Tag: heart change

Heart Change

OLD TESTAMENT: Isaiah 44 & 45

POETRY: Psalm 107

NEW TESTAMENT: James 2:14-26

Faith or Works

How are we saved?  We are saved by grace alone, through our faith in Jesus Christ.  But what comes out of our faith?  Shouldn’t it be works?

If we start with works and try to earn our righteousness, we won’t get there.  We cannot earn salvation.  However, if we have faith, works should come out of that.

I think most people reading this probably know these things.  You’ve probably heard a sermon, read a devotion on it, etc.  But do we live that way?  Do we live in a way that is trying to work on all the individual things in our lives, to clean them up one by one, to do the good things we are supposed to?

Alternatively, we can focus on growing our faith.  On accepting the gift given to us and let the good works come naturally as a result of that.

The youth group at our church recently read in Romans 12 which lists many snippets on how we should be living “love must be sincere…be joyful in hope…share with God’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality…live in harmony with one another…do not be conceited…” and many more. 

We could use this as a checkbox of good works to make sure that we are doing the right things to show our salvation.  But that doesn’t address our hearts.  If we need a checklist to make sure we are loving one another, we need to go back and look at our hearts.  What we talked about in class was to pray to have our hearts changed so that living this way would come naturally out of the overflow of our hearts.  And I think this relates to the faith vs works question. 

If our faith is sincere, our hearts are changed, and the result of that is good works.

A checklist can be a good way for you to ask yourself – am I living as one whose heart has been changed – but I don’t think it is good to be living our lives based off of a checklist.  It focuses you more on the tasks rather than the effects of what you are doing or the purpose behind it.

So maybe ask yourself if you are doing these good things, or avoiding the bad, but if you aren’t meeting the things on that list, don’t place your focus there.  Instead, pray for God to change your heart and you should start to see that happen more and more.

~Stephanie Fletcher

Reflection Questions

  1. Where have you seen faith without works? Where have you seen works without faith? Why, do you think, God is looking for both, working together?
  2. Are you living as one whose heart has been changed? Are you living out your faith daily? What evidence do you have to support your answer?
  3. What specific heart change can you pray for?
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Guarding Your Heart

Prov 4 23

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.  Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.  Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.  Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.

 Proverbs 4:23-27 NIV

     “Above all else, guard your heart”.  At first glance we may look at this statement and think it refers to relationships.  But on further inspection I think we can see more.  In Hebrew thinking, the heart is the center of everything, kind of like our minds to us.  This is reinforced by the second half of the sentence “for everything you do flows from it”.  Meaning, who we are as people, has a direct correlation to where our hearts are.  How we think, speak and act.  How we respond to criticism, how we react to negativity, anything you can think of in relation to yourself, is a reflection of our hearts.  This is why it is so important to continually evaluate ourselves.

     In order to change our hearts for the better we’re instructed to look at 3 things. Our mouths, eyes, and legs.  With our mouths we speak.  It is so easy to say things we know we shouldn’t.  Sometimes they even make us feel better for a while, or help us “win” an argument.  In the long run though, it is way better for the heart, if the mouth speaks truthfully, lovingly, and in an uplifting manner.  Trying to follow those will have a major impact on our hearts.

With our eyes, we fill ourselves to our “hearts” desire.  In our culture, we are constantly being stimulated visually.  Some of it is good, some is ok, and some just plain terrible.  But for sure it is too much!  Unless we decide to take control of what we see and how much, there is no way for us to fully guard our heart.  We have to make conscious choices on what and how much we watch or stream.  There are visual traps all around us every day, we have to choose not to look.

Lastly, is our legs.  This is as much about which way you are headed as where you are right at this moment.  Do you have healthy boundaries of places you know you shouldn’t be?  Have you already given careful thought to your future, both long term and immediate?  If you just go with the flow, you’ll most likely end up asking yourself, How did I ever end up here?  Too many people have to ask themselves that before they begin to guard their hearts above all else.  If you are already asking yourself that then now is the time to begin.

Start with these basic things, and you’ll be amazed at what God can change in you, in your heart, and then in your life.

-Jerry Briggs