Change My Heart Lord

Heart too hard? It is time to break out the plow.

Jeremiah 4:3-4,14 This is what the Lord says to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: “Plow up the hard ground of your hearts! Do not waste your good seed among thorns. 4 O people of Judah and Jerusalem, surrender your pride and power.

Change your hearts before the Lord,or my anger will burn like an unquenchable fire because of all your sins. 14 O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved.

How long will you harbor your evil thoughts?

---

Israel has turned their backs on God for so long,it is hard to imagine how God can be so patient with his wayward children, it is even more difficult to understand how bad they were. This will help you to understand how extremely bad they were, in the message that God gave the prophet Ezekiel, they were told that they are worse than the Samaritans and the people of Sodom. (Eze 16:46-52)

What a wake up call that should have been to Israel, two cities that they didn't like were said to be closer to God than they were. When we think of the most sinful people on earth the people of Sodom come to mind and it would be difficult to hate anybody more than the Jews hated the Samaritans.

God doesn't rush to judgement but rather he gives his people time to get it right but his people are hard headed and now the time is short, it is time to break out the plow. Jeremiah warns them that they need to soften their hearts, their pride, idolatry and all of the rest of their sins are making the soil too hard. Instead of God's people affecting the culture for good they had allowed the culture to affect them.

Hebrews 3:12-13 Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.

We must keep our guard up so that we do not go back to rebellion, before we were saved we resisted God's authority and we were opposed to his ways, we must be careful that we don't go back to living that way again. God's ways are not the natural tendency of man, without vigilance we will be deceived by Satan and we will go back to our old ways and take up our old lifestyle.

James 4:7-8 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.

Humility is so important. We need to be humble and see ourselves the way that God sees us, it is the only right way to approach God, we can't fool him, he already knows how bad we are. It doesn't work too well if we try to be loyal to him and try to hold onto the world, Jesus warned us that we can't serve two masters. (Luke 16:13)

I need to guard my heart at all times, I don't want to bring God's judgment on myself, I must not refuse to hear and obey the word of God and live as a rebel.