SPIRITUAL HEART DISEASE
A few months back we wrote in the Prove All Things magazine an article titled “We are Our Own Worst
Enemy.” A mans ways are his outward acts and he judges himself by them and pronounces himself pure. Most
people are only blind to their own sins! Proverbs 16: 2 relates that to us. “All the ways of a man are clean in his
own eyes; but the Lord weighs the spirits.”
We can not have the understanding to know how our own carnal minds work unless we ask God in
heaven to guide us in recognizing this “Worst enemy” we have. Proverbs 20: 24, has more to tell us. “Man's
goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way?”
Jeremiah understood that proverb, notice what he said in Jer 10: 23, “O Lord, I know that the way of man
is not in himself: it is not in man that walks to direct his steps. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in
thine anger, lest You bring me to nothing.”
What the Lord sees in our heart is how He judges us for correction. We each need to ask ourselves, ‘How
clogged up and diseased is our heart?’
Dr. Christiaan Barnard and a 30-man surgical team electrified the world on December 3, 1967. Some
said what he did could not be done. Yet, 55-year-old Lewis Ashkansky became a man with a new heart, he was
the recipient of the world's first heart transplant. His diseased heart was replaced with a healthy heart from a
donor who had been mortally injured in an auto accident. Heart transplants like Lewis Ashkansky was seen as
a miracle!
As man-made mechanical hearts, such as the Jarvik-7, are implanted with growing success. The world
excitedly followed the new mechanical heart implants on Barney Clark in 1983 and William J .Schroeder in 1984
and many more since then. Heart disease is a top concern today. More North Americans die each year from
heart-related problems than from any other cause, and that's tragic!
God’s truly called out one knows that Jesus the Christ will be return to earth soon and heal everyone
suffering from any health problems they might have! Those miracle will be easy for Him!
Right now, our Lord is working to correct a spiritual heart disease that is far more serious and wide
spread than any physical heart problems medical science has ever tackled? In fact, this disease being talked about
involves your and my heart!
What is this spiritual heart disease? Before we can answer that, we must understand what is meant by
a spiritual heart. The Bible uses the metaphor of the heart to refer to the seat or center of our affections, emotions
and our attitudes. For instance, Proverbs 3: verse 3, speaks of God's commands, directly, “Write them on the
tablet of your heart.”
Matthew 6: 21 tells us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” That is a biblical
reference to the heart, in other 'words, it is a reference to our motives, our thinking and personal reasons for doing
what we do.
What does God consider a healthy spiritual heart? Jesus himself answers this question in Matthew 5:8:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” A diseased spiritual heart, then, is an impure, defiled
heart.
Did you know that among God's called out people, spiritual heart disease is the No. 1 killer? God cannot
and will not allow anyone into His kingdom with this deadly disease. God’s word describes a godly life as one
lived with a giving serving attitude. The opposite way of the way of sin, that produces a life that is lived in a
selfish, getting attitude, that is contrary to the way of God. The attitude behind our actions, is sometimes more
important than the actions themselves.
When God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint David as the next king of Israel, he had to remind Samuel
that knowing a person's attitude was paramount in choosing him as king. God told Samuel, in I Samuel 16: 7,
“The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
God right now is choosing human beings for future offices. Offices like kings and priests. These are
positions in His spiritual government, in His soon coming kingdom! God has not changed the way He decides
who His kings and priests shall be. God is still looking upon the heart upon our hearts!
The condition of our hearts will determine whether we will be the few chosen to reign with Jesus the
Christ, beginning at His next coming. A person with a physical heart disease can seem healthy enough, for a
time. His or her symptoms may seem mild a little shortness of breath, a little pain and discomfort in the chest.
In the same way, someone with spiritual heart disease can look or act all right for a while.
They can seem fine on the surface, but God looks upon the heart, and God is not fooled. eventually the spiritual
illness becomes apparent. Eventually any spiritual heart disease, left unchecked, will destroy the whole person.
In Deuteronomy 6: 5-6, God tells us that He wants us to love Him with all our hearts. God wants us to
have our affections, our hearts, locked into Him and His way' of life, devoted completely to God and His ways.
