. We are attracted by outward appearance. These things appeal to the natural man. But God said, “Samuel, you are entirely wrong. That is the way man looks, but that is not the way I do. Man looks at outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.”
Now, dear brothers and sisters, if the heart is so important, how much do we know about it?
Of course, when Scripture speaks of the heart, it does not refer to the physical heart. The physical heart is simply an analogy, a type, showing us the heart in Scripture, which is moral and spiritual in nature.
Our physical heart is the center of our physical being. You know, the heart is very important. If something happens to the heart, that is serious. I may cut my finger—yes, it is unfortunate. You feel pain and suffer from it, but it is superficial. When anything happens to your heart, that is serious, because the heart is the center of your physical being.
All the blood flows into the heart and out from the heart. Your health depends upon the function of the heart. The heart is very important to our physical being. How much more important is the heart, in its moral and spiritual sense, to the welfare of our spiritual being.
But in my contact with God’s people, you do not need to probe very deeply to discover that God’s people today know very little about the heart. People have been asking, “What is the meaning of the heart in Scripture? Where is the heart? What is it?”
We do not know too much about this heart. Because we do not know much about it, we are more or less ignorant of how the heart works in relation to the life of God.
I am afraid we must lay some groundwork first. But this is not my main burden. My burden is to find the relationship of the heart with the flow of life. Before we can go into this, however, we must lay a little foundation.
In other words, I have to go through some Scripture readings with you, just to lay a foundation that we may understand a little of what the heart really is. What does it include? Why is it so important? Where does it stand in relation to our spiritual life?
If you will bear with me, we will spend a little time searching the Scriptures and trying to find out where the heart is and what it is. Probably the best way to begin our search is by way of comparison.
Let us read Hebrews 8:10. Of course, we know this concerns the new covenant. God said that one day in the future He would make a new covenant with the house of Israel.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
Please notice: God said, “I will put My laws into their mind; I will write them also upon their hearts.”
Then compare this with Hebrews 10:16:
This is the covenant that I will make with them
After those days, saith the Lord:
I will put My laws on their heart,
And upon their mind also will I write them.
Do you see any difference between these two verses? They speak of the same thing, but do you see a difference in the way it is put?
You will find that the order seems to be reversed. In Hebrews 8, God puts His laws into their mind first and writes them upon their heart. But in Hebrews 10:16, the order is reversed: He puts His laws into their heart and writes them upon their mind.
We know that both verses are quotations from the Old Testament, from Jeremiah 31:33. So let us go back to Jeremiah.
But this is 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 in their heart will I write it;
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.
Here you find, “I will put My law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart.” All three passages are speaking of one and the same thing. Yet the Holy Spirit purposely puts them in different ways.
Not that He forgets what He said before. The Holy Spirit never forgets. But He purposely puts it in different ways in order to show us something.
In other words, the word heart, the word mind or understanding, and the expression inward parts seem to be interchangeable. Why? Is it because, by putting these matters in different shades, we may be able to see what the heart really is?
What is the heart? The heart is the inward part of man. And in that inward part, the mind or understanding is one part.
What is the inward part? Psalm 51:6 says:
Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts:
And in the hidden part Thou wilt make me to know wisdom.
In that penitential psalm of David, you find two parts mentioned: the inward part and the hidden part. What is the hidden part?
If you go to the New Testament, you will find different verses that bear upon this hidden part. Do you not remember 1 Peter 3:4, “the hidden man of the heart”?
In Ephesians 1:17-18, Paul prays that God may give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened. In Ephesians 3, we are strengthened through His Spirit in the inward man, that Christ may dwell through faith in our hearts.
Do you see the connections in these verses? In Ephesians 1, you find the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the eyes of the heart. In Ephesians 3, you find the inward man and Christ dwelling in your heart. In 1 Peter, you find the hidden man of the heart.
Brothers and sisters, the hidden part is the spirit. The human spirit is the hidden part. It is hidden. Nobody can see it.
It is almost like the holiest of all in the tabernacle. It is hidden far back. Nobody can see it. Even the high priest could go behind the veil only once a year. It means that nobody could enter; the way was not yet open. It is hidden.
The inward part refers to the inner being of man. What is the heart? The heart is in the inward part of man.
We have been taught that man is a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body. When God created man, He created him in three parts—the spirit deep within, then the soul, and then the body. Now, where does the heart stand?
