What's in your heart?

 A few days ago I was sitting in my deer stand waiting for the forest to come alive at day break. I usually get there a half hour before daylight so I have time to allow thought to roll through my mine without any outside stimulus.

I love it when Biblical truths unfurl in my mind as The Lord enlightens me with answers to questions that I have had lately.  I am learning that if I don't write them down immediately they will evaporate within a few minutes and I can't recall them no matter how hard I try.

Fortunately my deer blind is enclosed and I have a Bible, a legal pad, and pens in there for just such a time.

There is a lot of controversy between people of different Christian persuasions as to what is the correct or acceptable formula when someone prays the sinner's prayer to get saved. 

I have heard the arguments on what words must be used or what posture one must be in, and other techniques before a person can step over the line between darkness and light.

One of the approaches that I know to be sound is, "The Roman's Road," found in the book of Romans. It begins with Romans 3:23 and ends with Romans 10:9-10. As I was thinking about this controversy my mind asked this question, "Wouldn't the last scripture in this series summarize what is needed?"

So, we go to these two verses and here is what they say, " If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart you are made right with God, AND it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved."

As I was thinking about those two verses my mind kept coming back to the conjunction and its importance. The conjunction is, "AND." Another thought that I had was to get some help with the meaning of this word, "Conjunction," so I looked it up and here is what I found, 

"Conjunction -----a compound proposition that is true IF and only IF all of its component prepositions are true." Here is what this tells me; the two propositions in  verse 9 involve confessing with one's mouth AND believing in one's heart.  Both of these propositions must be true or there is no, "Born again experience." They are equally valuable. 

Without a pure heart saying the correct words is meaningless.  But, isn't that what Jesus meant in the sermon on the mount when he uttered these words in Mathew 5:8, "God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God."

That verse asks the question, what is a pure heart?

We can get another clue when we study the grammar in John 3:16.

History tells us that Jesus of Nazareth lived and as a result of this historical fact most people believe ABOUT him, but the preposition ABOUT is not the same as the preposition IN.

Where you spend eternity is determined which preposition you insert in this Bible verse.

Natural man has a compartmentalized heart where each aspect of his life does not influence the other parts. Some of these compartments include; "work habits, your marriage commitments, work habits, relating to our children, our relationships, language on Sundays, language other six days, what we watch on the internet, etc."

A man with a pure heart has no compartments, every aspect of his life is integrated into all of the others.

Jesus warned us about not having a pure heart when he said in Mathew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, (confesses me or believes about me) shall enter the kingdom of God."

So you see, the conjunction AND and the preposition IN are what determines who has a pure heart and where they will spend eternity.