Why are our motivations, thinking and attitudes so important to God? Why does our spiritual heart
condition make so much difference to our whole eternity? The answer goes back to one who was very great, but
who shipwrecked his potential. At one time he was referred to as Lucifer, the day star, “Son of the morning.”
We can read the tragic story of this former cherub in Isaiah 14. There we see what caused Lucifer to turn
against God in a spirit of assassination! And what went wrong? As well as,what is the first thing mentioned?
Notice Isaiah 14: 12, where Lucifer is asked , “How art you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground, which did
weaken the nations?
The first thing that went wrong with Lucifer was, he had a spiritual heart disease! When reading Ezekiel
28: we find Lucifer’s changed attitude. “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, you have corrupted
your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings, that they may
behold you” (Ezekiel 28:17). His diseased hateful heart drove him to out and out rotten actions.
God puts a lot of emphasis on our thinking and our attitude, because if our heart isn't set right, nothing
else will be right either. When reading Matthew 5, Christ Jesus makes it clear that every evil deed originates
in an evil heart: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,. murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false
witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man” (Matthew 15:19-20). The lesson learned, is to
clean up the heart, so proper deeds will follow. Of course, we can have many impressive works to our names
and yet still lose out on eternal life . Our deeds mean nothing if done from a wrong heart or motive. Job 1:1,
gives us an example. We read he performed wonderful deeds because he “feared God and shunned evil” (Job
1: 1). Vanity and self righteousness were also in his heart and had to be corrected.
We are given in I Corinthians 13: 1- 3, a list of some pretty impressive actions God looks for in His
called people. “Tough I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and Have not charity, I am become as
sounding brass, or a tinkling Cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all Mysteries, and
all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profits me nothing.” Like it says, that is some pretty impressive action and abilities.
We might think that one who has the faith to move a mountain, and to give all he possesses to charity
or to sacrifice his very life, must be extremely spiritually strong. Yet Paul says that it all counts for nothing. “If
the heart is not right, it profits nothing (Verse 3)!
The religious leaders of Jesus the Christ’ day never quite learned this. They thought all their good deeds
by themselves earned them a great reward. But their thinking and attitudes was wrong. Their motivation was
one of get for self, and they wanted others to think well of them. They made long prayers for a show and
pretense. Matt 6: 5 makes note of that, “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.” Matthew
speaks clearly it was not because they truly wanted to talk to God. They were in short, hypocrites who wanted
people to think that they were righteous and special. In Matthew 23: 28, Jesus soundly condemned their motives:
“Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
They might have fooled some people, but they never fooled God, for God looks upon the heart, not the outward
appearance!
Ask, is our religion nothing more than an attempt to make ourselves look good to others? Remember, God
is looking on your and my heart. The cause of all the world's problems is spiritual in nature. It is a problem of
spiritual disease of the hearts, set against God’s ways, unconverted and having an unchanged heart.
Before we can help God establish His way of life on earth, we have to have a complete change of heart
spiritually, just as Lewis Washkansky and others did physically. Our hearts have to become like God's heart–
perfect.
King David was called a man after God's own heart in Acts 13:22. And in I Kings 11:4, we read,
“David's heart was perfect.” We know David’s story, so how can that be? David made big mistakes, but when
he did, his heart, or conscience, made him see his errors. David's basic drive was to obey God.
We can read of David's murder of Uriah and his adultery with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12. We also read
of how badly David felt when the enormity of the sin was shown him. “And David said unto Nathan, I have
sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, the Lord also has put away your sin; You shalt not die.”
From deep inside, David wanted to go God's way. Since he was still flesh and blood but, he sometimes failed,
as we all do. In his heart he wanted to totally obey and please God. God knew he could still work with David,
even after he sinned, because David's heart that God sees was right.
By contrast, David's son Solomon, had his heart turned by his many wives and concubines! We notice
that in I Kings 11: 1- 6, “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of pharaoh,
women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the Lord
said unto the children of Israel, you shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they
will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives,
princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when
Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the
Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the
Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord,
and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.” Solomon evil heart resulted in evil deeds, of which
he apparently did not repent of. Verses 9-10, Tells us, “And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart
was turned from the Lord God of Israel, which had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him
concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods: but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.”
