THE HEART AS THE LOVING ORGAN

Second Corinthians 3:16 says, “Whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” The heart must first turn to the Lord. This is real repentance. When we were fallen, our heart was turned away from the Lord, but when we repented, our heart turned to the Lord. The turning of the heart to the Lord is not once and for all. The heart must be turned to the Lord all the time, day by day. Every morning we must turn our heart again toward the Lord. After raising, we should go to the Lord and tell Him, “Lord, here I am. By Your mercy and grace I wish to turn my heart anew to You for this day.”

When our heart is turned to the Lord, the veil is gone. Many people wonder why they do not have the Lord’s guidance and why they do not know the Lord’s will. But the problem is where is their heart and in what direction is their heart turned? Their heart must be turned and tuned to the Lord. When I was young, I prayed over 2 Corinthians 3:16 nearly every day: “Lord, cause me to turn my heart to You.” I must testify that this kind of prayer works. I encourage you to try it. Before you read the Word in the morning, you should first turn your heart to the Lord. If you do this, the veil will be gone, and there will be light. The veil between you and the Lord will be taken away by you turning your heart to Him and you will see the light.

Once our heart is turned to the Lord, it must next exercise faith. Romans 10:9-10 says, “Believe in your heart” and “With the heart there is believing.” Hence, believing is not an exercise of the spirit, the mind, or the will, but an exercise of the heart. We need to learn how to exercise our heart to believe in order to cooperate with the indwelling Spirit. After our heart is turned to the Lord, we should immediately exercise faith in our heart. Whatever the Lord says in the Word, we must exercise our heart to believe. Whatever we sense deep within, we must believe by exercising our heart. We must believe in the Lord in the midst of our environment. In all the situations within our set of circumstances, we must always exercise our heart to believe the Lord. Exercise faith in the Lord will keep our heart from doubt. We must even pray that the Lord will protect our heart from doubt.

Third, our heart must be sprinkled from an evil conscience (Heb 10:22). The heart itself is not to be sprinkled, but the evil conscience. Our conscience always needs the sprinkling of the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus. The more we turn our heart to the Lord and the more we believe in the Lord by exercising our heart, the more we will feel in our conscience that we are wrong in many matters. When our heart is not turned to the Lord, we will never sense: that we are right in everything; everyone else is wrong, but we ourselves are right. When we turn our heart to the Lord we can see only ourselves: we cannot see others. The more we believe in Him, the more we will sense how wrong we are in a great many things. We will sense that we are wrong with our wife, with our husband, with our children, with our parents, with our schoolmates. These accusations in our heart are the accusations of our conscience. At such a time we will spontaneously confess everything according to the inner accusation of our conscience. The more we confess, the more the blood of the Lord Jesus will be applied to our conscience. As a result, our conscience will be purged, cleansed, and without offense – a purified conscience. To have our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience means that our conscience has been so purged that there is no more condemnation in our heart. Our heart is at peace and full of joy in the Lord.  

Furthermore, according to Ezekiel 36:26, the heart must be renewed. In Ezekiel 36:25 the Lord said, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols I will cleanse you.” But this is not all. To cleanse us from all filthiness, from all sins, and even from idols is only on the negative side. We need something positive. Therefore, the next verse says, “I will also give you a new heart.” The new heart is the old heart renewed.

Thus, there are four steps in dealing with the heart. These steps do not take place once and for all when we believe in the Lord Jesus and receive Him as our Savior. We who are seeking the Lord must have our heart refreshed by these four steps every day. We must turn our heart to the Lord, exercise our heart to believe Him, have our heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, and have it renewed again and again. The renewing of the heart is not a once and for all matter. I believe that if he were living today, the apostle Paul would still need to have his heart renewed. We need to put all these steps into practice immediately. When we first rise up in the morning, we should pray, “Lord, cause me to turn my heart to You.” Then we need to exercise our heart to believe the Lord: “Lord, I believe You and Your Word. I believe in Your dealing within me and in all Your dealings in my environment.” At this point we will sense how wrong we are, how many mistakes we have made, and how much filthiness we have. Therefore, we must confess in order to be cleansed and sprinkled from an evil conscience. Then our heart will be renewed afresh.

These four steps will cause our heart to function adequately. The function of the heart is to love the Lord, for the heart is the loving organ of our being. This is proven by Mark 12:30: “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart.” The heart was created for the purpose of loving the Lord. If we do not have a heart, we cannot love. Just as we cannot see without eyes, hear without ears, or think without a mind, we cannot love without a heart. Many Christians do not know what the function of the heart is. They know the function of the eyes, the ears, and the mind, but they simply do not know the function of the heart.

Love is a matter of the heart. We cannot love people with our nose, nor can we love them with our hands. Our heart is the only organ by which we can exercise love. No one can say that he does not love anything. Everyone loves something—either the Lord Himself or something else. The more we turn our heart to the Lord, the more we will exercise our heart to believe the Lord, and the more our heart will be sprinkled from an evil conscience and renewed. Then it will have a greater capacity to love the Lord. This is the function of a renewed heart. Every morning we must renew our heart so that we may love the Lord more and more.

All spiritual experiences start with love in the heart. If we do not love the Lord, it will be impossible for us to receive any kind of spiritual experience. In fact, the first experience of our Christian life, our salvation, involves our heart loving the Lord Jesus. Not one person who truly repents is without love in his heart toward the Lord. He may not have the language to express it, but he has the sweet sense of love within. He does not have the knowledge, but his initial experience of salvation is a reaction or reflection of love in his heart toward the Lord.

We all must learn how to continually turn and exercise our heart in order to have our heart purged from an evil conscience and renewed again so that we may love the Lord more and more. It was the loss of its first, fresh love to the Lord that was the cause of the church’s fall and degradation (Rev. 2:4). When our heart is not fresh in loving the Lord, we have fallen. We must turn our heart back to the Lord again and again and have it continually renewed that we may have a new and fresh love toward the Lord.