Fist or Sponge

 Fist or Sponge?

I heard this in a movie the other day, “Your heart is like a sponge or a fist.”, of course in the movie the point was to get a person to open their heart.

When we are born our heart is open to receive whatever our parents, family and the world is offering. How open our heart is at every stage of life is dependent on how we handle what we are taught and how we are treated.

Some people wind up with their heart like a fist, closed to anything that they do not like or believe, they reject almost everything in life and try to control how others affect them. Some people wind up with their heart like a sponge and they react to everything around them continually driven to try anything and accept everyone. These are the two extremes, most of us have a guarded but slightly open heart.

If you are a born-again, SPIRIT filled Christian then you should have a new heart from GOD. But the change in life takes time, it is the process of no longer living for ourself but living for GOD (repentance). “‘Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways.’ says The LORD GOD. ‘Repent, and turn from your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new SPIRIT, for why should you die O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says The LORD GOD, ‘Therefore turn and live.’” “...The Word of GOD came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he went into the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,...Then he said to the multitudes that came to be baptized by him, ‘Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’...So the people asked him, saying, ‘What shall we do then?’ (study 3 :11-14, this is repenting)...” “Then I saw a Great White Throne and Him Who sat on it, from Whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before GOD, and books were opened, and another Book was opened, which is The Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things that were written in the books.”  Ezekiel 18:30-32, Luke 3:1-18, Revelation 20:11-12.

The heart is not just the muscle that drives the flow of blood throughout our body, it is also our soul. How we think, how we react, how we believe; our thoughts and emotions drive our behavior. This is what GOD wants to change in us; The Bible says that in JESUS we are a new creation (person); “Therefore, if anyone is in CHRIST, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” “In CHRIST JESUS neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:15.

The Problem:

Proverbs 27:19 “As in water, face reflects face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.”

Jeramiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, The LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doing.”

Matthew 6:21 “”For where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” (Study 6:19-24)

Matthew 15:19-20 “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man,...”

1 John 3:16-18 “By this we know Love, because He laid down His Life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the Love of GOD abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in Truth.”

The Solution:

1 Samuel 10:9 “So it was, when he turned his back to go from Samuel, that GOD gave him another heart (changed his heart); and all those signs came to pass.” (study 9:27-10:16).

1 Samuel 16:7 “But The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or his physical stature, because I have refused him. For The LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but The LORD looks at the heart.’” (study 16:1-13).

Jeramiah 24:7 “Then I will give them a heart to know me, that I Am The LORD; and they shall be My People, and I will be their GOD, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.” (study 24:1-10).

Ezekiel 11:19 “Then I  will give them one heart, and I will put a New SPIRIT within them, and take the stoney heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,” (study 11:14-21).

Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see GOD.”

John 7:38 “He who believes in Me, as The Scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water.”

Romans 10:8-10 “But what does it say? ‘The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is the Word of Faith that we preach): that if you confess with your mouth The LORD JESUS and believe in your heart that GOD raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation.’” (study 10:1-13).

So is your heart a sponge, absorbing The Word of GOD and led by The SPIRIT of GOD; or is your heart a fist, rejecting GOD and His Salvation or so bound up in religious regulation that you can no longer hear His voice?

If your heart is a sponge then you are working “...out your own Salvation with fear and trembling; for it is GOD Who Works in you both to will and to do for His Good Pleasure  Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and innocent, Children of GOD without fault in the midst of a  crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…” Philippians 2:12-15

If your heart a fist closed to GOD’s Gift of Life then, “For the wrath of GOD is revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who suppress the Truth in unrighteousness…Professing to be wise they became fools, and changed the Glory of the Incorruptible GOD into an image made by corruptible man…And even as they did not like to retain GOD in their knowledge, GOD gave them over to a debased mind…” Romans 1:18-32.