Article by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson (original source here)

Sometimes people ask authors, “Which of your books is your favorite?” The first time the question is asked, the response is likely to be “I am not sure; I have never really thought about it.” But forced to think about it, my own standard response has become, “I am not sure what my favorite book is; but my favorite title is A Heart for God.” I am rarely asked, “Why?” but (in case you ask) the title simply expresses what I want to be: a Christian with a heart for God.

Perhaps that is in part a reflection of the fact that we sit on the shoulders of the giants of the past. Think of John Calvin’s seal and motto: a heart held out in the palm of a hand and the words “I offer my heart to you, Lord, readily and sincerely.” Or consider Charles Wesley’s hymn:

O for a heart to praise my God!
A heart from sin set free.

Some hymnbooks don’t include Wesley’s hymn, presumably in part because it is read as an expression of his doctrine of perfect love and entire sanctification. (He thought it possible to have his longing fulfilled in this world.) But the sentiment itself is surely biblical.

But behind the giants of church history stands the testimony of Scripture. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart (Deut. 6:5). That is why, in replacing Saul as king, God “sought out a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14), for “the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7). It is a truism to say that, in terms of our response to the gospel, the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. But truism or not, it is true.

What this looks like, how it is developed, in what ways it can be threatened, and how it expresses itself will be explored little by little in this new column. But at this stage, perhaps it will help us if we map out some preliminary matters in the form of a catechism on the heart:

Q.1. What is the heart?

A. The heart is the central core and drive of my life intellectually (it involves my mind), affectionately (it shapes my soul), and totally (it provides the energy for my living).

Q.2. Is my heart healthy?

A. No. By nature I have a diseased heart. From birth, my heart is deformed and antagonistic to God. The intentions of its thoughts are evil continually.

Q.3. Can my diseased heart be healed?

A. Yes. God, in His grace, can give me a new heart to love Him and to desire to serve Him.

Q.4. How does God do this?

A. God does this through the work of the Lord Jesus for me and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in me. He illumines my mind through the truth of the gospel, frees my enslaved will from its bondage to sin, cleanses my affections by His grace, and motivates me inwardly to live for Him by rewriting His law into my heart so that I begin to love what He loves. The Bible calls this being “born from above.”

Q.5. Does this mean I will never sin again?

A. No. I will continue to struggle with sin until I am glorified. God has given me a new heart, but for the moment He wants me to keep living in a fallen world. So day by day I face the pressures to sin that come from the world, the flesh, and the Devil. But God’s Word promises that over all these enemies I can be “more than a conqueror through him who loved us.”

Q.6. What four things does God counsel me to do so that my heart may be kept for Him?

A. First, I must guard my heart as if everything depended on it. This means that I should keep my heart like a sanctuary for the presence of the Lord Jesus and allow nothing and no one else to enter.

Second, I must keep my heart healthy by proper diet, growing strong on a regular diet of God’s Word — reading it for myself, meditating on its truth, but especially being fed on it in the preaching of the Word. I also will remember that my heart has eyes as well as ears. The Spirit shows me baptism as a sign that I bear God’s triune name, while the Lord’s Supper stimulates heart love for the Lord Jesus.

Third, I must take regular spiritual exercise, since my heart will be strengthened by worship when my whole being is given over to God in expressions of love for and trust in Him.

Fourth, I must give myself to prayer in which my heart holds on to the promises of God, rests in His will, and asks for His sustaining grace — and do this not only on my own but with others so that we may encourage one another to maintain a heart for God.

This — and much else — requires development, elaboration, and exposition. But it can be summed up in a single biblical sentence. Listen to your Father’s appeal: “My son, give Me your heart.”

John Piper – Q & A – Original source here: http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-can-i-soften-my-own-heart

“Hello Pastor John. Many sins harden our hearts, so what activities will unharden, or soften, our hearts?”

That is a wonderful question to me, because I don’t think I have ever put it to myself that way.

Yes . . . I suppose that’s the point of this podcast.

Right. Yes. And the first thing that happened as I began to think about it was that I realized there are two kinds of mistakes that I could make in trying to answer the question. One would be to assume that hardness of heart implies I can do nothing because a hard, dead heart can’t do anything of spiritual value. And the other mistake would be to assume that hardness of heart and the deadness that goes with it really haven’t ruined me morally and that I can be the decisive cause of unhardening my heart. I think both of those positions would be profound, unbiblical mistakes. The biblical truth lies in the gospel paradox — we could call it the new covenant paradox — in which God causes the miracle of unhardening. God causes it, and I act the miracle of unhardening. God is the decisive cause, but my acting is a real, essential part of the miracle taking place.

“God is the decisive cause of unhardening my heart, but my acting is a real, essential part of the miracle taking place.” Tweet Share on Facebook
Here is the promise God made for all of us who experience the power of the new covenant promise that was purchased by the blood of Jesus according to Luke 22:20. Here is what he promises in Ezekiel 11:19–20: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” Here it is again in Ezekiel 36:26–27: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

So, the point in those passages is that God must do the decisive, miraculous heart transplant, heart replacement. If we are going to escape the hardness and deadness of that heart, the old heart has to be taken out, a new heart has to be put in — and we can’t do that surgery on ourselves. That is the point. This is God’s sovereign, gracious, saving work, and the effect of it is new, tender, obedient love toward God. And Deuteronomy puts it a little differently: “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6). So, if we are going to ever turn around, stop hating God and start loving God, he has to do that heart transplant and that heart circumcision.

But now, having made that point, we have to also say that God commands us to do the very thing he promises to do in the new covenant. For example, alongside the promise of Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart,” there is Ezekiel 18:31, “Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” And right alongside the promise — the Lord will circumcise your heart — there is the command in Deuteronomy 10:16, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.” And the command in Jeremiah 4:1, 4, “If you return, O Israel, . . . to me you should return. . . . Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts.” We see the same thing in the New Testament. There is the command of 1 Peter 3:8, “All of you, have . . . a tender heart, and a humble mind.” Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted.” In other words, we are commanded to be tender — commanded not to be hard. Tenderheartedness is the opposite of hardness of heart, and we are commanded to pursue it and to have it.

The biblical picture is that God does the decisive work of heart transplant and heart circumcision and heart unhardening, and we are immediately participants in this miracle as conscious, intentional, willing actors renouncing the old heart, cutting away with all of the opposition we can muster the old life, and embracing the new and feeding the new tenderness of heart on God’s word and by God’s Spirit.

So, very specifically in answer to the question that was asked: What activities will unharden our heart? I would say besides the divine activity which is decisive and essential, there are at least three things we are called to do as we participate in acting this miracle that God is performing: 1) beholding or seeing, 2) hearing, and 3) trusting — just a verse for each of those. Continue reading →