To Achieve a Sincere Heart (1)
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June 17, 2018 |
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"Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:22).
Dr. Jaerock Lee,
Senior Pastor of Manmin Central Church
Chairman, The United Holiness Church of Jesus Christ
Permanent President, The World Christianity Revival Mission Association
Founder & Board Chairman, Global Christian Network
Founder & Board Chairman, World Christian Doctors Network
Founder & Board Chairman, Manmin International Seminary
Founder & Board Chairman, The Alliance Holiness Theological Seminary
Doctorate of Ministry, and Honorary Doctorate of Divinity
His sermons were broadcast by the Far East Broadcasting Company and the Asia Broadcast Station.
His Christian columns appear in The Chosun Ilbo, The JoongAng Daily, The Dong-A Ilbo, The Hankook Ilbo, The Seoul Shinmun, The Hankyoreh Shinmun, The Kyunghyang Shinmun, The Korea Economic Daily, The Shisa News, and The Christian Press.
He conducted crusades in New York City, Washington D. C., Baltimore, Maryland, Los Angeles, and in Hawaii of the USA; Japan; India; Pakistan; the Philippines; Argentina; Honduras; Peru; Russia; Germany; Kenya; Tanzania; Uganda; the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Jerusalem of Israel; and Estonia.
"To achieve a sincere heart, you firstly have to achieve goodness that is recognized by God firstly. For this, you should reflect upon yourself with the truth and achieve a broad heart free from changing mind in any kind of situation. Secondly, you should sacrifice yourselves even to the point of giving everything and achieve true love that trusts and believes others". - Excerpt from the Leadership Conference Seminar titled "A Sincere Heart and Perfect Faith"
Why did the God of love create man and why has He cultivated mankind on the earth? It is because He wanted to gain true children with whom He can share love in heaven forever.
God's true children see everything in the sight of God and think, talk, and act in His standard. To do so, you must achieve a sincere heart and possess perfect faith. Here, a sincere heart is a truthful heart void of falsehood and a changing mind. Only when you achieve this sincere heart can you be given perfect faith by God.
How much of such a heart have you achieved? To accomplish a sincere heart, you should have a heart that is of goodness in the sight of God. It should be such a heart in His sight because although you may have set the standard of the truth that seems truthful, in many cases it turns out to be not truthful in His sight. That is, you may say you love others, but your actions are sometimes far away from true love. You may say something that sounds like goodness, but the words sometimes contain jealousy and judgment. Let's now delve into how to achieve a heart of goodness that is "good" in His sight.
1. You should reflect upon yourself with the truth.
1) The level of goodness as the criteria of the truth and one's self-developed framework of the truth
The level of goodness is divided into four. At the first level, one holds ill feeling in though he/she does not confront evildoers with evil. People of the world may say it is goodness, but God will not say it is.
The problem is that some people think they are of goodness although they stay at this level. But knowing goodness just as knowledge is clearly different from cultivating a high level of goodness and understanding it in heart. To evaluate goodness in our hearts, thus, we should see our words, actions, thoughts, and heart as they are based on the Word of God.
The second level of goodness is not to have any ill feeling in heart as well as not to confront evil with evil. People at this level of goodness will not cause their hearts to be agitated in any kind of situation. They will not have any ill feeling and evil thought even to those who do evil and do harm to them. This is the minimum level of goodness with which you can gain God's recognition.
The third level of goodness is to move the heart of even evildoers to you coupled with not having any ill feeling. If you cultivate more goodness than this, you can reach the level of giving up even your life for those who do evil to you, which is the fourth level of goodness.
You can measure your level of goodness only when you frankly assess yourselves based on the standard of the truth. However, the problem is that many people form their own self-framework of the truth and set it as their own standard. It led to their failure of facing their true 'self' and reaching the level of goodness that God really wants from them. The biggest cause of their forming the wrong self-framework of the truth results from their being unable to understand the heart of God. Without understanding His heart, they would just keep the word of the truth as knowledge and form their own standard of the truth based on what they have cultivated in their heart.
If you keep forming such wrong self-frameworks of the truth, you could become hypocrites like the Pharisees in Jesus' time. Of course, the knowledge of the truth is very important. Only with the knowledge of the truth can you understand the goodness of God and reach the level of His goodness. That is, the truth is a guide leading you to God.
However, if you have the truth merely as knowledge, it could turn into an instrument of the untruth with which you may pass judgment or condemnation on others. For instance, the Word of God tells us to unceasingly pray and to work faithfully to the point of death. Hearing this, some people form their own standard and how they expect others to act according to the Word.
They may categorize other people as those who pray and who don't or as those who work faithfully and who don't. As they judge others that way, they may like and recognize only people who meet their standard and may ignore those who don't. However, humans who cannot look at others' inner hearts must not judge or condemn others just because of their appearance or outward actions.
People with such wrong self-frameworks of the truth do not try to understand the heart of God embedded in the Word but only focus on literal meanings of the Bible and its formality. They may miss many parts of the depth of God's heart and will in it. They may fail to look at every side of a situation but may just see only a portion of it. They may be unable to think in others' shoes and insist that they are right as confined in the limit of the truth they know.
Therefore, to accomplish the level of goodness God recognizes, you should check if you have any faulty self-frameworks you made and demolish them. When you listen to the Word of God with a humble heart and apply it to yourselves, you can do so. If you pray fervently with such an effort to discover yourselves, your self-framework of the truth will be destroyed and you will realize the heart and goodness of God.
2) A few criteria of the truth for checking your heart
The first criterion is whether you lose heart and become discouraged. When someone is praised there are some people who think, "I pray and work harder than him. Why is he praised while I am not?" and feel disappointed and disheartened.
