April 11

Someone has said, “the heart of the problem, is the problem of the heart.” The Lord des-cribes the condition of the human heart for us when He says that it “is most deceitful and desper-ately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Left unchecked, the unredeemed human heart leads to a human being who is deceitful and desperately wicked. Genesis says of the people in Noah’s day, “all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil” (6:5). We can medicate a person all we want, hospitalize or imprison them to protect society, provide them therapy in the hopes of modifying their behavior, but, “the heart of their problem is the problem of their heart.” And only God has the power to change the human heart.
A great example of that is Saul. When Samuel informed Saul that he would be Israel’s king, Saul was either admirably humble or terribly frightened (I Samuel 9:21). In either case, Saul did not see himself as anything special. Saul certainly didn’t see himself capable of leading Israel (I Samuel 10:20-23). But, God’s Holy Spirit can produce miracles in us and Samuel prophesied of Saul, “the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you with power.......You will be changed into a different person” (I Sam.10:6,9). Furthermore, God supplied Saul with, “a band of men whose hearts God had touched” and they became Saul’s fellow warriors and friends (I Sam.10:26). Later, when the citizens of Jabesh-gilead asked for help from their fellow Israelites to save them from King Nahash of Ammon, it was the newly crowned King Saul who mobilized the Israelites to do battle. Again, it was “the Spirit of God” that “came mightily upon Saul” (I Sam.11:6) and enabled him to do what he did not see himself capable of doing.
Today, God’s Spirit is given to all who obey Him (Acts 5:32). And with His Spirit, God is still changing hearts (II Corinthians 5:17). God is still diligently searching the whole earth to “strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (II Chronicles 16:9). God still wants to empower people to do far greater things than they could ever do on their own. Are you interested in being one of those people?