Week 9/23-9/29: Broken Response - Numb To The Word

Day Three: Rom. 3:10-12 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

CHANGE IS A NATURAL PART of life. You change classes.You change favorite songs.You change your underwear (hopefully). But the real discouraging news from the Bible is that there is one key thing that you cannot change:

You can’t change your heart.

Think about it in terms of love. How would you tell someone how to love? Tricky question, right? You can tell someone how to behave, how to study, or how to set up a DVR, but how to love? That’s much harder, and maybe even impossible.Love is a deep, heartfelt emotion that is backed up by choice and action.But because it’s a condition, you can’t make yourself do it.This is where the gospel starts to connect with us.

Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to love God.And the second commandment is like it: to love other people.Here’s the thing, though – because we can’t change our hearts, we can’t actually keep these two commandments Jesus gave us.

Jesus knows this, and that’s why He doesn’t tell us to change.He does the changing for us.

When you believe the gospel, you get a new heart, complete with new desires and affections.Now, you actually can love God, not because you made yourself do so, but because Jesus gave you the kind of heart that can.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

▷▷Is it encouraging or discouraging to you that you can’t change your heart?

▷▷How does knowing that you can’t change the heart change the way you talk about the gospel to others?