Jesus is concerned about the Heart
While browsing around the Desiring God website, I discovered this helpful article that relates to my last post beautifully. I hope this blesses your heart as much as it blessed mine. John Piper is expounding on the Beatitude ”Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
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The first thing we learn from this beatitude is that Jesus is concerned with our heart. It is not enough to clean up our act on the outside.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity. You blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean. (Matthew 23:25–26)
The aim of Jesus Christ is not to reform the manners of society, but to change the hearts of sinners like you and me. So, for example, Jesus would not be satisfied with a society in which there were no acts of adultery.
You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27–28 )
The heart is what you are, in the secrecy of your thought and feeling, when nobody knows but God. And what you are at the invisible root matters as much to God as what your are at the visible branch. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). From the heart are all the issues of life.
What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart . . . For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man. (Matthew 15:18–19)
Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit . . . For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:33–34)
So the heart is utterly crucial to Jesus. What we are in the deep, private recesses of our lives is what he cares about most. Jesus did not come into the world simply because we have some bad habits that need to be broken. He came into the world because we have such dirty hearts that need to be purified.
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Filed under: Devotional Life, Scripture on July 30th, 2008
Welcome. I'm Kaysie, 21. Jesus follower. Loves sunshine, trees, hot tea, books, music, family and the gospel. Also has a weird fascination with paper. 
Hmm, maybe it’s because I’m not a young woman but I don’t get what you mean when you say, “So, for example, Jesus would not be satisfied with a society in which there were no acts of adultery.”
I’m just passing through so you don’t need to explain. Anyhow, God bless as you further His kingdom.
No “acts” of adultery meaning Jesus wants the *heart* to be clean just as much as the outward acts.
Thanks for stopping by!
“The aim of Jesus Christ is not to reform the manners of society, but to change the hearts of sinners like you and me”
Sadly the former is so much easier than the latter. I am still working on reforming my heart and my actions, well they also have a ways to go.
Sometimes I focus so much on how others view me by my outward acts. On the outside, I might appear to be quiet and humble, but on the inside I could be complaining and having prideful thoughts in my heart. Thank you for the reminder that our hearts are where the problem lies.
Wow. What a great post Kaysie! Whats in our heart is what flows out into our actions. Thanks for posting this=)
Blessings,
Jade
Thank you. That is all so true. No matter what I think or what I’m thinking of thinking, Jesus knows it. He knows every lie, every bad thought, every bad feeling, even if I don’t act on it. And instead of that causing me to worry, like He’s the thought police, it comforts me because it holds me accountable. I have to change not only outwardly, but inwardly as well.
Amen to you all.