Where Real Change Starts

For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. – 2 Chronicles 16:9 (NIV)

I know what God wants to change in you first. He wants to change this same thing in me. There are fruit changes and there are root changes. This is a root change. It is your heart. It is my heart. God focuses on the heart.

the righteous God tries the hearts and minds - Psalm 7:9 (NASB)

When the Bible speaks of the heart it usually does not speak purely of emotions, as we sometimes use the word heart. The term “heart” in scripture tends more to point to one’s mind, one’s thought patterns and cognitive control. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he, and biblically, a man (woman) “thinks” with his heart.

"I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." – Jeremiah 17:10 (NIV)

The question is not so much “how is your spiritual life?” as much as it is “how is your thought life?” Do you ask God to purify your thoughts, to cleanse your thinking? Do you ask God to help prevent the garbage that today’s TV, movie, and internet media wants to relentlessly feed you through entrance into your (and your children’s) eyes and ears and thoughts? Do you pray to God to give you biblical discernment? Do you ask God to set His thoughts as primary in your thinking patterns, and not a secondary concern?

I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. – Revelation 2:23

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