If you watch any amount of television, you know one of the hottest fads these days is makeovers:  Trading Spaces, (home-remodeling program), What NOT to Wear (fashion makeover show), Monster Garage (turning ordinary cars into unique "machines"), and let's not forget...Extreme Makeover (plastic surgery makeover show whose goal it is to make people's "wishes come true, not just by changing their looks, but their lives and destinies").  Have you ever wanted to do a fashion and beauty “makeover” on someone you loved?  Or, maybe you've wanted a makeover yourself. Not a bad idea! (Don't jump ahead of me on this one....) In a sense, God wants to help make "wishes come true" for us too, but not necessarily by making us look like the model on the cover of Vogue or GQ magazine, or by giving us the swimming pool and jacuzzi we always wanted.  In fact, God has a much better plan for us. God loves us so much that He wants to makeover our hearts, minds and souls so we can be all that He created us to be...and we can join Him in eternity where we will have all the desires of our heart.

The term “makeover” is so overused today and it usually refers to only the outer self while the Lord is interested in the internal you.  That is why when New Hope went to on their mission to China, they offered free makeovers to the Chinese women but used the opportunity to talk to the women about Christ.  In that way, we hoped it would open doors to a Christian makeover of their hearts.

So why is making over our heart so important?  Because it is important to the Lord.  The Lord has a special place in His heart for those whose hearts are all His.  The Bible says, “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chr. 16:9).  The Lord treats everyone fairly but pays close attention to those who have hearts after His own heart.  This is so because God can trust His plans to them.

If you want to know God and His plans, develop a heart like the Lord’s.  If you do not hear God’s voice, look at your own heart and work on making it over more like the Lord’s.  If you have a heart like God, you will not have to look for Him.  He will be looking for and watching out for you, just as He did for David because He knew David had a heart after His own.  Even Jesus began performing miracles after He was baptized and God pronounced that He was well pleased with Jesus’ heart.

So in order to have a heart like God’s, what do we need?  The first thing we need is…

1.    A HEART THAT IS RENEWED DAILY.

Our hearts and minds need to be refocused on what the Lord wants daily because there is an ever-present conflicting tension within us between our flesh and our Christian spirit.  We are born in the flesh and have to learn to be Christians.  Even after we’ve accepted Christ into our hearts, there is a constant battle within all of us between our old sinful self and our new Christian self. We are always tempted to go back to our old ways.  Even Pastor Wayne sometimes gets pulled back to the way of the flesh…

Pastor Wayne’s been working very hard for quite a while now and he decided to take a little break to renew his spirit.  He decided to go a week-long retreat this past week to a monastery in California where they practice a vow of silence and dwell on the things of the Lord.  With no phones or television to distract him, and in a peaceful, quiet setting, Pastor Wayne thought it would be the perfect place to refocus himself on God.  Well, on Wednesday, I was in the office and my phone rang.  It was Pastor Wayne!  I asked him where was he calling me from and what was he doing.  He said he left the monastery and drove about an hour to a Starbucks so he could get a cup of coffee, and was calling me from his cell phone!

You see, we all have a tendency to slip back into our old ways once in a while. It happens to all of us.  The question is, “What do we do about it?” How do we overcome that? The answer is…we make a decision to makeover and renew our hearts daily.  It is easy for our hearts to drift away from God but if we’re vigilant and correct our hearts back to His daily, we’ll never drift too far. As the Bible says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2 NIV). Today, Communion Sunday, is the perfect time to renew our hearts.

Sometimes people think, “It’s just mind over matter.” The problem with that is…it’s too easy to say, “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” The fact is it does matter.  Do not expose yourself to bad influences because it will affect you. Reality is…long before crimes (or sins) are committed, related thoughts have occupied the mind. Sometimes we hear of unspeakable crimes and are shocked and wonder how such an atrocity could have happened. In nearly every case, it’s determined that the crime occurred in the heart and mind of the culprit long before any action was taken.  For example, a child molester is almost always pre-occupied with child pornography long before he takes action against a child. In other less extreme cases, even our own, the same is also true; our actions follow our thoughts.  It does matter. Keep your heart pure.

