There is a theme running through the book of Jeremiah about the heart. Most of it talks about making the heart clean, repenting, in order to be closer to God. This not only applied to the people during the time of Jeremiah, but to people now. God has no love of sin, and when there is sin in our hearts it pushes him our. God is not going to force us to get rid of it, but he doesn't want it to stay. God gave us free will, so we have the ability to make the conscious choice to get rid of the sin, or keep it in our lives. By keeping it in our lives, we slowly push God out of our lives. It might not even be what we consider a 'huge sin' like murdering someone. It could be just lying about small things, to keep yourself out of trouble, or sleeping with your partner before you're married. In today's culture, these things aren't considered wrong. But in God's eyes they are detestable. But because he loves us deeply, he's not going to condemn us. He might place conviction in our hearts, so that we realize that we are committing sin, separating us from him. His conviction is not to make us feel guilty, but just to show us where we went astray. God never wants us to feel guilty. He sent his son to free us from our guilt. Our guilt, even after repenting, is another thing that keeps us separated from him. Guilt builds a wall around our hearts that God has to pull apart, brick by brick. It's a long process and it often hurts, but through the pain comes healing. Its like Eustace from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. He was turned into a dragon because he was greedy and wanted curse gold, which he didn't know was cursed at the time. I think that this story is a good analogy for our sin and the way that God frees us from it:
"The water was a clear as anything and I thought that it I could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out lous or not. I was just going to say that I couldn't undress becasue I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly though that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, though I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peelin off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of if. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeing. So I started to go down into the well for my bath. But just as I put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough an wrinkled and scaley just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means that I had another small suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore agains and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bath. Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I though to mysled, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I lloked at my self in the water, I knew it had been no good. Then the lion said- but I don't know if it spoke- "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thougt if had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, ot furn worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know- if you've ever pick the scab of a sore place. If hurts like billy-oh, but it is such fun to see it coming away. Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I'd done it myself, the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there I was, smooth and soft as a peeled switch and small than I had been. Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that much, for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."
In very much the same way that Aslan, the lion, tore away Eustace's scaly dragon skin, God tears away the hardened skin of our hearts, when we let him, and it hurts. Oh, it hurts so bad, but then he covers us with his love, and it stops hurting, and we realize that we are how he made us to be. We are clean, new, and beautiful and the stuff that was covering our hearts, is lying beside us, gross and ugly, and we are free to walk away from it.
So we all have heart disease, and there is only one cure for it. God. Make the choice to lay down and let God rip away the tough, ugly skin around your hearts, and become a child again.
