With All My Heart

“A true child of God is one whose heart is right with God.” (Romans 2:29)

Food For Thought: What makes a person truly right with God? That really is the question of questions, isn’t it!  Getting that one right is high stakes stuff—our eternity hinges on a correct answer.

Unfortunately, most people don’t give the question much thought.  They just go merrily about life, filling their days with activities that won’t matter one iota five minutes into eternity.  And then there are those who have given it some thought, but get it all wrong.  It is these folks that Paul is talking about here in Romans.  In this case, it was the Jews—people who were proud of the fact that they were God’s chosen people, proud of the fact that they had “the Law”, proud of the fact that they had the covenant of circumcision.  But make no mistake, Paul was challenging not just the Jews, but anyone who thinks that right standing with God is based on the mere outward observance of religious rules and regulations—like going to church, serving in a ministry, giving money to God’s work, being a good person and living by the Golden Rule.

A lot of people are climbing that ladder of religious effort in order to get to heaven, but their hearts are not right with God.  They are busy doing religious things, but will sadly find when they get to the top, the ladder they have been climbing has been leaning against the wrong wall.

What does it mean to have a heart that is right with God?  Well, Paul gives us a clue in the next part of the verse:  “It is a change of heart produced by God’s Spirit.”  Let’s break that down:

First, there has to be a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life to produce change acceptable to God.  Getting our hearts right begins with the Spirit drawing us to God, and us cooperating, perhaps even inviting the Spirit to do his work in us.

Second, as the Spirit does his work in us, he leads us to repentance.  That means we have a change us heart that leads to a change of direction in our thinking and in our living.  Repentance means not just being sorry for our sins and asking God for his forgiveness; repentance means to have a godly sorrow for our sin, to humbly seek forgiveness that we have offended a holy God, to accept God’s offer of salvation through Jesus Christ by grace through faith, and then to turn from our sins and begin to live our lives in humble and grateful holiness unto the Lord.

And third, a change of heart has occurred when we reorient our lives to seek praise from God rather than living to please others or ourselves.

That’s what it means to be a child of God.  It is really pretty easy.  It doesn’t require fulfilling a long list of religious duties—it just means giving your heart to God and keeping it right before him.  And even then, that’s not all up to you.  God will help you with that too!

How great is that!

Prayer: Father, change my heart and make it right before you.  I present it to you this morning and renew my commitment to live my life to please you as my highest priority.  Keep me from slipping into the pride that develops from working so hard at my faith.  Rather, keep me continually aware and humbly grateful that my right standing with you is possible not through anything I can do, but only through what you have done through Jesus.   Lord, in response to your undeserved mercy and unmerited grace, I lay my heart before you—it is yours!  With all my heart I pray, amen.

One more thing… German Reformer Martin Luther declared, “Faith justifies not as a work, nor as a quality, nor as knowledge, but as assent of the will and firm confidence in the mercy of God.”