It is so easy to be tempted and distracted away from God because sometimes it begins with just a compromise, or something so small and seemingly innocent. For example, my wife and I recently started watching Korean soap operas at the urging of a fellow staff member. It seemed innocent enough but once we started watching, we got hooked! Addicted!  To the point that we have stayed up late at night, into early the next morning, watching these soap operas and I have come to work too tired to give the Lord my best.  We have even started to speak Korean to each other and everyone looks Korean to me now! So you see how something so small and innocent can quickly get out of control unless we are disciplined and constantly correct ourselves back to what is right – back to God’s heart.

The Bible warns us to be careful what we take into our houses and minds; and specifically, we need to be on our guard because we will be tested. In fact, doesn’t it seem like the devil waits until you’re flying high, or are comfortable because all is going smoothly, before he blind-sides you? That always seems to be the case for me. For me, it always seems that God tests me while I’m preparing to give a sermon. In fact, just this past week, I had been contacted by a reporter who wanted an interview about a partnership we’re setting up with the State and would not take no for an answer. The ultimate result was an unfavorable news story for New Hope but I realized I was not upset because of what the reporter did, but rather because my heart was not made-over into a close image of the Lord’s.

If we don’t check our hearts daily, it’s easy to slip back into our old ways. So how do we keep ourselves from doing that?  Well, the Apostle Paul had suggestions.  He said, “And so, as those who have chosen of God … put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other … just as the Lord forgave you … And beyond all these things put on love … And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts …Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you … And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Col. 3:12-17). So remember to put those qualities into your heart and thoughts into your mind when you are challenged.

Daily devotions are a great time to renew your heart.  Before you start each day, ask God to reveal to you one thing that you could change to be more like Him.  Then, listen. With daily renewal of our hearts and minds as our goal, it’s easier to attain when we have a…

2.    A HEART THAT IS GRATEFUL FOR HIS GRACE.

We should be grateful to God knowing that we are loved when we should be despised and alive when we deserve death.  We should give thanks for the peace of mind He gives us because what worry could we have if God loves us unconditionally?  If God is with us, who can stand against us?  Paul fully understood and expressed his heart of gratefulness when he wrote, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor. 15:9-10).

Paul allowed God to live through Him because Paul was grateful to God for His forgiveness.  This is one of the basic strengths of Christianity.  If we understand Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross then our gratitude will lead us to let Jesus live through our lives.  Since Jesus died for us, let Him live through us.  As Paul further confirms, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Col. 1:21-22).  In other words, though we were unworthy, Jesus saved us anyway.

Courageous examples of wonderfully grateful hearts are the Christians in Communist China.  At the risk of being arrested, they break through the ice on the river so they can be baptized.  Against Chinese law, they gather to worship and pray, honoring Christ our Lord.  Despite incredible hardship and persecution, they live for Christ. 

How can we have a grateful heart like that?  We need to develop …

3.  A HEART THAT TAKES DELIGHT IN BEING JUST LIKE THE FATHER.

One person we see in the Bible who took delight in being like God was King Solomon and God blessed him greatly because of that.  “And God said to him, ‘Because you … have not asked for yourself long life … riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice, behold, … I have given you a wise and discerning heart, [and] I have also given you what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you all your days’” (1 Kin. 3:11-13).  But what really triggered God’s blessings? I believe it was the fact that Solomon’s request for wisdom and discernment showed that he wanted to be more like God who is the most discerning, wise and just being.  And, once God determined that Solomon was a man after His own heart, he poured out His blessings on Solomon.                                                                                                             

In this day of makeovers, we need to not be so concerned with our physical appearances but rather to focus on our hearts.  We need to makeover our hearts, minds and souls by renewing our hearts daily and correcting back to the Lord’s own.  We must also develop grateful hearts that appreciate God’s grace, and not take Him for granted.  Lastly, develop a heart that takes delight in being just like the Father because nothing pleases the Father more than having hearts that follow His own.....and He will pour out heaven’s blessing on you.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.      What makeover would you do for your heart?  Why?

2.      What makeover would you like to see in a love one?  Why?

3.      How have you let Christ live through you?

4.      What bad influence have you let into your life?

5.      How were you able to rid yourself of a bad influence?

Many thanks to volunteer writer Leighton Loo, a faithful and dedicated servant helping to transform hearts and minds through the ministry of God’s Word.