If you search the Scriptures, you will find that man is indeed made of three parts. The spirit gives us God-consciousness, the soul gives us self-consciousness, and the body gives us world-consciousness.
But the heart is the link between the spirit and the soul. It is a passage between the spirit and the soul. It is the doorway, the corridor, the connection between the spirit and the soul.
Because it is the link between the spirit and the soul, the heart, being the inward part of man, includes at least four parts. It includes one function of the spirit, which is conscience, and it includes all three parts of the soul: the mind, the emotions, and the will.
So the heart combines in itself one part of the spirit and three parts of the soul, if we may put it very crudely. Therefore, you find that it is a link, and in a sense it represents you.
It represents you more than anything else. Yes, your spirit is in touch with God, but it does not represent you as much as your heart. Your soul gives you self-consciousness, and yet it does not represent you as much as your heart.
Your heart is the real you. It is the heart. If the heart is right, then you are right with God. If something is wrong with the heart, then your whole relationship is jeopardized.
So you can see how important the heart is.
We do not have time to go over all the verses, but I will give you a few sample verses. First, conscience—the function of the spirit—hangs upon the heart.
Hebrews 10:22 says:
Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith,
Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience:
And having our body washed with pure water.
Here you find, “our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” So you can see that our conscience is linked with our heart. In other words, our conscience is a part of the heart.
Our evil conscience needs to be sprinkled by the blood of the Lord Jesus. Then we can approach God with a true heart. There is no condemnation. We can come to God.
In 1 John 3:20-21, we read:
If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God.
We always think that what condemns us is the conscience, do we not? When we do something, our conscience bothers us. But here the apostle John says, “If your heart condemns you, God is greater than your heart. But if your heart does not condemn you, then you have boldness toward God.”
In your prayers, you have the assurance that He will hear you. That proves that conscience is a part of the heart.
In the Old Testament, you do not find the word conscience. When conscience works in the Old Testament, the word used is always the heart. For instance, in 1 Samuel 24, David cut off a piece of Saul’s garment, and afterward his heart smote him.
In 2 Samuel 24, David numbered the people of Israel against God’s will. Afterward, David’s heart smote him. The conscience is a part of the heart.
How about the mind? Hebrews 4:12 says:
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
And piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
And quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
You notice that? The thoughts belong to the mind, but you find they are the thoughts of the heart. Your thoughts can be more than fleeting thoughts. Your thoughts can be thoughts of the heart.
Matthew 13:15 says:
For this people’s heart is waxed gross,
And their ears are dull of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed;
Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And should turn again,
And I should heal them.
Understand with the heart. You see, understanding is related to the heart, not merely to the brain. If you do not want to understand, you will not understand. You can shut your mind and shut your heart; and if your heart is shut, your mind does not work anymore. You do not understand.
Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, heard what the shepherds said. She kept these sayings in her mind and pondered them in her heart. What was stored in her mind became material for her pondering in her heart. That is found in Luke 2.
These are only a few cases showing how our minds are connected with the heart.
How about our will? Hebrews 4:12 already tells us: the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Our intents involve the will—our intention, purpose, and desire.
Acts 7:23 says that when Moses was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren. Acts 11:23 says that Barnabas exhorted the believers in Antioch that with purpose of heart they should cleave unto the Lord.
The will is a part of the heart.
How about emotions? Luke 24 tells us that two disciples were walking on the way to Emmaus, and the Lord walked with them. The Lord opened the Scriptures to them, and afterward they said, “Was not our heart burning within us?” That is emotion.
John 14:1 says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” John 16 says, “Your heart shall rejoice.” There are many, many verses.
We are simply giving a few sample verses to show that the heart is the center of our spiritual being. It is the link between the spirit and the soul. It is the passage, the corridor, and the key. It includes conscience, mind, will, and emotion.
I believe you can see how important the heart is.
Let us move on and consider the relationship of the heart to the inflow and outflow of life.
In Proverbs 4:23, Solomon says, “Guard your heart above all things.” There is nothing in your life more precious than your heart. You may put your diamonds and precious things in a safety box, but your heart is more important than these things. You must guard your heart more than you guard anything else.
Why? Because out of the heart are the issues of life. In other words, the heart seems to hold the flow of life.
Whether the life of God can flow into you or flow out from you, it all depends upon the heart. If the condition of the heart is right, then God’s life can flow in and flow out. If the condition of your heart is wrong, then God’s life is blocked.
