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    Purifying the Heart
    Purifying the Heart
    Purifying the Heart
    Ebook145 pages1 hour

    Purifying the Heart

    By James Tarter

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    About this ebook

    The Bible uses the heart to represent the whole inner person, the part of a person that receives a new body as he (she) moves from life on earth into the rest of eternity. Because the heart is the key to each person’s eternal good, our loving God makes purifying our hearts a priority. He gives true progress, but He also wants each of His children in Jesus to co-operate with His work for our good.

    This allows major problems. A heart often has unhealed wounds, wrong beliefs, and distracting treasures. The heart naturally protects itself against getting changed, even by deceiving one’s own mind if necessary. And the devil and demons try diligently to deceive people out of receiving God’s great good in Jesus. This book is written to show Biblical solutions for these kinds of heart problems.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateNov 21, 2017
    ISBN9781387374779
    Purifying the Heart

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      Book preview

      Purifying the Heart - James Tarter

      Purifying the Heart

      Purifying the Heart

      Dr. James M. Tarter

      Copyright Page

      Fifth Edition

      ISBN 978-1-387-37477-9

      Copyright 2017, 2018 by James M. Tarter.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted to make copies for purposes consistent with furthering the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

      Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE® (1995 Updated Edition): 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.  Used by permission.  (www.Lockman.org)

      I call the New American Standard Bible the NAS.  I add boldface to specific words and phrases in Scriptures to add my emphasis for discussion.

      DEDICATION

      to

      MY WONDERFUL WIFE NITA

      Whose love for God

      helps her to minister life

      Introduction: God’s Priority for Each of His Children

      In the Bible the heart represents the whole inner person, the part of a person that believes, and the part that receives a new body for the rest of eternity.  Because the heart is so vital for each person’s eternal good, our loving God makes His work to purify our hearts a priority.   He provides the true progress, but He also wants each of His children in Jesus to co-operate with His work for our good.

      Everyone has major problems that resist our working with God for our eternal good.  Harmful walls in the spiritual heart are produced by wrong beliefs about God or oneself, by unhealed wounds in the heart, or by unresolved just judgments from unconfessed sins, unforgiveness, wrong judging, and generational iniquities.  The heart may also have a poor choice of treasures that does not give God permission to do all that the heart needs.  A natural treasure of any heart is to protect itself: this is normally good, but not when it naturally regards God’s work for the heart as a major danger.  A person’s heart might even lie to his own mind if needed to protect itself.  And demons do all they can to resist this as top priority, or else all of their work can be totally destroyed by our work with Jesus.  This book is written to show Biblical solutions for major heart problems.

      Chapter 1: The Heart in the Bible

      The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills the heart. (Luke 6:45)

      For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness. (Rom. 10:10a)

      Believers often want to change persistent harmful behavior of themselves, family members, or other loved ones.  Many Christians realize that the bad behaviors are often empowered by wrong beliefs that give a lying world-view.  Not knowing a better way, these believers seek to change these wrong behaviors and beliefs by confronting with the truth or another way that works with some issues, but has not produced a lasting change in the persistent problem.

      Why do such solutions fail?  A key reason is that they often focus on correcting wrong beliefs and behaviors without providing what the heart needs.  Therefore some changes do not last longer than active efforts to hold them up.  The lasting changes desired by God and us will change the heart, and the changed heart will produce better beliefs and behaviors.  We can consistently make the changes that a person’s heart needs only if we listen to the Lord Jesus.

      The Heart as Shown in the Bible

      To make wise changes to a heart more consistently, we also need its Biblical meaning.  (You want a heart surgeon to know a lot about the heart before he starts cutting).  The one Greek and two Hebrew words for heart are used 998 times in the Bible, but rarely refer to a physical heart.  From the use of heart in all of the Bible, Harris’s Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) and Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words conclude that more than any other term in the Bible, the heart is the whole inner person – the inner soul, spirit, mind (conscious awareness), will, emotions, personality – everything beyond the visible body that makes a person who he/she is, one’s true nature.  The heart is the source of a person’s beliefs, values, attitudes, motives, thoughts, and actions, and is the person who goes into eternity and receives a new body from God.  God gives us a new heart when we receive Jesus, and as we discuss later, He continues to develop or shape it carefully as we obey Him in our lives.