Some others may lose heart when it seems that they are not given rewards for what they work for. Our prayer and faithfulness should be done for God. It is not for receiving any rewards in return or gaining recognition or praise from others.
Of course, God blesses those who work hard for His kingdom even on the earth with fruit and rewards according to what they did. Even if they do not receive any blessing on the earth, they will receive rewards in heaven. If we truly believe and hope for it, we do not have to feel discomfort or lose heart even if we do not receive any praise or rewards for our work. We just do our work with the heart of an unworthy slave (Luke 17:10).
If you have the heart that feels uncomfortable and lose heart when your work and efforts aren't recognized, it is likely that you will feel jealous when other people are praised and recognized. God told us not to fret even because of evildoers and not feel envious even toward wrongdoers in Psalm 37:1. Then, if you feel jealous and envious just because you do not gain recognition and praise as much as you want, you should realize it is evil.
The second criterion is to feel mournful. There are two kinds of mourning: spiritual mourning and fleshly mourning. It is proper in the sight of God to mourn for your own sin, other souls, and the kingdom of God. However, some people may mourn because they do not get what they want or feel sorrowful about their situation out of evil.
Mourning out of evil is likely to contain jealousy and enviousness towards others and resentment towards God. Thus, you should spot it quickly, humble yourselves in His sight, repent thoroughly, and mourn to ask for God's help to cast it off. Only then can you become truly renewed.
The third criterion is the heart of being able to give away. Abraham had a right to choose a better land but he gave away the choice to his nephew Lot (Genesis 13:9). It was a very important choice for people at that time since they made a living by livestock farming and the choice would decide the future rise or fall of their family. But Abraham willingly gave the choice to Lot.
Unlike the case of Abraham, some people continue to insist that they will have their own benefits and make an evil scheme to get those benefits. We are, however, the members of the body of the Christ (Romans 12:5), so we should achieve the heart of goodness like that of Abraham and take care of each other and give what we have for them.
The fourth is the heart that seeks the benefit of others. Giving away is the heart to give up your own benefit and let it go to others, but seeking others' benefit transcends this level. It is a more active way of caring for others. With this heart, you can sacrifice for others and help others to gain more recognition and praise and go ahead of you.
Spiritual love is not just giving away what you could possess for others, but it is to seek their benefits more actively and to help them become better-off. If you pursue this kind of heart in everything, you will naturally receive love and recognition from other people.
The fifth criterion is the heart to rejoice with the truth. It is the heart of feeling joyful when others are lifted up higher than you, when they are more blessed than you, and when they alone are praised and recognized although you worked together.
In order to achieve this heart, you must cast off every form of evil such as jealousy, enviousness, and hatred. You must not judge, condemn, and slander others whatsoever. You also must rejoice even when people who look less capable than you become leaders and gain recognition and praise from others.
2. You should have a broad heart.
People with a broad heart can rejoice and give thanks when they are in hardship or difficulties. They can pass tests and trials quickly and become greater vessels because they unchangingly have thanks, joy, and love for God even in hardship.
However, narrow-minded people sway back and forth and move from this choice to that choice depending on the situation. They easily feel uncomfortable and disheartened for what does not matter. They even feel resentful against God and lose heart when they did not get what they want or experienced failure.
They cannot embrace others, so it is not easy for them to make peace with others. They insist on their own ideas and want to be served. If something is against their will, they get angry or sometimes just leave the group they work with. They do not try to make peace through conversation, but just insist on their own righteousness. If their ideas are not accepted, they feel angry. Even if their ideas are accepted, they may put other people in troublesome situations.
Unlike such people, Daniel and his three friends showed unchanging love and trust toward God regardless of the condition or situation that they were in. Even under the threat of their lives they did not turn to the right or to the left. They just gave thanks saying, "Even if He does not…" Mary Magdalene also did not have any discomfort or resentment towards Jesus even if He turned His face away from her.
This heart that does not change in any kind of situation is a broad heart. Changing mind comes from a narrow heart. Because one's heart vessel is small and narrow, the heart changes because of minor outward influences and results in excuses. While people with a narrow and small heart-vessel are subject to insignificant external factors, those with a broad heart do not lose composure even when they are in a great trouble and cannot see the way out. They just push ahead with what they decided to do without changing.
Therefore, you should admit that your habit of changing your mind come from deceitfulness in your heart. A truthful person who has cultivated the truth in heart will not change no matter how great the benefit that might be gained by changing. In 1 Samuel 15, God told King Saul to destroy the people of Amalek, but Saul disobeyed and changed the word in the way that sounded good to him. He took the king of Amalek captive alive and brought good livestock saying it was for the sacrifice to God.
In fleshly thoughts, it might seem good. However, God told him through Samuel, "Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams."
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the obedience that God wants from you is to act precisely according to the intention in the order and instruction that He has given. However, if you have selfish motives, greed, lying heart, or arrogance, you cannot obey Him completely because of such fleshly attributes. People may think they obeyed after they just did things ordered in their limit just because those things are beyond their capability.
However, if you obey the Word of God just as it is said without any fleshly thoughts and with belief in the Word, even if you are short of many things, God will fill your shortcomings and work for you. But if you have changing mind, you will eventually follow your own benefits and disobey in an excuse for your conditions. Even if you do not change, if you have troubles or regrets in your heart, it shows that you still have changing attributes within you.
Therefore, if you want to achieve a sincere heart void of lying and changing mind in the sight of God, you should try to control your heart in everything one by one. That is, you should sincerely keep what you decided to do though only you know the decision. If you say to yourself, "It's just nothing. Put it off," changing mind will grow in your heart. In addition, only when you have no changing mind in your relationship with people can you get rid of changing mind in that with God. I pray in the name of the Lord that you will discover things in your heart and achieve a sincere heart that is clean and trustworthy in the sight of God quickly.
To be continued in the next edition
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