The Heart Of The Matter

Every year around Jan 1st, people around the world make sweeping declarations about life change. It can be to lose 100lbs, save more money, pick up a new hobby, or any number of other things. New year, new you, right? Unfortunately, around January 15th, most people have already given up on their New Year’s resolutions. The food was just too tempting. There was this new, shiny thing that I had to get. Learning new things is hard. Whatever it is, it is now a failed experiment. The real issue at hand here isn’t that we fail at these resolutions. It’s that we aren’t actually solving the real issues that cause the need for them. 

The real issue with your health may not be losing weight; it’s probably deeper. Food addiction, anxiety eating, and depression are huge factors that lead to weight gain. Instead of dieting, maybe counseling is the real need. Getting better at saving money is a good idea, but is that really the problem? Creating a budget with stricter lines drawn in the sand might be a better idea and will allow you to save the money you want, while also creating margins in your daily life and bank account. Starting a new hobby happens many times due to boredom. This can also come from not engaging well with family and friends. Instead, invest in those around you and see what happens. 

If we’re all being 100% honest, we’ll admit that we like to treat symptoms of our issues more than get to the core of what our problems are. Many times, we aren’t even sure what the sources of our issues really are. We just keep trying to find the easier route, or at least the one we can identify, to “fix ourselves.” 

In Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, Jesus gives His “Sermon on the Mount.” In it, he gives instructions on how to live a righteous life. In Matthew 5:29-30, He talks specifically about lust, and what we should do.

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Matthew 5:29–30

So many times, we’ve used this as a way to explain how we should remove obstacles from our lives to avoid sinning. That’s not necessarily wrong, but it does miss something pretty big that Jesus talks about in the verse before this. 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Matthew 5:27-28

The last three words of that passage nail the core issue of what we’re dealing with here. He said that the man has committed adultery “in his heart.” You can cut off every part of your body, but if your heart is still sin-leaning, then you will eventually run out of body parts to remove. When we decide to give our lives to Christ and are baptized into His death, burial, and resurrection, something amazing happens; we’re given a new heart. Suddenly, our wants and desires begin to change, and the things of God tend to matter more than the things of this earth. This is even prophesied in the book of Ezekiel. 

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:25–26

When we follow after Christ, He changes us. We are given the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit to lead us, and a new life in Jesus begins. This is the starting line for the disciple. A disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. That change that we go through is a source change. It’s not a surface or symptom change. You make a speedboat more aerodynamic, slick up the bottom of the boat with silicon, or make it lighter, but we all know the easiest way to make it faster is with a better motor. For the disciple, our hearts are our motors. Our hearts drive everything we do. When our hearts are right, our actions are right, and we long to follow Christ’s commands. 

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows us the point of it all.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Matthew 7:24–27

Let’s not be disciples who let our foundation crumble. Let’s be disciples who understand how important our heart health is. When we get to the real source of all of our issues, we can make real change, and real change is what Christ wants for all of us. It’s really just a matter of the heart.