Do you realize that if God can capture your heart, He can confidently transfer to you the keys to His kingdom?

I was looking back over Dallas Willard’s book, Renovation of the Heart, last night and re-discovered a great quote: “He [Jesus] made disciples by presenting them with the kingdom and introducing them into it by reaching their hearts, changing their vision of reality, and their intentions for life” (pp. 67-68).

The Scriptures are clear: We who are followers of Christ are given a new heart when we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light—from irretrievable uselessness to God to being His sought-after treasure.

No longer do we have hearts that are rebellious and desperately wicked, as Jeremiah preached to his [Old Testament] generation. Rather, as Ezekiel prophesied would be the case when Christ came, the laws of God are now written on our hearts. Our hearts are no longer hardened to God but are soft and pliable (ref. Ezek. 36:26-27).

It is a crying shame that teachers teach—and Believers believe—that the child of God’s heart is a wicked beast torn between two loves: obedience and sin, God and the devil, darkness and light.

This perspective appears correct when one’s theology is based upon behavior, but it is a mishandling of Scripture. I think sometimes this bad-heart, good-heart notion is deliberate in order to motivate folks toward outward godliness in lieu of true spiritual formation.

To be clear: Spiritual formation begins inside and works its way out. You would think we were forming Pharisees instead of people who follow Christ with all their heart.

Next: the scope of transformed hearts... 

I’ve written two books, both novels, to not only describe the heart but demonstrate it. No Mercy tells the story of the heart’s formation. Battle for the Round Tower is the story of the heart’s power.