You may not be able to receive God’s life, or even after you have received God’s life, God’s life may not be able to grow in you. It is that important.
Now, brothers and sisters, if we do not know what the heart is, and if we do not know how it works, probably because of our ignorance we may be blocking God’s life without realizing it.
So life in the Lord does not grow as it should. Perhaps you are trying to find out the cause. You may touch different things, but if your heart is not touched, it does not help very much.
Let us think for a moment how the life of God comes into us. We mentioned already that Christ, the Sower, sows the seed—the gospel—upon the field. In the first parable, the field is the heart of man.
Some hearts are like the pathway. They have been trodden by feet and hardened. The seed cannot enter into them, and the birds come and snatch it away.
Some hearts are like stony ground. There is a little layer of earth, but the stone lies underneath it. The seed grows quickly, but it cannot endure.
Some are like thorny ground. The seed enters, takes root, and begins to grow, but it is choked by the thorns and cannot bear fruit.
But the field that is good ground is a good heart—ploughed and softened. The seed goes into that heart and bears fruit patiently: one hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold.
How does the gospel come to you? How does conversion happen? How does God’s life enter into a person? You find that the aim of the gospel is the heart. It is the heart.
Naturally, our heart is a stony heart—insensitive to God, rebellious, obstinate, and dull. That is the condition of the human heart.
The heart is deceitful above all things and incurable, so far as human means are concerned. Not the physical heart—you can replace a valve and so forth. I have a friend who had a new valve not too long ago.
But the heart of Scripture—the heart of the natural man—is a stony heart. It has been hardened through the ages, through the deceitfulness of sin. It is so hard that nothing can heal it. But that does not mean that God cannot do something with it.
The marvel of the gospel is that, when the gospel is preached in the power of God, the Holy Spirit can prick the heart. You remember, on the Day of Pentecost the people were pricked in their hearts. In other words, God penetrated that stony heart and broke it open. That is the power of God. Thank God for that.
In John 16, you find that when the Holy Spirit comes, He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Nobody can do that.
It is true that sometimes people’s consciences work. Sometimes people are convicted, but it ends in remorse and not conversion.
Sometimes, in our lives, our conscience bothers us. We begin to feel that we have done something wrong, and we are very angry with ourselves. It is remorse, you know. But remorse does not bring repentance or conversion.
Only when the Holy Spirit touches our conscience—the conscience of the heart—does the penetrating work take place.
Sometimes people’s emotions are stirred. If you tell a very appealing story, naturally we may be touched. If we hear a very sad story, we may shed tears, and there is no shame in that. It is human nature.
But our emotion may be stirred without being the emotion of the heart. It is superficial. It comes and goes. There is no conversion.
Our mind may be stirred too. We may think, “Well, I will turn over a new leaf. I am going to go a new way.” But it may be superficial. The stone is still underneath, and the thorns are still there.
Or the will may make a determination, but it is only temporary. It does not work.
Dear brothers and sisters, it does not mean that your conscience should not be touched. It should be touched. It does not mean that your emotions should not be reached. They should be reached.
Often it troubles me when I see people coming to the altar as though they were going to a bazaar or a circus. There does not seem to be any emotion—in other words, any conviction. It troubles me.
Our emotions should be touched. Our minds should be touched. Our wills should be touched. Decision should be made. But, dear brothers and sisters, it must be deeper than merely emotion, merely mind, merely will, or merely conscience.
It is the conscience of the heart, the emotion of the heart, the mind of the heart, and the will of the heart. That is to say, when the person’s heart is reached by God, then something really happens.
We believe with the heart. We confess with the lips, but we believe with the heart, and we are saved.
How does the life of God come into you? The life of God comes into you through the heart. When your heart is open to God, then the life of God comes into your heart and takes up its residence in your spirit. This is the hidden man of the heart.
In Ezekiel 36, you find that when a man comes to the Lord, several things happen. God gives you a new heart. Now, not that He simply exchanges one heart for another. In other words, He takes away your stony heart and gives you a heart of flesh—a heart that is sensitive and tender toward God.
It is the same heart, but something has happened. God has done something to this heart. God has broken down the hardness of the heart, softened it, and melted it.
That is the reason why, when many Christians come to the Lord, on the first day their whole being is melted. I do not know whether you felt that way. Some people do. You feel that you were so hard toward God, and suddenly, like wax under the sun, you melt.
