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Jesus reveals the very springboard of our desires, pleasures and wants: our fleshly aspirations come from our innermost being. “Woe to those who devise iniquity, And work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand” Micah 2:1 (NKJV). Sin does not just come about as a result of outside forces. It is borne from those hidden little niches residing in our thoughts and intentions, from the secret desires that only the mind and heart can envision. The bottom line is that, in our fallen state, the desires of our hearts do not come from God. “For they do not speak peace, But they devise deceitful matters. Against the quiet ones in the land” Psalm 35:20 (NKJV). It has long been the view of many that all humans are basically good and decent and that it is the circumstances of life such as poverty or poor nurturing that turn us into murderers and thieves. But the Bible teaches that all men suffer from a common frailty: sin. The apostle Paul calls it our sin nature that comes from an unchanged or ungodly heart. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” Romans 7:18–20 (NKJV). Our evil hearts lead us to sin. Furthermore, the heart is so corrupt and deceitful that our motives are unclear even to ourselves.
As sinful creatures we devise and create evil things in the arrogance and self–sufficiency of our hearts. “He winks his eye to devise perverse things; He purses his lips and brings about evil” Proverbs 16:30 (NKJV). The truth is that only God can examine our deepest motives and inward desires and only by His power can we ever hope to untangle the uncertainty and depravity that is bound up within our hearts. He alone searches all and knows us intimately, only the Word can discover and judge the heart condition. “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account” Hebrews 4:11–13 (NKJV). Fortunately, God does not abandon us in our struggles with hurtful desires and sinful tendencies. Instead, He provides us the grace and strength we need to resist and overcome sin when it crouches at the door of our hearts. David was clearly someone who could advise us about our heart condition. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday” Psalm 37:4 –6 (NKJV). Here we see that God can literally plant His own desires into the heart of man, the heart that, without Him, is desperately wicked and deceitful. He replaces the evil with good and sets our hearts on the path toward Him, removing our own desires and replacing them with His. This only happens when we come to Him in repentance and accept the gift of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. At that point, He removes our hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh. He accomplishes this by the supernatural implanting of His Spirit into our hearts. Then our desires become His desires, our wills seek to do His will, and our rebellion turns to joyous obedience.
There are times when one will have a conversation with an individual and you leave them thinking, “What did I do or say to warrant that response?” Know this, only God can know the true intent of your heart. Sometimes, we are not even sure of why we said something the way we said it. Sometimes we respond in a manner that is out of character and we don’t know the root cause of that response. There isn’t a single thing that we can hide from God, consequently, we can hide things from each other. So, eventually, it will surface that is the very nature of man’s heart which is just like a stone because it is not easily to be softened. Lay a stone in water as long as you will, and you shall not find it readily unresponsive. Just like in its natural form: there are some sorts of stone that yield to the stress of weather, especially certain kinds of stones that crumble to decay, but the stone of a man's heart no climate can affect, no weathers can subdue; it grows harder whether it be the soft sunshine of love or the harsh tempest of judgment that falls upon it. Mercy and love alike makes it more solid and knit its particles closer together; and surely until the Omnipotent himself speak the word, the heart of man grows harder, and harder, and harder, and refuses to be broken. “Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. 21 But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord God” Ezekiel 11:19–21 (NKJV).