You don’t necessarily know what is going on in somebody’s heart by the first thing they say. I have learned that over many years as a pastor. The heart is revealed over time, and the wonderful truth I want to convey is this: you are not destined to stay in the same place in your heart. Your heart can change.
What Is Really Going On Under the Hood
In Freudian psychology (and I am not recommending it; there is an awful lot of bad stuff there, some of it frankly demonic) there was the idea of getting people to talk and talk and talk. As they talked, they would expose, release and unveil to somebody qualified to discern what was really going on inside them. Amid everything else that was thought, taught and believed, I would suggest there is still a truth there. What is in the heart comes out over time. As written in Luke 6:45, “For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
I can look at somebody and judge them by how they appear and what they say. I don’t want to say I’ve learned not to trust people as a pastor, but… yes, I’ve learned not to trust people too quickly. What I have learned is that a church is a great place for exposing what is really going on under the hood, but it takes time. When somebody comes into my church and everything about them is amazing, I’m genuinely happy they’re there. I just wouldn’t trust them with ten cents yet.
What I will do is simply do life with them. I want to see how they react when things aren’t going well. I want to see how they react when they don’t get their own way. I want to see how they react when they have to work alongside somebody who disagrees with them. Those are the things that reveal the heart. I’m not looking at the gifting, at how gifted they are. I’m looking at what is really going on in the heart.
You Are Not Destined to Stay the Same
We speak about giving our hearts to Jesus, and He does give us a new heart. Jesus wants to teach us to allow the things of the Spirit to invade our hearts and to determine our hearts. As written in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
I know that, over time, people can grow hard-hearted. You can also soften your heart over time. You are not destined to always remain in the same place in your heart. That is a glorious truth, and I want you to grasp it.
The Portrait in the Attic
Years ago Oscar Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray. It is the story of a famous painter who painted a portrait of an astonishingly handsome young man (let’s say he was about twenty) called Dorian Gray. The painting was the talk of London. Everybody said it was the most beautiful painting they had seen. When the day came to unveil it and present it to the young man, the point was made to him that it was a little sad in a way, because he would never be that beautiful again. He would grow old. He would grow wrinkled. He would get grey hair. He would lose his beauty and his youth. The painting was a snapshot of him in time.
As the story goes (and it is only a fable, of course) the young man made a pact with the devil. “Oh, that the portrait would grow old and decrepit, and I would stay forever young.” Magically, that is what happens. Over time, the young man lives a debauched life. He lives a life of sin.
Listen to me carefully. The lifestyle he lives is being written all over the portrait, not on his face. He looks angelic, youthful, innocent and peaceful. Every time he looks at the portrait, it has grown more snarling and evil, until in the end he locks it away in the attic and literally puts bars and chains around it. He cannot allow anybody to see it, because they would see the true state of his heart. Outwardly, he travels the world and returns perhaps twenty-five years later to meet all his friends, and they are amazed. “You haven’t changed. You still look twenty.” Yet up in the attic hangs the portrait of an old, evil, snarling man.
My point is that we all live a version of that outside of Jesus. Over time, what happens around us can determine who we are on the inside. Our hearts tend to crystallise around a certain point of view.
Fixing Your Heart in the Right Direction
If you keep making certain choices, you will end up fixing your heart in that way. That is what a hardened heart is. It becomes very hard to change a hardened heart, but it is possible. As written in Hebrews 3:15, “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
Forgive me for playing with language here, but I believe we can harden our hearts in a good direction. We can crystallise and fix our hearts around the right choices. A person with a hard heart finds it difficult to believe. Yet we can so set our hearts around the things of God’s Word that it actually becomes easy to believe. We delight to do His will, and it becomes natural to walk in certain ways because we have fixed our hearts around that pattern. As David declared in Psalm 57:7, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise.”
The heart is revealed over time, and the heart is formed over time. What you choose, again and again, you become. Let me challenge you to stop simply waiting for your heart to change and to begin, by faith, fixing it on God and His Word. You are not destined to stay where you are. You can change your heart.
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Scriptures for Study
Luke 6:45, Matthew 12:34–35, Matthew 15:18–19, Proverbs 4:23, Proverbs 23:7, Jeremiah 17:9–10, 1 Samuel 16:7, Ezekiel 36:26, Ezekiel 11:19, Hebrews 3:15, Hebrews 3:12–13, Psalm 95:7–8, Psalm 57:7, Psalm 112:7, Psalm 108:1, Psalm 51:10, Psalm 119:11, Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Galatians 5:16, Galatians 6:7–8, Matthew 7:16–20, Colossians 3:1–2, Philippians 4:8
10 Questions for Reflection
- What has been revealed in your heart when things haven’t gone your way?
- How do you tend to react when working with someone who disagrees with you?
- Do you judge others mainly by their gifting, or by what is in their heart?
- In what areas of your life have you allowed your heart to grow hard over time?
- Where might there be a “portrait in the attic” that you have been hiding?
- Which repeated choices are currently shaping the direction of your heart?
- What does it mean to you that you are not destined to stay in the same place in your heart?
- How can you allow the things of the Spirit to invade and determine your heart?
- What would it look like to “harden” your heart in a good direction around God’s Word?
- Which one choice could you begin making daily to fix your heart on God?
