For Christian Prayer

 

The Heart

 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you (Ezekiel 36:26).

 

    (We) learn that Christians have another heart. In other words, this new heart originated as a type

found in a component of the tabernacle called the brazen altar. It also corresponds with a place

in your lower abdomen, an antitype. (the reality of the type)

 

    We have seen also that Christ Jesus mysteriously abides within us, and some may understand this to take

place through His saving blood. We have found that the Bible speaks of the atonement of blood as a covering of sin. We know by Scripture that Christ dwells within the heart, and by inference, we believe this to mean that He has a ministry within believers, inside the brazen altar, an antitype of the heart.

 

    In the community of Christ, we have been given a new heart which was prophesied long ago (Ezekiel 36:26), and it is the will of the Father that the heart be in oneness with Christ, bringing into submission the human will.  To be more like Christ, especially during the most difficult times of our day, is done out of the heart – Christ’s home. Practicing the presence of Christ, to be led by Christ or a number of other thoughts upon this premise should be understood as the heart managing the mind in the natural realm.

 

We live in the natural world where our mind guides our daily progress. The plan of God is for us to have a spiritual heart, translating to us and enabling us to put into practice the truth, the righteousness, the wisdom, and above all the love of God in our lives. The heart must lead out with the higher biblical values to make proper choices in the natural world. Christ should always be the source of the creativeness of the mind as we interact in the world, while the Holy Spirit orchestrates the choices creature to creature.

 

    Any of the ones truly influenced by the Holy Spirit, having received a "gut check," or a burning sensation, that coaxing out of this region, are the ones who are led by the Spirit. This "Spirit of God" is resting upon Christ, and it is out of this place, the heart, that the story of Jesus continues.

 

-     In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. -John 14:2

 

-    "Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?" —2 Corth.13:5

 

-   "...My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him." —Jn. 14:23

 

-     “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the

      tabernacle...just so you shall make it” (Exodus 25:8–9).