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 The Heart is the TargetStart where life change starts.
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NOTE: This article appears in the resource Counseling toward Repentance. If you want to be part of what God is doing in the lives of others, you need to understand how God designed human beings to function. Why do people do the things they do? Christ's answer to this question comes through one of the most important word pictures of the New Testament: No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45) There is an organic relationship between the roots of a plant and the fruit it produces. Christ is saying that the same is true with people. In his metaphor, fruit equals behavior, and the roots of the tree equal the heart. The particular fruit this passage discusses is our words. Christ says that our words are literally our heart overflowing. People and situations don't make us say what we say, though we tend to blame them. ("He made me so angry!" "If you had been there, you would have said the same thing!") Rather, this passage says that our words are controlled by our hearts. We recognize a tree by the fruit it produces and, in the same way, the Bible says people are known by their fruit. Meanwhile, the roots of the tree are underground and therefore not as easily seen or understood. But Jesus' point is that a tree has the kind of fruit it does because of the kind of roots it has: we speak and act the way we do because of what is in our hearts. Christ's illustration, then, establishes three principles that guide our efforts to serve as God's instruments of change in the lives of others.
What, then, does the Bible tell us about what we should look for in the heart? Consider this rebuke God aims at some of the elders of Israel who come to inquire of him: These men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, "This is what the sovereign LORD says: When any Israelite sets up idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling block before his face and then goes to a prophet, I the LORD will answer him myself in keeping with his great idolatry. I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols." (Ezek. 14:3-5) |        
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