Healing the Failing Heart

by Michael Aprile

Today, just like yesterday, many of us suffer from heart disease much different from the heart disease that we read about in the papers and in medical journals. These hearts fail not because we smoke, drink, or have poor circulation. This heart disease is spoken about by the creator of the heart where He said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

God, our Creator, said He would not even venture to bring another flood to destroy mankind again because our hearts, which is the seat of all our thoughts, were "only evil continually." (Genesis 6:5)  Clearly the problem with man is his heart, says God.

You might think that God has given up on the failed heart of man, but nothing could be further form the truth.  There is no mistake that He holds no hope for our hearts changing for the better, as evolutionist would have us believe, but He does hold faith in His power to pour Himself into our heart and heal it, grow it, and produce fruit from it.

Surgeons today would call it a transfusion.  However, there is only one donor that can make our heart pure and young, subtle and pliable again. There is only one blood type, not in the Os, the As or the Bs or any combination of these, that can bring life back into our hearts that have decayed so hopelessly.  That is the pure supernatural blood of Jesus Christ.

"How do we get this blood?" You ask.  To understand this, we must first understand an illustration from Genesis 32 in Scripture. The fact, right up front, is that it is not enough for God to say that "man's heart is deceitful," any more than it was for Him to say that Adam and Eve were naked in the garden.  No.  In order for God to be able to go to work on cleansing our hearts of all infirmities, we must confess (admit before God) that we are deceitful.

The illustration is of Jacob wrestling with an angel (or actually, by his account, God), in Genesis 32:
24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.
25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.
26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.
27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.
28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

In reality, we more often wrestle, as Jacob did, with God than with the devil (not to give the devil any alibi).  This is precisely because of the poor condition of our human hearts.  Through pride and stubbornness, we continually refuse to yield to God unless He provides us a blessing.  Therefore, God finds it necessary to wrestle with us until we do the one thing that Jacob finally did to release the power God has for our life.  This thing is the very thing we must do to possess a new heart that is cleansed so that God can be an active part of it.

Observe, for a moment, what it was that God asked Jacob to yield.  It was Jacob's confession to God, or admission, if you will, that he was a deceiver.  A man thrown in with the devil.  How do we know this was it?  Just look at the meaning of "Jacob."  The term used for a person who would set about to trip up, supplant, or deceive another for their own advantage was "a Jacob."  In reality, God just wanted Jacob to admit that he was what his name had branded him -- a deceiver.

Once Jacob said, I am a deceiver.  He came out in the open.  He confessed before God.  He humbled himself (I Peter 5:6).  He submitted to authority (Daniel 4:37).  He admitted his faults (James 5:16).  This is something God had been trying to get Jacob to do for years, by himself.  Jacob had too much pride to admit that he could be wrong.

Why was it so important to God that Jacob confess and humble himself on this matter of being a deceiver?  The simple truth is that He wanted to bless Jacob.  Once Jacob confessed to God, God conferred upon him power through his new name Israel like unto princes.

In the same way, our decrepit hearts are deceitful and wicked and keep us from the blessings that God wants to confer upon us.  All we must do is confess that we are sinners before God and receive His blessing and power to make us a new heart that is ready to do His will in all things.  A new heart, as many transplant recipients will tell you, will give you a new lease on life.

We can wait until God wrestles with us, before we decide to do this, or we can allow God the freedom to begin a new work in us.  We may not like God's method of getting us to the place of repentance, but remember that it is the goodness of God that leads us there. (Romans 2:4)

If we are to seek the Lord in these things, we must begin to allow Him to prepare our heart. God is holy and cannot commune with a person whose heart is unholy.  If we are going to submit to the Lord (I Chron. 12:14), then we must do it with our whole heart (Deut. 4:29).  We must have a pure heart (James 4:8).  And, we must seek Him with a humble heart (Proverbs 6:16).

An important thing to remember is that God knocked Jacob's hip out of joint so as to remind him of having struggled with Him before confessing how wrong he was by admitting what a really deceitful person he was.  Don't wait until God does this to you before you humble yourself before Him.  We all have heart disease and God is ready with the cure.