Chapter 215—Heart Renewal
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new
man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Ephesians 4:23, 24
.
Christ was a faithful reprover.... To all things untrue and base His very
presence was a rebuke. In the light of His purity, men saw themselves
unclean, their life’s aims mean and false. Yet He drew them. He who had
created man, understood the value of humanity....
In every human being He discerned infinite possibilities. He saw men
as they might be, transfigured by His grace—in “the beauty of the Lord our
God” (
Psalm 90:17
).
All defects of character originate in the heart. Pride, vanity, evil temper,
and covetousness proceed from the carnal heart unrenewed by the grace of
Christ.
It is by the renewing of the heart that the grace of God works to transform
the life. No mere external change is sufficient to bring us into harmony
with God. There are many who try to reform by correcting this bad habit or
that bad habit and they hope in this way to become Christians, but they are
beginning in the wrong place. Our first work is with the heart....
The Scriptures are the great agency in this transformation of character.
Christ prayed, “Sanctify them through thy truth: Thy Word is truth” (
John
17:17
). If studied and obeyed, the Word of God works in the heart, subduing
every unholy attribute. The Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, and the faith
that springs up in the heart works by love to Christ, conforming us, body,
soul, and spirit, to His will....
Let us not spare ourselves, but carry forward in earnest the work of
reform that must be done in our lives. Let us crucify self. Unholy habits will
clamor for the mastery, but in the name and through the power of Jesus we
may conquer. To him who daily seeks to keep his heart with all diligence,
the promise is given, “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
312