A Religious Heart is an Enemy of the Spirit

"Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am."
(John 8:58)

Jesus was telling the Pharisees the truth about who He was in John, Chapter 8, but the religious leaders weren't having any of it. From what they could see, they were listening to a man who was in his early thirties. After the Lord finished speaking, we are told the Pharisees promptly picked up stones and began throwing them at Him.

Nice guys, those Pharisees! They will defend the God of their religion to the death, but when it comes to embracing the Spirit - the source of eternal Life itself - they will have nothing to do with it. And therein lies the problem with a religious heart. It is an enemy of Christ. A religious heart will try to kill whatever heart the Spirit is residing in. A religious heart says: "The Spirit inside your heart must be extinguished."

There is only one problem with the modus operandi of a religious heart: The Spirit cannot be extinguished.

Jesus is proof of this. No sooner did the Pharisees think they had done away with Jesus for good, He reappeared! The disciples saw the Lord after the crucifixion. Mary was the first to see Jesus. But the Lord didn't stop with the disciples. He had much work to do, just as the prophets before Jesus had prophesied. There was a whole world outside of Israel to conquer. The Jews would now be left behind, left to tend to their religion and their religious hearts.

To show you how magnificent the Lord is, consider the fact that He choose a former Pharisee - a man with a religious heart of stone - to lead the charge out of Israel into the land of the Gentiles. Saul of Tarsus, a self-proclaimed "Hebrews of Hebrews, from the tribe of Benjamin" (Philippians 3:5) was on his way to capture followers of Christ when Jesus appeared and spoke to his heart. Instantly, Saul's heart was transformed by the Spirit. A former enemy of Christ, Saul became filled with the Spirit, changed his name to Paul (a new creation!), and became a mighty conduit for the Spirit. Some two-thirds of the New Testament is comprised of letters written by the Spirit through Paul.

There is nothing quite so beautiful as a religious heart transformed into a Spirit-filled heart. Ahhhhhhhh...

Entangled with the Spirit, Paul did God's will. He could now hear the voice of the Spirit. The Spirit poured through Paul's heart. Like many other Spirit-filled hearts before him, Paul's body was eventually extinguished prematurely by hearts that were disconnected from Christ. But nevertheless, he lives on. God sees to that. Eternal life and Spirit-filled hearts go hand in hand.

There is nothing a religious heart can do to stand in the Lord's way. That is the mighty power of the Christ and the Cross.

The Cross signifies God's will. By going to the Cross, Jesus was doing the will of God. We carry our crosses daily to show that God's will is our will - that we are completely entangled with the Spirit. The Cross is central to following the Spirit. Without the Cross, it is impossible to enter through the narrow gate and walk the path that leads to eternal life. As the Lord said:

"And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it."
(Matthew 10:38-39)

Jesus told us clearly that the Spirit inside our hearts would be attacked by religious hearts. He gave us confident words to stand our ground. The Lord said:

"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
(Matthew 5:11-12)

Jesus always told the truth. As the Lord said:

"God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
(John 4:24)

May your heart be entangled with the Spirit and may God's will be your will.

Agape,

Steve