Living with your Heart on a Platter

Yeshua died for us, and while many of us know and understand that mentally we haven't given much thought to the fact that in order for us to fully embrace Him into our lives we must return the 'favor'. He died for us so that we can and must lay our own lives aside and live for Him. That is how we can become born again. He allows us to give up our own soiled, broken, delusional lives... in order to receive the life He has given for us and desires to give to us. When we truly do that His Spirit can indwell our beings and we begin our journeys in His life. And, a functional difference occurs in our mode of life after that point. God begins to have us live for Him and for others. All of the barriers of self protection, all of the walls of superficiality, that would separate us from God and from those around us must come down in order to free us of the bondages of the past, and to also allow Yeshua to truly live out of our lives in the present time for the glorification of God. Hence the need for a circumcised heart, that which Moses and Jeremiah spoke of (Deuteronomy 10:16, Jeremiah 4:4). The barriers of the old life must go, the walls of protection must go. And, as they do you become dead to yourself. Your heart becomes exposed, your innermost feelings, your loves and your hates become bare. It is no longer you who decides what is good or noble, but the Scriptures and the Spirit of God that resides within you; and your heart, laid bare, begins to beat for Moshiach. It is a return to the Garden of Eden, in that sense, to live naked and not ashamed (Genesis 2:25). Not naked physically, but Spiritually exposed. And, as you do, you find that things begin to hurt you more. Things which never bothered you in the past begin to bother you, you hurt for the world, for the gospel, because you have no protection for your heart anymore; as it now lives for others. In a sense your heart becomes everyone's heart. It is laid bare to feel the pains of sin and separation; to know the longings of God. The barriers and walls have been removed to free you of the past and to have you live for the Lord in the present. Which is why Paul said the following: "That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:" Roman 9:2-3 His heart was beating the love of Yeshua for Israel. The only protection from the hurts this world inflicts upon your heart laid bare is to keep it beating; for that heart no longer beats for you, it beats for God and pumps out the blood of Yeshua into the world, to cleanse those of the world who would receive it. As it does, that blood will also keep your heart clean and wash away the hurts, whatever they may be; from the tiniest dusting of sin to the greatest hurts of the world that come to weigh on it as it sits there, bare on a platter, for all the world to see. It then becomes a living witness of God's grace, naked and not ashamed. And, undeniable. Our words are not to be finessed into eloquent but powerless sermons, they need to flow from the heart. The heart that beats the lifeblood of Yeshua. They are the only words that matter, as they will be words that come from that heart of God. Our walk as believers then needs to be one that is ever mindful of the fact that we may often like to pull that heart back, to protect it ourselves, to build up barriers around it for our own comfort, and to have it beat for ourselves again. But, if we do we will have lost the flowing lifeblood of God; we will have built, not barriers of protection -but prisons for ourselves, and those walls of protection will have become bondages. Yet, God will not be bound; not by our desires for comfort, nor by the world which threatens pain for the exposed heart. The Spirit of God cannot be controlled by man; and we must not attempt to do so. The love of Yeshua that is given unto us to shed abroad must not be restricted to our rational, comfortable, thought processes. His redemption was limitless and His desire is for us to live out of His limitless life His limitless love. Let God keep your heart circumcised, let it sit on a platter for all the world to see. Dare to care, dare to feel, dare to hurt, dare to hope for others and to dream their dreams; for many have forgotten how. Dare to live the gospel of the Kingdom. Will it cost you something? No, not if you have already laid it all down at the cross. Keep the old man dead, don't withdraw your heart from beating the cleansing blood this world needs. Let Yeshua live through you, only then can He truly live for you.