Follow up

The Heart 2

Post 169

I am by no means a horse wrangler but have spent a fair bit of time riding horses.
I don’t ever remember a time when the thought of climbing onto a horse for a ride made me think it was going to be work, except perhaps when I knew I would be riding a stubborn problem horse.

For a trained horse, the rider doesn’t even think twice about the “work” of guiding the horse where he wants to go. It is such second nature to both the rider and the horse that they both nearly think the other must be telepathic. But this “telepathy” only happens as long as the rider keep applying regular gentle guidance with the reins as he keeps the destination in mind.
It is not a matter of a war with your horse (unless you have not trained it properly), But you cannot tell your horse where you want to go.
You have to guide it so that you can arrive there.
This does not make your horse bad.

The rider might give the horse lots of liberty to choose step by step just how to get there, all the while maintaining the general direction to insure they arrive at the intended destination, or the rider might over work them both by picking the specific rout around every bush and rock.
But unless the rider has virtually no destination in mind, he does not give the horse its head and let it go wherever it wants, because you can bet the horse does not want with desire to go where the rider wants to go.
Yet this is exactly what many Christians do with their heart, and then wonder how they ended up where they find themselves deep in trouble; both spiritually and temporally.

The key to making the spiritual journey safe and successful, is to know where you intend to go, and have a heart that is trained to take your lead.
The horse is not held accountable for not purposing to arrive at your destination; that is not its job. That is not something it has the ability to do. Best horse or worst horse, the horse is desperately wicked. 605 (Jeremiah 17:9)

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible:
wicked 605 anash;Hebrew; a primary root; to be frail, feeble, or (figuratively) melancholy. [other descriptive words] incurable, sick, woeful.

But I have ridden horses that have a single minded focus on the barn.
This horse will take the determined guidance of the rider, but the second the rider lets up, the horse artfully navigates the steps to somehow be aimed back at the barn!
This kind of horse has a mind of its own and is not interested in trying to go where the rider intends. From a practical view the horse is willful and stubborn and missing the spirit of horse and rider.

Usually the reason for this single focused mindset is because it has learned that it normally gets a bucket of oats after arriving back at the barn.
The horse loves the oats.

All this imagery applies directly to our hearts.
The heart is yours, it is your job to train it to go where you direct with your will. But the destination is your obligation, not the heart's
Does your heart love a vice? Does it love innocent amusements to distraction? Does it despise the things of God? You are accountable because it is your heart. You trained it.
Your heart and your mind are a unit, like a horse and its rider.

"I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." Jeremiah 17:10
also Jeremiah 11:20, 20:12

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But lets say you have in ignorance or through neglect, trained your horse to love the "wild oats".
Now you have finally determined to head for the kingdom with a single focus, but your heart is impossible to guide. It really wants to head back to the familiar oats.
Your will grows tired of constantly straining at the reins against the desires of your heart. The battle against such a strong animal appears to be hopeless.
Does it help to get off and beat the horse senseless?
actually it doesn't.
"A beating here in the field... Oats back at the tavern... its a no brainer, I'm heading for the tavern!"

So what are you to do?

"And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.
And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony (hard) heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh:
That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." Ezekiel 11:18-20

Now break this passage down and investigate each line concept to hear just what it is that God is saying;

First, it is our duty to act, which is not as easy as it sounds.
Your heart loves the forbidden, and to be honest, your mind probably thinks good thought of it too. God will not give you a new heart so that you can ruin it as well. You have to do your part to seriously commit to your new focus of destination. This is a mental choice that empowers the will by knowledge and understanding.
This knowledge and understanding comes through the labor to enter into his rest.

Once we have a grasp on this knowledge and understanding, then we must by the act of will, take away all the detestable things and all the abominations we have become intimately familiar with. i.e. This is permanently removing them from the access of the heart.
They are off the table, no longer an option, no discussion no argument. Done. No amount of whining from my heart will affect me. In fact I refuse to allow my heart to even mourn the loss. This is all the act of the will in obedience to God.

THEN the LORD promises He will (speaking of the Jewish nation collectively, but to all his wayward people who return generally) give hearts of a single unification. Does he do this by re-educating it? No.
Through our labor of reformation He secretly gives us a new heart that is not trained to be stubborn. just like getting a new horse. (I will not here go into the complexities of the interconnections of the spirit and the heart mentioned.)
Now WHY does the LORD give us this new heart?
The colon gives us the answer;
So that you can guide your horse where you should go!

The new horse still has no clue where that is, but now it is not the old stubborn one bent on specific trained destructions, though it is still in its nature to wander, after all it is a horse. You still need to train this new horse, not to go where it should, but to follow your guidance. i.e. to be sensitive and quick to respond to the reins.
But don't think for a second the new heart won’t learn to love the desires of your mind if you dwell on the things you have removed!

Because a horse and rider are one package, it can often be hard to tell if the problem lies in the heart or the head until one of you chooses a different path!

Again, none of this is a real strenuous workout if you remain single minded with your eyes on the LORD. THAT is the real secret to success and the rest will fall into place.
Who do you choose to love?

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Conclusion:
So if you feel that God has given you a new heart,
and you feel that your heart tells you that it loves God.
Is it then wise to listen to your heart when it tells you it would rather watch CSI five nights a week rather than spend that time with God in his word?

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9
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