A person with a pure heart wants to please God. He sees the intent behind God's laws. He doesn't want
to see how far he can go in ignoring God's way, or how many of God's commands he can get away with breaking
and how close he can get to this world's evil ways and still be considered one of God’s called out ones!
Instead, he understands more fully every day that God's law is a positive principle to be applied, it’s
a way of life that produces God’s every good ways. That is why Jesus magnified His Fathers laws, and said that
a man lusting after a woman “has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5: clearly said,
“But I say unto you, that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already
in his heart” (Matt 5:28). Even though a man might not physically commit the act, since his attitude is that of
wanting to commit adultery, the lust becomes the same as the actual deed of adultery. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As
he thinks in his heart, so is he.
When God looks on you, does He see a pure heart? What does your attitude say about you? How can you
tell what your attitude and your heart is like? Remember, that we can fool even ourselves if we are not careful.
Jeremiah 17: 9 reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”
Proverbs 28:26 states, ‘He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.” Proverbs 21: 2 tells us, “Every way of man
is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.”
We need to know how to see what God sees when he looks at our hearts. To find out what God sees, we
need to go to His instruction book, His word! Hebrews 4:12 says, “God's word is “A discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart.”
We can use God's word as a mirror to show us where our hearts motives and attitudes are falling short
of the mark and what is uppermost on our minds? If physical pursuits like our hobbies, job, car, home, material
wealth occupy first place in our minds, rather than God's work and our daily Christian meditation, we have a
spiritually diseased heart. What do we talk about most? What fruits are we producing in our lives? Matthew
12:33Tells us, “We are known by our fruits.” “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the
tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit” (Matt 12: 33).
Maybe we do often fall short, but all is not lost. When David came to full repentance after the incident
with Bathsheba, he made some significant statements. In Psalm 51:1 - 9, “To the chief musician, a psalm of
David, when Nathan the Prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba, have mercy upon me, O God,
according to Your loving kindness: According unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my
transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my
transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your
sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when you judge . Behold, I was shaped in
iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden
part You shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which You have broken may rejoice. Hide
Your face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.” David fully admitted the horror of his sins and begged
God to purge him from them. We, too, need to come to full, deep, heartfelt repentance and ask God to clean us
up. In verse 10, David stated: “Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
Deep repentance involves a change of heart. Without a change of heart, we cannot truly please God. To
acquire a pure heart, we have to go to the source of all purity and righteousness, God Himself. We cannot make
our hearts pure by ourselves. We need God's help through His Holy Spirit.
When it comes to purifying our hearts, God does not do repair surgery. He does a spiritual heart
transplant! He wants us to have a brand new heart! A pure heart. That is accomplished by the gift of the Holy
Spirit, upon repentance and baptism. And our decision to follow His lead through the Holy Spirit.
In a physical heart transplant, both the patient and the surgeon have important roles to play. The surgeon
has to be thoroughly skilled. The patient has to have a positive attitude and his body has to accept the new heart.
Unfortunately, in many human heart transplants, the patient doesn't live long because his body rejects the new
heart.
In the same way, we have to want the new, pure heart from God and accept it. We must let our new Godly
heart lead us and give us a new living pattern of life. Remember what Jesus said? “Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God” (Matthew 5: 8).
In one sense, once we are converted and have received our new heart and once we have God's laws
written in our hearts and minds we can already “see God.” Now we can understand more about the way God
thinks and operates, just like Job did! Job 42: 5, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now mine
Eye sees You.” We can begin to think and operate that way ourselves.
In the ultimate sense, we will literally see God in His coming kingdom, when we are changed to divine
spirit beings as it tells us in 1 John 3: 1 - 3, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that
we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” Notice especially verse 3: ‘And every man that has this hope
in him purifies himself, even as He is pure.”
Blessed indeed are the pure in heart, for they, and only they, shall see God! ☜
James Russell