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When we are born again, God performs a heart transplant, as it were. He gives us a new heart. The power of the Holy Spirit changes our hearts from sin–focused to God–focused. We do not become perfect; we still have our sinful flesh and the freedom to choose whether or not to obey it. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” 1 John 1:8 (NKJV). However, when Jesus died for us on the cross, He broke the power of sin that controls us. “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” Romans 6:10 (NKJV). Receiving Him as our Savior gives us access to God and His power; a power to transform our hearts from sin–hardened to Christ-softened. When we were separated from God with hardened hearts, we found it impossible to please Him. We tended toward selfishness, rebellion, and sin. With new hearts we are declared righteous before God. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV). The Holy Spirit gives us a desire to please God that was foreign to us in our hardened state. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV). God’s desire for every human being is that we become like His Son, Jesus. “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” Romans 8:29 (NKJV). We can become like Jesus only when we allow God to rid us of our old, hardened hearts and give us new hearts. God takes our slate and erases all the evil and sin, leaving only the good. He takes our hearts, hardened by the hurt and sin and evil in the world, and gives us hearts of flesh, able to accept His love and share it. He gives us the Holy Spirit, clothes us in His righteousness and teaches us through His Word.
The perfect example of our heart condition comes from, Jeremiah 17:9–10, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings”. If you are not careful, you will be doing more religious work and still be backslidden in our hearts. You may ever feel God’s anointing and presence upon your works can become deceptive. Your works can appear so good that you may never stop to recheck or reevaluate your heart to see if it is found in right standing towards various deeds, words and thoughts. This is the place where God will try our hearts and many times you will fail the test. And, as a result, in all the good that you do, your hearts will conceive deception and wickedness. Regardless of everything, that you may go through, you are still human, and will suffer from corrupt behavior and fleshly desires.
It is your “old mind” that keeps you trapped in walking after the “old heart” condition or nature. If your heart’s condition doesn’t change, which is the real problem, you’re not going to get different results by just trying harder to get different results. Who you are determines what you will do. And what you do is evidence and a reflection of who you really are. “But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” James 2:18 (NKJV). Until you begin to live from the new hear by remaining in Jesus, your sinful nature will continue to produce sin. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” John 15:5 (NKJV). Jesus doesn’t just want to forgive; He wants to solve the problem that caused the sin in the first place. He doesn’t leave us starving, expecting us to resist filling ourselves with sin. He fills us with good things so that the “new man”, “new nature” or “new self” doesn’t continue to be rule by the things of this world. God gives us a new piece of machinery within, but He also gives us the power to drive the machinery. We cannot be moved to follow His decrees on our own, but God will enable us to do this by the indwelling Person and presence of the Holy Spirit.
This is what the Christian life is all about; we cannot live it; but God says He will come and dwell within us so that we walk in ways that please Him. Our hearts have been wanderers over the earth and there has been nowhere to rest; but God says, ’Give me your heart and I will cause it to live in the land; I will establish it. The trouble with our hearts is that they wander, they cannot rest. But David knew the blessing of a steadfast heart. “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and give praise” Psalm 57:7 (NKJV). We all are in need this new enduring and persistent heart in these days of crisis, calamity and fear. But there is another reason why we need to have our hearts established according to Hebrews 13:8–9, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them”. The reason we have a steadfast heart is because we are united with One who never changes, our Lord Jesus Christ.