Sonship & Heart Transformation (2 of 3)

Mike Connell

Page 7 of 11
She said: I have never been able to work out why I had the conflict. Now I get it. I'm angry from the womb at being rejected. I need to repent and forgive. I never realised that. Isn't that amazing? I actually love all of this stuff, because everywhere I go, people's stories are so interesting. and nothing's like what it appears to be. What you see is not real; it's just the outward thing. What you've really got to see is the heart. When you see the heart... sometimes I've just cried with people, what they've gone through is so sad. How could people still survive all of that?

The church, they've got them sitting in the church every week, needing healing, needing a ministry to the heart. Heart transformation; so the hidden roots in the heart produce external fruits and behaviour, and you need to deal with them. God's plan for transformation starts on the inside. So how does God change us? Religion will try and change you externally, by forming a culture, or a pressure to conform in a certain way; so you'll find when there's religion, or a religious spirit, it will always try to control you to perform, and reject you if you don't play the game. You can never really be you. You have to conform; and so of course, you're lonely all the time and you're pretending, and you have to live within this thing.

But when God changes us, He changes from the heart. He wants truth in the inward parts. David wrote: "You delight in truth in the inner parts" - not lies, not cover ups, not pretending. God wants truth in the inner parts. So how does God change us? Number 1, He solves the power problem by putting a spirit in us, so we become born again; meaning: God's spirit joins to our spirit, internally we have a power source, and that power source is called the Holy Ghost. When He's in our heart, He says: you know what? I want to reveal to you, over and over again: you're a child of God! The Holy Spirit bears witness, that we are the children of God. He tells you: you're a child of God. You're accepted, you're loved, you belong.

You've got a father who loves you, cares for you. He's got a plan for your life. He puts the power, He puts the identity, on the inside; shifts it now, this is who I am, I'm totally transformed. But there's an outworking of that. The other thing He says, in Ezekiel 36, "I'll put a heart of flesh". So He puts in a new spirit - that’s the Holy Spirit - but then He puts a heart of flesh, because it was stony before. It didn't believe God, didn't want God, rebelled against God... it was stony, in that respect; but after we've come to the Lord, our heart has become changed towards God - not completely healed, just changed in its orientation. We now have a tender heart, we actually want to please God. People want to please God - they just don't know how. The Holy Spirit helps us how.

The heart however, is still in a damaged condition, and it needs transformation. If you transform the heart, you transform the person; but it cannot take place without the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and your willing participation. This is a life journey of transformation on the inside out. We get hung up with all the mistakes and failures and things, get condemned. The devil accuses you, tells you're no good... this, this, this, all that sort of stuff. God's not even worried a toot about that, because He already paid the price, for all of it to be forgiven. He just wants your heart! If your heart is towards Him, then even if you're up and down, it doesn't make any difference. He's still helping you all the way. You've just got to find where the heart is.

Capture the heart, and you've got the person. He wants your heart. That's why He said: love the Lord with all your... heart. Well, here's a question: if your heart has been shattered, how can you love Him with all your heart? You can love Him with the part you're conscious of, but the other broken bits are going to need to be healed, and repacked, restored. That's why David said: "unite my heart". It's all fractured. I've got little bits over here that are hurt, and I buried them there; and another bit hurt, and I fractured that one off there. Another bit over here, and I've got all these parts in my life, all these things in my life, and I've just buried them all here. Now I've got a pile of pain! But in my heart, in the core of me, I love You, and I want to serve You; but the other stuff caused me to malfunction.