And the Meditations of My Heart

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. We've been observing over the recent weeks especially how every miracle that God performs upon us to change us into what He wants us to be begins in the heart. The outside of our lives, the external things, will take care of themselves absolutely when the heart, the inner man, the inner woman, is filled with God's presence and ruled by God's nature.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy place, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart? Behold, I desire truth in the inward part, and in the secret part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

While he was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and sat at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash his hands before dinner. And the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cuff and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness, you fools.

Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give for us those things which are within, and behold, everything is clean for you. We've also observed that if this change is to take place inside, the one who has to do it is God. God has to give us a new heart.

God has to come in there and pull out the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. God has to teach us inwardly to know him, and he does this in two ways. First, by means of a sudden inward change, a new beginning.

We get to a place in our lives where we begin to realize that so much of our so-called religion is nothing but an external trapping over us. And while we say all the right things and do such lovely things, our inside is rotten. And we can be mouthing all the religious platitudes and even doing all kinds of good deeds and have rotten hearts.

One day we wake up and we see how this is the case with us, and we cry out to God for help. And the minute that we really do that, God answers that cry and he says, Your sins are forgiven. Be clean.

And suddenly, God's presence comes inside and we find ourselves in a way that we've never experienced before. We're filled inside ourselves with light that makes all the difference in the world. And there's never been a time in this block, as far as I know, where we've seen more of these inner sudden changes taking place than we've seen recently.

And should there be among us anybody who has never experienced this, I really believe that I must say that you can experience it today. There's no reason why you have to go out of this door without having at least been given by God a new beginning in such a way that you know it's come. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go out of here relieved from that weight.

Many of us walk in the door at one point or another full of self. We're self-conscious, self-centered, self-defensive, self-assertive, self-aggrandizing. You know, everything is self.

Self-righteous. And then suddenly it happens that God reaches in and touches this thing in here and 20 tons is lifted out of our heart. And we walk out like we're walking on cloud nine because the weight has come out of here.

The rock has been lifted. And God will do that for anybody. For anybody here who has not experienced it.

But this sudden inner change is only half the story. The other half is that God now has to work inside that heart day after day after day, teaching us to think new thoughts and walk and talk with Him and practice His presence all the time. There has to be an inner teaching of the Spirit of God going on all the time because is it not true that many of us who have at one point or another experienced that sudden inner change also find that our hearts and our minds begin drifting into a thought world that is anything but edifying for us and anything but pleasing for God.

We get up in the morning, we start saying our prayers. And before we know it, our thoughts have sunk away from the throne and now they're down here latching on to some regret that we haven't been able to throw out of our minds maybe for years or days. Or we're walking down the street and before we know it we're thinking about that person, he or she, who may be causing our life to be miserable.

Then the next thing that happens is that we find ourselves picturing all kinds of juicy possibilities, ways in which his disturbing presence, her disturbing presence, might just be removed. Or we're at work and our eyes just like on one thing and suddenly our mind is rolling down a track of lust. Or we find ourselves suspecting everybody's motives, you know, paranoid about the boss or our best friend.

And every time we're brushing our teeth we're scheming a new plan for our own glory, you know, some new thing we're going to do, some new program, some new thing we can impose on everybody around us, starting with perhaps our own family. Or maybe we discover that about 70% of the people, maybe 90% of the people that we meet, we find ourselves highly critical of, especially brothers and sisters. Now we know that here we've been given a new start and yet time and time again our hearts just slip off, off the track.

We know that if we're going to live in God's presence we have to have a clean heart. Blessed are those pure in heart for they shall see God. If we're going to walk up into the hill of God we have to have that heart that has been cleansed.

But how will it be? Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. And when we pray this we're not praying for something morbid, but something absolutely glorious, so that in this heart there is truth instead of all these lies. And so that instead of the constant restlessness and anxiety, you know, there is peace.

And instead of vanity after vanity, there is burning light. And this God will do on a day in and day out basis in any of our lives. Provided we will do three things.

First, the first thing I believe that has to happen if we're going to have God teaching us from within, is that we pray for a clean heart. Constantly pray for a clean heart. By praying for a clean heart we're acknowledging that our problem is something that God has to solve.

And we're also beginning to see, when we pray for a clean heart, that God will very do this. You know, just as surely as he gives us air to breathe and water to drink, he will come in and he will renew us constantly in our hearts. And he will teach us from within.

When you pray for a clean heart you're also acknowledging that it's not your external that is the problem, but it's the inside. Notice the Sermon on the Mount, which begins, remember, with the beatitudes, includes the seven ingredients of the life of faith. And every one of these ingredients has to do with the inside.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Where? Where is one poor in spirit? But inside. Blessed are they that mourn.

