We can neither see our spiritual heart with our physical eyes nor measure its size in a physical sense. But this heart of ours certainly has size and the size of this heart is different for different people. The size of the heart varies according to what kind of heart we were born with and what we have done to form it while growing up. Note that the size of our heart can increase limitlessly as we cultivate the heart with truth and change it into spirit.
Let's now look into the elements of our heart and possess the heart that is 'as broad as the sea'. With this heart that resembles Jesus Christ's beautiful heart, let's bear abundant fruit.
1. Three Elements of Man's Heart
Romans 7:21-23 reads, "I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members."
From this verse we can understand how a man's heart is composed. The 'inner man' in this verse is the heart of truth that concurs with the law of God. There is also the 'law of my mind'. This is the conscience. Conscience is a standard of value-judgment which an individual has formed on his own. Also, there is the 'law of sin', consisting of the untruth planted through Satan.
While the 'inner man'—the heart of truth—wants to keep the law of God, the 'law of sin' in the members of body defeats conscience and causes you to sin. Here, if you practice the evident untruth such as hatred, jealousy, judgment, and condemnation, it may be easy for you to find the evil in yourself and try to cast it away.
Yet, you need to discover untruthful attributes in your 'nature' in order to change your heart into truth and accomplish the heart of spirit. In other words, you need to throw away evil in conscience and untruth in nature as well as evident untruth. To the extent that you change your heart into truth and achieve the heart of spirit you can have broader hearts and bear more fruit.
2. Untruth in Nature
When God created the first man Adam, he was a living being filled with only the knowledge of the truth. However, his spirit died after his transgression of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as God told him that he would surely die in the day that he ate from it. Then, his nature started to corrupt, being affected by the trait of the ground that he was formed of, which changes according to what we add to it (Genesis 2:7).
When he was a living being full of spiritual knowledge, Adam's heart had a good nature much like fertile and good soil. But after he sinned, evil components were added to his heart and his nature corrupted. That is, one's nature can change according to what he sees, hears, and feels and to the extent that evil comes into him as he grows.
For example, cunning and crafty characters, cowardly, rough and tyrannical characters, seeking one's own, dishonest, proud and rude characters, etc., came into the human heart and changed it in a bad way. This nature of man is passed down to the descendants through life energy. In this life-energy are contained the appearances, physical constitution, intelligence, mental and physical characteristics, and even habits.
Thus, when it comes to formation of nature, the nature that is inherited is of course important, but this nature can be changed according to what people accept in their circumstances. By adding elements to the original nature they inherited at birth, people respectively form different kinds of nature. Therefore, everybody has a different kind of nature.
When compared with soil, our nature is like the quality of soil. Since the nature is formed deep inside of our heart through parents' life energy and growth process, it is not easy for us to find the untruth in our natures. Let's suppose there is a glass of water with some other substance mixed in it. If we don't agitate the water in the glass, the substance will sink to the bottom, and the water at the top will look clean. If we shake it, the impure substance will come up. This substance can be likened to the untruth in our nature.
This applies to Job and David who, though they seemed righteous, had to be allowed and guided by God to discover untruth in their nature and remove it.
3. Evil in Conscience
People discern between good and evil according to the standard called 'conscience'. From birth, each person forms a standard in his/her nature to discern between good and evil. This is the conscience. But the problem is that this conscience cannot be the absolute standard of goodness.
If we ask people whether stealing is good or evil, most people would answer that it is evil. But if we ask people about a specific occasion, whether it is stealing or not, we can see a wide range of difference in their consciences. There are some people who feel the pangs of conscience when they take something that belongs to another person, even if it is something quite small. But most people do not take it seriously if they just borrow somebody else's possession without permission and use it.
As each one's nature is different, each person has a different standard of good and evil. According to the generation and area, the standard can be very different. For example, everybody thinks he should respect his parents, but the way of showing respect is all different for each person.The absolute standard of goodness must not be conscience of people but God's Word which is the goodness and truth itself. If we see, hear, and accept evil things in the heart, our conscience will become stained with evil. To the extent accepted, our consciences will become dull. Eventually we will not notice something is evil although it is really evil. On the contrary, as much as we believe God and plant truth in heart, our conscience will also be changed into a good conscience.
In order to become sanctified, we should get rid of evident untruthfulness in the heart, untruth in nature, and evil in conscience. By understanding it, let's achieve the heart of spirit quickly and bear abundant fruit with broad hearts.
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