Heart Surgery

Heart surgery. As I went into midnight prayer last night I heard, “it’s a heart issue”, from the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time but before the night was over I knew exactly what he meant. As I quieted myself before prayer the Holy Spirit asked me a simple question that brought not only a new level of humility but also a reality check. He asked, “What did you do today that made you any different then someone who does not believe in God?” Running through a list of things in my head; walked with a passion for young people, showed kindness towards my fellow man, vision building for the ministry, etc. As I went through the list, there was not one thing that I relied on God for. I can say that I did but a person who does not believe in Him could have done any and everything I did today. The only thing I did that a non-believer would not do is pray and read my word. How many days of our lives do we live where there is no point in the day where we truly have to rely on God and that shows a distinction between us and a non-believer? “Without faith it is impossible to please God” Faith is doing something that we ourselves cannot do but Christ working through us or on our behalf; there can be no other explanation. The other night E said something that has been resting in my spirit ever since, “because it pleases the Father”, relating to everything that we do in life. But if we can’t please the Father without faith and true faith is doing things we can’t do in our own strength, then are we truly pleasing the Father? I know this is not an easy pill to swallow but it is one that must be forced down none the less. I don’t want to get to heaven and find out that I didn’t please my heavenly Father.

As I struggled to swallow my pill, I realized how off I was in so many ways. Not just in what the Lord dealt with above but even in my prayers. I used to say, “I humble myself before you…” or some version of that but I realized it’s not in me to humble myself. I am humbled when I come in the presence of a holy God. When we say that we humble ourselves, how do we do that? Or is that just another religious saying? If we truly want to be humble before God then we must look at Him in the proper perspective; He’s God, creator of the universe, savior of the world, the one who knows me inside and out and still loves me. That’s humbling.

And the surgery continued….For about the last month I have been quoting 2 Chronicles 16:9, the Lord looks to strengthen those whose hearts are totally committed to him, believing I was totally committing my heart to him. WRONG! How can you have a heart that is totally committed to Him when you walk in pride, unforgiveness, perversion, etc? Once again, the Lord showed me where I was wrong in my prayers. I have been asking God to remove the pride, unforgiveness, perversion but He reminded me of His word in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” We keep asking God to remove the seeds but he wants to remove the root! So tonight I laid myself on the operating table and let the surgeon, God, remove my heart of stone with its pride, perversion, and everything else and put a new heart into me. Now in order for the transplant to be successful I must stay in intensive care, ceasing any activity that would attempt to rush the recovery. I have to watch what I intake (fasting) and go through physical therapy (the word and prayer) so the body won’t reject the heart. Why do we let the body or flesh decide to accept or reject the heart? We’ll get a new heart but our flesh decides for us that it wants to continue the same lifestyle we had before which will create the same problem. The importance of physical therapy is because in it our thinking is changed renewed. We learn how to care for the new heart. There will be things we cannot do anymore but it’s saving our lives. Then after a full recovery I can begin to work towards living a life where my heart is totally committed to him. His grace is sufficient.

Do you seek to please the Father? How bad is that desire?

To him who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit is saying.