God - The Heart Surgeon

          The Bible says that the heart is deceitful and full of wickedness.


                                      "The heart is deceitful above all things
                                        and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?"
                                                                         Jeremiah 17:9


                                      (The LORD said to Jeremiah) "Again and again 
                                      I sent all my servants the prophets to you.  They
                                      said, 'Each of you must turn from your wicked
                                      ways and reform your actions; do not follow
                                      other gods to serve them.  Then you will live in
                                      the land I have given to you and your fathers.
                                      But you have not paid attention or listened to me."
                                                                        Jeremiah 35:15


          Only those who have a pure heart may see God.


                                          "Blessed are the pure in heart,
                                           for they will see God."
                                                                        Matthew 5:8


                                         "Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
                                           Who may stand in His holy place?
                                           He who has clean hands and a pure
                                           heart, who does not lift up his soul to
                                           an idol or swear by what is false."
                                                                         Psalm 24:3-4


          Paul urged believers to set their hearts on the things of God.


                                         "Since, then, you have been raised with
                                           Christ, set your hearts on things above,
                                           where Christ is seated at the right hand
                                           of God."
                                                                         Colossians 3:1


          Since we have a deceitful heart, but a pure heart is necessary to have a right
     relationship with God, what must happen for us to obtain such a heart?


                                                         **********


          In the book, Foundations of Grace, Steve Lawson writes about what must be
     done for us to receive a pure heart.


          "Hundreds of years before Moses, God commanded Abraham to circumcise all
     the males in his household."  (Circumcision was God's appointed 'sign of the cov-
     enant,' which signified Abraham's covenanted commitment to the Lord -- that the
     Lord above would be his God, whom he would trust and serve.  Circumcision
     signifies consecration to the Lord"  NIV commentary).


          "For Israel, circumcision was a picture of what God must do to the uncoverted
     heart.  In the new birth, God must circumcise the sin-hardened heart if sinful man
     is to love Him with saving faith.  By a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, God
     must cut deeply into the unconverted heart and supernaturally set it apart to Him-
     self.

          "This is the omnipotent work of the Spirit in regeneration.  Again, then, we see
     that God is the sole initiating cause of regeneration.  Man is passive while God is
     active in this vital step in the process of salvation:

                                     
                                       'And the LORD your God will circumcise your
                                        heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you
                                        will love the LORD your God with all your heart
                                        and with all your soul, that you may live.'
                                                                           Deuteronomy 30:6

          Lawson continues:

          "Moses presented God's sovereign work of grace as a spiritual circumcision,
     a cutting away of the foreskin of the unbelieving heart.  It is a penetrating work
     of grace that removes man's inability to believe and replaces it with true repent-
     ance and faith. 

          "Regeneration is open-heart surgery, a soul-reviving work of the Spirit that
     probes to the deepest level of a person's being.  Already in the Old Testament
     we are taught that only God can bring about the radical change which is nec-
     essary to enable fallen human beings again to do what is pleasing in His sight.

          "In Deuteronomy 30:6 we find our spiritual renewal figuratively described
     as a circumcision of the heart.  Since the heart is the inner core of the person,
     the passage teaches that God must cleanse us within before we can truly love
     Him.

          "When God 'operated' on the heart, then indeed the people would be able to
     love the Lord and live."


                                                          **********


          In regeneration, God removes the hardness from our heart and softens it so
     that we are able to respond to Him in repentance and faith, receiving salvation
     through Jesus Christ.