Our message on God Replacements from Monday was well received. Today, by God’s grace, we are going to drive the roots a bit deeper into the soil of the sanctified life.
The heart of the believer is the battleground where all our fights are fought. God replacements (idols of the heart) battle for supremacy of the heart and in the heart there is only room for one supreme ruler. Make no mistake, whatever rules your heart runs your life. Moment by moment, either God or one of your God replacements will be on the throne of your heart exerting inescapable influence over every area of your life.
In the Bible, the word “heart” describes the inner person or your “spiritual” self…“that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16). Inasmuch as we are caught in a world that looks at and overemphasizes the outer person (physical self) at the expense of the inner person, the heart is the “real” you.
Because the heart is the source of all that we think, do, and say only a total transformation of the heart will lead to lasting change. If you are facing external pressure, internal guilt or great incentive…A change in attitude can be a good thing. A change in language can be a good thing. A change in behavior can be a good thing. A change in circumstance can be a good thing. But without a change of heart done by the Great Physician through what I call “Open Heart Surgery” all change, as positive as it may be, is only cosmetic and temporary.
Jesus by His death on the cross, sought it, caught it, and bought it with His precious blood. Forgiveness alone was not enough. Jesus had to fight His way into our hearts. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus enters the heart of every believer, claims it as His own, and racially changes it for His glory. How? Not by rehabilitating the desires of our heart but by recapturing our heart and reorienting our desires to love and serve the One who did for us what we could not do for ourselves. NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!
Grace for the Race 
Coach,
This outstanding post reminds me of the wonderful illustration Dr. Kennedy used in the Evangelism Explosion program. Our hearts, Dr. Kennedy said, are like the hard steel plates that cover the hull of a ship. The Gospel is like a rivet. We could try and drive that rivet through the steel by our own strength all day long, banging on the rivet with our hands until we tore our flesh . . . all to no avail. Just as we need a pneumatic hammer to fire the rivet through a steel plate, only the Holy Spirit (the Greek for Spirit is “pneuma”) can penetrate our hard, unyielding hearts with the truth of God’s Word. And thus, as you and Tullian so often remind us, we must be yielded to the Spirit’s power and promptings EVERY DAY . . . not just on the day of our salvation. Thanks for the great post; I’m already looking forward to Friday!