Jeremiah 24:7 says, “Then I will give them a new heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole hearts.”
This verse has been sticking in my brain for the last week or so. We use it with our youth group…we call it our youth 24/7 group. Oh how I wish my heart were fully devoted to the One who loves me twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. How I long for a heart that would never stray from the Master of my soul.
It has been a sobering week for me. I have been looking at how hard my heart is and how my sins affect everything. I have been pondering on how bad I have fallen in the depths of my heart and how desperately I need to return to the Master for cleansing. I understand that I have a choice and so often my heart chooses the wrong things and the next thing I know…..I have once again wandered away into the wilderness. And if it were not for the LORD’s faithfulness to me; I would die. I can see in my minds eye the Lord leaving his flock of lambs as he looks for me in the wilderness. I hear his voice yet am so ashamed to respond and only in desperation and fear I cry out for the Master to help me when I here Him calling out my name. I don't want Him to see the pit that I have fallen into. Yet I am alone and afraid. And in his devotion to me, He once again frees me from the bondage of the pit and He places me in His arms where I feel secure and loved though I am bruised and battered.
This is what I find happens to me. I see sin….and it looks tasty yet it will never yield anything good. I bite this fruit and it starts to affect my heart like a weed. It then starts to affect my love for the Lord. I start to get hungry as this fruit never satisfies; but my appetite has been spoiled (Like candy before dinner). I then no longer hunger for the Word of God. I no longer thirst to pray. And in this state that my heart is in when I am in this darkness; my relationships with others start to see the fruit of this unrighteousness. It affects my relationship with my wife as I become irritable. Then it affects my relationships with everyone else and I start to distance myself from the ones who care about me. And in the end when all is said and done; all that this sin in my heart has produced is bad fruit and weeds.
Every action that I ever do will yield fruit of some kind. So I have been asking myself; am I yielding fruits of righteousness or weeds? And if I am to be honest; as I have pondered this over the last few days…..I have been producing weeds. So I have been focusing on repenting in my heart of hearts. I feel as if most of the last 3 years of my life I have planted weeds that now are choking the fruit that the Lord had grown through me. And I feel convicted. I love conviction as it always puts me back into the arms of Jesus (Thank you Father for convicting me of sin).
So I ask all who read this to please pray that I would be consistent with the Lord. I am so tired of going back and forth. Please pray that the sin that tends to have a stronghold in my heart would lose its appeal and that I would see it as it really is….a rotten, maggot filled lump of vomit.
