Come into my heart, O Lord Jesus

“𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡, 𝑂 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠.
𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡, 𝐼 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦;
𝑀𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑜 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑦,
𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡, 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦."

When we pray for the Lord to come into our heart, from where does He come in? From our spirit. We have the Lord in our spirit, but we might not have the Lord in our heart. What causes us to fail and be troubled? The issue is not our spirit—it is our heart. When the Lord was incarnated, there were no inns available to host Him; they were all occupied. In the same way, our heart is often occupied and busy with many things, not allowing our spirit to saturate it with Him.

In the gospels, the Lord warned us that when one unclean spirit goes out from man, it returns with another seven more evil than itself to occupy him (Luke 11:24-26). Christians actually often fail more miserably after they’ve been saved, sometimes even committing worse sins than before they first confessed to the Lord. The principle is, what is your heart open to? Are you saved? Yes, we are saved! But the problem is, if you are weak, if you don’t feel powerful, it’s because your heart has been occupied by something else. There are some things that may bring you happiness for a time, but the things you embrace into your heart come with consequences, too. You might want pleasure in the short term, but you are going to suffer the rest of your life with the consequences. We need to understand that those are the areas where we need to exercise our spirit, exercise our will—otherwise how can these things be cast out?

We suffer the most by the weight and burden of sin. The second verse of this hymn goes on to say, “Come into my heart, O Lord Jesus, / I need Thee through life’s dreary way; / The burden of sin is so heavy, / Come into my heart to stay.” When we are living together, oftentimes we consume each other with sin, even purposefully demonstrating the burden of sin with our stubbornness toward each other. And we know that when we exercise our flesh or sin, there is a certain kind of power. Resistance has a power, but submission also has a power—a different power. You can turn and repent to the Lord, depending on what kind of power you are using; if you use the burden of sin, it will make you more weary—this song is very true. We should pray, “Lord, deal with my heart, Lord, cleanse me, cleanse my heart.” Your spirit doesn’t need to be cleansed; your spirit is holy! It’s your heart that needs to be cleansed, your soul illumined.

Oftentimes we say that we should be colorful, romantic people. But the secret is that it’s not your spirit—it’s your soul! Your spirit expresses no outward color on its own; only your soul will give color. If our soul is properly saturated by our spirit—by the Lord—our souls will spontaneously be colorful. But oftentimes we don’t own ourselves—we are confused about who, why, and what we are. For example, young people, especially in the teenage years, are in the process of trying to find their identity. Oftentimes they get confused about why they grew up a certain way or in a certain family, or why they are a certain race or gender. Young people struggle to find themselves and to find a secure identity.

And, actually, it’s not just young people, but the entire human race. Every human being is looking for the meaning of their existence on this earth, searching for who they are. In the process of finding yourself, however, you can get very lost if you choose to let sin become your person. The world is the realm of sin and Satan. It is a system, so you don’t need to try for it to get into you, to become your person; sin and the world is already our default setting. You don’t need to be weak; you are already weakened. You were born with sin; we are all sinners. Who can deliver us from this wretched person? Not your will, not your determination. Your determination and your will can help—exercising your soul helps—but only when the Lord has come into your heart. That is where the transformation happens, that is where eternal life happens, that is where the ginomai (Greek for “becoming,” 1 Corinthians 4:13) happens and makes you a transformed being. Otherwise, you will always be forever dirty, never cleansed. Thinking to be clean is a theory, but to be cleansed is to be brought into a totally different realm. Thinking you want to be good is one thing, but being made new and being fully saturated by the Lord Himself is another thing.

The final verse of the hymn says, “Come into my heart, O Lord Jesus / Now cleanse and illumine my soul; / Fill me with Thy wonderful Spirit, / Come in and take full control.” Why do we try so hard? Because we never got the secret. We are often still in religion and that’s not Biblical. Even though this song has been sung in Christianity for years, not many people find the secret within it. The Lord has no issue and our spirit has no issue; it’s our heart. It’s not even your emotion, or your will, or your mind—it’s your heart. The heart is a very intricate organ that God specifically designed for us. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 6:11-12: “Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians; our heart is enlarged. You are not constricted in us, but you are constricted in your inward parts.” You can never love another person without your heart—you can never just say, “Brother or sister, I love you with my mind,” or even “I love you with my spirit.” But where is your heart?

We can live with the brothers and sisters, but our relationship as human beings is not just expressed through our spirit—and it’s certainly not just through our Bible reading, our mind, or long, theological conversations. If someone doesn’t love you, you can feel that they are cold—they are zombies—because their heart is closed. They cannot use their heart because there are so many dirty things in their heart, so they choose to close it. But when a person chooses to close their heart, there is no relationship with one another. The human soul is very powerful; either you can hurt someone by your soul or you can heal someone by your soul. Living together is not about your spirit only; it’s how much your spirit possesses your soul and makes you a spiritual being—spirit, soul and body.

Come into my heart, O Lord Jesus, from the spirit to the soul. It’s our lifelong transformation process. We have the Lord in our spirit so we can ask Him to come into our heart. Every day we can walk in Him, and every day we can be more fully saturated with His person. That is the most important part of our organic salvation—not just the day we were saved, but the process of being glorified. Today we should say, “Lord, my heart is open to You. Cleanse and fill me, renew and transform me.”

(𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑎 𝑔𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛 8/2/2020, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟.)