      The Heart as the Source of Transforming Belief

      As Rom. 10:10a says clearly, a heart is the part of us that believes: "For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness." A person believes with his/her heart, and belief (= faith) in Jesus will result in increased righteousness.  What I truly believe will show up in my actions or inactivity.

      An experience or a conclusion from an experience can get into the heart and become a part of it as a belief.  We often remember a wrong conclusion (as a belief) from an awful experience while not thinking about the experience.  The heart often contains contradictory beliefs.  A part of one’s heart might fully agree with God while another part agrees with a demon that contradicts God.  For example, a part of my heart can firmly believe that God loves me while another part believes I am unloved from rejection by a parent or by other important people.  Or part of my heart can firmly believe that God is faithful while another part does not trust God or anyone (often from an unhealed wound).

      The Heart as the Source of Desires, Thoughts, Words, and Actions

      Luke 6:45 shows that a heart is the source of one’s good and evil, and Mark 7:21-22 expands on this source of evil out of evil men:

      The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills the heart. (Luke 6:45)

      ²¹For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, ²²deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. (Mark 7:21-22)

      V. 21-22 show this source of one’s evil motives, values, desires, attitudes, thoughts and actions.  What comes out of my heart can reveal its wounds and will greatly affect the quality of my relationships.

      Contrasting the Heart with the Mind and Will (and Soul and Spirit)

      A mind is the conscious part of our heart, what we are aware of or can easily access by a direct question.  The unconscious part is hidden but often quite strong, a source of the great deceitfulness of the heart that Jer. 17:9 reveals:

      The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?  (Jer. 17:9)

      A heart keeps much of its inner working out of the mind, but we can know a lot of what is in the heart by what comes out of it.  Have you ever been surprised by some anger or other strong feeling that came out of your heart, or by words out of your mouth?  If one is severely or repeatedly injured, normally he finds ways to get through a crisis without being emotionally crushed – to avoid thinking about this abuse, condemnation, humiliation, terror, or other assault on him.  But without Christ, these things did not leave his heart and do affect his choices.

      The will is the part of the heart that chooses or decides what one actually says or does.  Our wills choose which thoughts to speak.  We respond to any command or request with our wills.  The will receives input from every part of the heart in making conscious (with the mind) and unconscious choices.  Getting more information than we know consciously, the will in the heart often makes decisions before we think about them.  Father God has a strong will – chooses what to do and then does it – and creates each of us in His image: it includes a will.

      A wise, loving parent does not crush or continually dominate his child’s will, but cultivates it so that he makes good choices on his own as he continues to grow.  As he grows, his will often creates extra problems as a part of learning to make good choices – good decisions – later in his life.  This wisdom with our wills is like Father God’s, even though it gives Satan ways to keep us from using our great strength in Christ now.  Our almighty loving Father has great plans for each of our futures into eternity, and Satan cannot stop them unless he deceives our hearts to agree with him against God.  If he does, then our wills are not with God: this lets us be easily tempted out of fully hearing or obeying Him.  Bad choices might take us out of His best plans for us or leave our hearts unprepared to work well with Him later.  He respects the will of each of His children, even when it makes bad choices.

      Have you ever handled a problem like God wanted, and then realized that you knew what to do much earlier, and could have and should have handled it sooner?  This can be an example of God’s speaking to you and patiently respecting your I don’t want to think about it cries from your heart before you were willing to face the issue.

      {I do not use soul in this book, but I should clarify meanings of soul and heart in our discussions. More than other Hebrew words, the heart (leb or lebab) is the whole inner person (3 sections back). More than other Hebrew words, the soul (nepesh)

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