You cannot mention the name of Jesus without crying. You are just melting. God has done something in your heart. He has taken away the stoniness of your heart and put in a heart of flesh.
Dear brothers and sisters, that is most precious, because the heart was incurable before. You have a new heart now.
How do you know that you have a new heart? Because you have a new desire. You desire after God. You desire after the things of God. You have a love toward God. You just love Him.
Your love is enlarged. When you see anyone who loves the Lord, you want to embrace him. Why? A new heart. That is in your heart. God has given you a new heart. Most precious.
Because the heart is open, God’s life enters through the heart and rests in your new spirit. Of course, regeneration is in the spirit—there is no doubt about it. God has quickened your dead spirit and made it new. God’s Spirit comes to dwell in your spirit.
The eternal life of God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, now rests there. He is the hidden man of the heart. That is how life comes into you.
But, dear brothers and sisters, in the same way that life enters into you through the heart, so, for life to flow out from you or for life to grow in you, it also must pass through the heart.
Because out of the heart are the issues of life. In other words, if there is no issue of life, there must be a blockage in the heart—a blocking heart.
Where does God dwell? In the very first place, you will find that God does not dwell in your body. In one sense, yes, your body is the temple of God. But strictly speaking, God does not dwell in your body, neither does God dwell in your soul.
God dwells in your spirit. God is Spirit, and He dwells in your spirit. He dwells in the innermost part of your being. That is where God is. That is where eternal life rests—in your spirit.
But this is only the beginning. As God’s life has come into your spirit, that life intends to come out, if we may use that expression. This life is to grow. This life is to flow. This life is to manifest and express itself.
When this life begins to express itself, it has to come out of the spirit and enter into the inward part of your being. That is the heart.
For life to be released, it has to pass through the heart. If it can pass through the heart, then it will be manifested. If it cannot pass through the heart, then it will be blocked within.
You have God’s life in you, and this life is life. It is growing; it is living. You do not need to worry about this life. This life is growing.
But what you need to consider is this: How is the condition of your heart? God has given us a new heart, but this new heart can become hard.
That is why Hebrews says, “Today if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
Our problem is that, when we first believe in the Lord, God has given us a new heart. It is so tender, so soft, so willing, so ready, so obedient, so submissive, and so cooperative.
Whenever God reveals His will in our spirit, and the spirit of wisdom and revelation is given, immediately our heart responds and says, “Thy will be done.” We love it. We love it.
In the beginning of our Christian life, there is nothing too hard. You do not find anything too hard to give up. Your love for the Lord is so great that you do not count the cost. You do not calculate.
Whatever God reveals in your spirit, you endorse immediately with your heart: “Yes, yes.” During that period, you find that your life really grows.
Whenever the Spirit of God touches the conscience of your heart, in the early days of your Christian life your conscience is very sensitive. Even a little thing affects you, and you are ready to follow the Lord. Life has an outlet through your conscience.
When you allow life to find its outlet through your conscience, life flows. In your emotions, you love the Lord with your whole heart. Your emotion is not divided. You just love Him.
So God has a way through your heart. When He has His way through your heart, your life grows.
There is no problem with your mind. When God reveals His will to you and your mind is enlightened, you love it. You want it. This is what you want. The same is true with your will.
In the early days of your Christian life, your heart is a new heart, a softened heart, a soft heart. So life can pass through you very easily, and the growth is great.
But very often, in your Christian life, you find that somehow your heart begins to harden a little.
One day, when life begins to touch your conscience, you know it, but you will not obey. You leave it there. Once, twice, and more times—and you find the conscience of your heart becomes hardened. You do not feel anything anymore. Life is blocked. You are not growing in the Lord anymore.
Or you may find that your emotions are occupied with certain things. You begin to love certain things, or you become double-minded. All the cares of this life occupy your thoughts and imagination. Or secretly you desire a certain place.
Brothers and sisters, when such things happen, you find that life cannot get through your inward part. Because life cannot get through your heart, you discover that your whole spiritual growth is arrested. You do not grow.
It is not the hardship. It is not the outward environment. No. It is your heart. Very often we blame our environment; we blame outward things. These are not the problems. The problem is in your heart. Something has happened there.
For this reason, first, it behooves us to pray the prayer of the psalmist.
