February is usually the month that we think of decorating with hearts and sending Valentines to those we love. Have you ever said or thought, “I love you with my whole heart!”
With Christianity we are told,
“In order to be saved, ask Jesus to come into your heart.” The problem with
that statement is that it is not particularly biblical. Nowhere in the Bible
does Jesus mention coming into a person’s heart, nor is there any gospel
presentation that uses the image of Jesus coming into a person’s heart. The
scripture that is usually presented to “ask Jesus into your heart” is
Revelation 3:20. But in the context of that scripture, Jesus is talking about intimacy
with believers, not about a person getting saved.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If
anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that
person, and they with me. Revelation 3:20
When the New Testament gives a
presentation of accepting Christ, it encourages people to believe (John 3:16), to
receive (John 1:12), and to repent (Acts 3:19). To repent is to confront
unbelief and change the way we think. Not just change our minds intellectually but
to change in the inner person, the core
of our being.
The ancient Hebrews understood
that the heart is the inner person, the seat of emotions, thought and will. So
when Peter stood in Solomon’s Colonnade after healing the
crippled beggar and spoke to the people who gathered and said, “Repent, then
and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing
may come from the Lord,” they understood that it meant to change the way they
think in the core of their being, They were to change in their very identity.
Most Christians are taught that “to
repent” means to feel sorry and contrite and confess. But that is only a small
beginning of true repentance. To actually repent means to allow change so
deeply that there is a transformation that occurs from the inside out. Most
attempts at “repentance” are attempting to change one’s behavior which is
change from the outside in. Even Jesus chided the Pharisees calling them
hypocrites and white washed tombs. They did everything right… on the outside
with death on the inside.
So accepting Jesus is not about
changing behavior. It is not about going to church more, reading the Bible more
or praying more. It is not even about believing a new list of facts and rules. It is about allowing a change in heart, in the
core of one’s being: changing identity.
So how does one change their identity?
We have to hand in the old
identity, the one that we have been building since we were born. That is the
inner healing, transformational journey. That is true salvation, being made new
through the sacrifice of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
Then we can say, “Jesus, I love
you with the core of my being!”