That's an inner thing. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

All of these things are internal. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are the pure in heart. All of these things are inward things. When I'm asking God to give me a clean heart, I'm asking God to take the beatitudes and make them real in my life.

The second thing I have to do if I want God to teach me within, that the meditation of my heart might be acceptable in sight, I have to prepare the way. Every day I have to prepare the way. When we got married, those of us who are married, there was a point at which it took place, boom.

And you know, we prepare the way in our hearts for our mates. See, but what's happened in many a marriage is that we don't continuously, every day, prepare the way in our hearts. We have to receive.

Husbands have to receive their wives into their hearts every day. If I don't continuously prepare the way, that thing gets dull and dry. How much more is this the case now with Jesus himself? We have to prepare the way in our hearts to receive him, not just once, but on a continuous basis.

This is the testimony of John when Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He confessed. He did not deny, but confessed. I am not the Christ.

They asked him, what then? Are you Elijah? He said, no. Are you the prophet? He answered, no. They said to him, who are you then? Let us have an answer for those who sent us.

What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah. And just as the wilderness of the Jordan at the eastern border of Israel was the place where our Lord began his ministry.

And that ministry began by the Elijah prophet, really. The Elijah prophet shouting, make straight the way of the Lord. So, in each one of our hearts, that is the externalization of a reality inside each of us.

There is a kind of an eastern border of each of our hearts that opens out on the spirit realm. And from that direction, God will come, or Satan will come. And if that eastern border of our life, where there is the cry, make straight the way of the Lord, is not uncluttered and straightened and prepared.

There is no way that we are going to have Jesus coming in here all the time. Daily there have to be, we have to clear the boulders and the rocks, we have to fill in the valleys and knock down the mountains and prepare the way for the King to come in, every day. So that there is a habit of thought in my mind that I know very well, the Spirit of God has put his finger on it, is destroying me.

And preventing my Lord from taking dominion over my heart and coming in with blessing and life. I get rid of that thing. You know, if there is a habit of speech, if there is a critical attitude that I have again and again, I have to prepare the way all the time, make straight that way, so that the Lord can come in.

It is not worth it to have all these things that we have been clinging in our hearts and losing out on having the Lord coming in every day. This is a continuous thing. Finally, if we are going to have a meditation going on in our hearts, if we are going to have a continuous atmosphere of the presence of God going on inside, it means that we are going to have to give alms of that which is within, which is the passage which we read earlier.

Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness. You fools did not need to make the outside make the inside also, but give for alms those things which are within, and behold everything is clean for you. And what do we have in here? The only one thing that we have in our hearts that we can ever give is God's mercy.

What else do I have? It came to me as a gift, and now I give it. And just as surely as I receive that mercy, I give it out every day. And I begin to, first of all, give forth that mercy in my prayers.

If I am not praying mercy on my brother, I am not going to do him any good. If I go up and say, you are forgiven for that terrible thing you did for me, I begin in my prayers, it is hardly likely that I have really forgiven him in my heart. I begin by praying for him, and really meaning it, and asking God's blessing on him.

Then, I begin to also conform my mouth to that which I have in my heart, that mercy. And I begin to speak in such a way that I do not defame him, undercut him, slander him, misconstrue his motives, you know, get people thinking bad things about him or her. And then I begin, as was said in Sunday school, to serve with my hands.

When I get to that place where I begin to give forth from my heart mercy, as generously as I was giving forth criticism and hardness and bitterness before. When I get to that place, my heart will be clean, and the meditation of my heart will be acceptable in God's sight. We are what goes on in our hearts.

That is what we are. Not what we look like, not even the things we may say at certain times, although I am convinced with our Lord that what comes out of our mouth will ultimately show what is in our hearts. But we are what goes on in our hearts.

And the same God who will give us a fresh start even this day, any of us here who need it, will also make it possible for each one of us to live in his presence and have a heart that's just filled with his light, cleansed continuously by his peace, if we will ask him constantly, and if we will prepare the way for him continuously, and if we will give forearms such things as are within, showing forth his mercy even as he pours it into us. Lord God, you are requiring things of us and showing things in us that we have, many of us at least, have not seen before. And what blessings have come as you show us these things.

We're asking that you help us in this area of our lives, today and in the coming days, that we'll no longer be slovenly about the meditation of our hearts, and no longer so easy on ourselves concerning what goes on in our hearts, even while we're so hard on everybody else. Help us, Lord God, to come to that place where our heart becomes truly a house of prayer, a place of prayer and a fountainhead of mercy, for ourselves and for our families, for our brothers and sisters, and for all people with whom we have to do it. We ask it in Jesus' name.