You remember Psalm 139. The psalmist prayed a very precious prayer:
Search me, O God, and know my heart:
Try me, and know my thoughts:
And see if there be any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
The psalmist knew the Lord. He asked the Lord to search his heart. He knew that if anything went wrong, it was the heart. It must be the heart.
So he asked the Lord to search his heart. Why? Because no one knows his own heart. That is the problem, you know. If you try to examine your own heart, you will be deceived. God is the only One who knows your heart.
Therefore, it is a good thing if believers will go to the Lord from time to time, as often as possible, praying from the heart, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”
Do not pretend that you know your heart. Sometimes I hear people say, “Now, I may be wrong, but my heart is right.” I wonder how right that is. You do not know your heart. Nobody does. It is too deep.
We need to go to the Lord and ask Him to search us, know our hearts, know our thoughts, see whether there is any wicked way in us, and lead us in the everlasting way.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Christian life with the Lord is a life of the heart. If the heart is not involved, there is no way. All those external ways have no value before the Lord. It is the heart.
Are you willing to go the way of the heart with God? If you are willing to go the way of the heart with God, then you need to go to the Lord and ask Him to search you. It is only in His light that you can see yourself, because you cannot know your heart.
The second thing is this: “Today if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
If you want to keep your heart soft toward the Lord, it depends upon your daily hearing. It is not a matter of some great crisis. It is today, day by day.
Day by day, when the Lord speaks in your spirit, you hear Him. If you hear Him, listen to Him. Then your heart will be kept new and soft before Him.
If you do not listen, it may accumulate and accumulate, until it reaches the point of the people of Israel. They came out of Egypt, but they failed in the wilderness. Why? Because of the hardness of their hearts.
So in our daily life, we need to learn how to listen to the voice of God in our spirit.
Third, we need to turn our hearts to the Lord. If we turn our heart to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Brothers and sisters, whenever anything happens, the first thing to do is turn your heart to the Lord. “Lord, is my heart closed? Is my heart open to Thee?”
If you turn your heart to the Lord, the veil is taken away. You will see the glory of the Lord, and the Spirit of God is able to transform you from glory to glory.
Do not try to figure out things first. Before you try to do anything, the first thing you do, in any matter, is go to the Lord: “Lord, I turn my heart to Thee. I want to love Thee. I want a heart for Thee.”
If you turn your heart to the Lord, He will let you know, and He will transform you.
Sometimes you feel, “Well, I know I should turn my heart to Him, but I do not want to.” Then what? You can pray the prayer of the psalmist in Psalm 119:36:
Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies,
And not to covetousness.
We can pray that prayer: “Lord, I know my heart should be turned to Thee, but I do not want to. Lord, incline my heart.”
You will find that He will do it. Somehow, after you pray that prayer honestly, you will find your heart is turned toward the Lord and not toward yourself again. He will do that.
Lastly, let Christ dwell in your heart through faith. In other words, open your heart to the Lord. Love Him with all your heart, believing what He has revealed to your spirit.
When you open your heart to Him, trusting Him and believing Him, then He will come and dwell in your heart, until you are filled with all the fullness of God.
So we come to this conclusion: in our spiritual life, loving God with all our heart is most important.
Do you love Him? Do you love Him with all your heart? If you love Him with all your heart, then you will find that His life in you has an opportunity and an outlet. It can flow out from you.
It will mean not only the increase of your spiritual life, but also the impartation of divine life to others.
So, brothers and sisters, we are only touching a little bit of the heart. As you look to the Lord, you will find there is much, much more in the Scripture and much, much more in our experience.
You will find the position, importance, working, and effect of the heart. But I feel that it will probably be helpful simply to remind ourselves once more how important our heart is before the Lord God.
Out of it are the issues of life. Shall we pray?
Our Father, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou dost not come to us in a superficial way, but Thou dost come to us to take away our stony heart and give us a heart of flesh.
O Lord, we cannot keep our heart always fresh and living before Thee, but we want to give our heart to Thee for Thee to keep. We want Thee to keep it for Thyself forever.
O Lord, we pray that Thou wilt search us and know our hearts. We pray that Thou wilt incline our hearts toward Thy testimonies. We pray that Thy Holy Spirit will shed abroad in our hearts the love of God, that we may love Thee with all our hearts.
O Lord, how we do cast ourselves upon Thee. Thou art our God. Thou art the One who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.
We do pray in this way for Thy glory. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.