Rendering your heart…
The prophet Joel was God’s voice to the children of Israel at a time when Israel was facing their greatest natural disaster(s) that had ever come upon the nation. There was a great drought throughout the land, a plague of invading locusts, both vines and fig trees were stripped, the ground lay parched as a result of this great drought. The pastures were destroyed where the livestock grazed. Today in America we see the same drought in our land in the form of economic woes, weather pattern changes, droughts and floods, and the destructive effects of sin; drug and gang violence, abortion, homosexuality, and the list goes on. The prophet saw the devastation as a judgment from God for the sin that the nation of Israel had committed in the land.
God was saying through His prophet, “Rend your hearts, and not your garments.” In other words religious activity and lip service is not enough, and never can be, especially in what you are seeing happening to you and your nation…”Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God…(Joel 2:12-13).
Many think fasting is a time of not eating. When we fast it is more than that. It is breaking away from the norm, turning from habits and ways displeasing to God and humbling ourselves before God putting away all distractions. It is a time of having genuine sorrow for the sins we have committed and going to the Lord with a repentant and sincere heart. It involves a willingness on our part that once we have confessed our sins asking God’s forgiveness, we then turn from our own ways, sinful desires, selfish ambitions, immoral lifestyles, greed, covetousness, our unbelief and our compromise with the world. We must bring and confess every known attitude and ungodly ways that we know is contrary to what God desires and requires of His people. When we see clearly how our wicked ways have hindered God’s plan and purpose that He desires to fulfill and accomplish through His Church, the stark reality of what sin and rebellion has done in bringing destruction and judgment upon our nation will give us an even greater burden to intercede.
The Jews in the Old Testament tore their garments. The word ‘rend’ means “to separate through force or violence.’ It was a sign of grief and sorrow. Their custom of the day when fasting was to tear their garments and then clothe themselves with sackcloth. They would sprinkle ashes on their head as an outward sign of mourning and sorrow for their sins. It was possible for them to just render their garments and not their hearts.
We are at a crossroads, a spiritual turn in our nation. The days are upon us that God’s people can no longer go through outward religious motions and activities, but never truly repenting and turning from their sinful ways and habits. We must stand and be counted prepared for the battle waged against us as a Church and the enemies of our nation. Repentance will bring restoration; restoration will bring the needed readiness to be the instruments of righteous ‘for such a time as this.”
We must truly acknowledge all sin and disobedience. We must come clean with God. We too must recognize that our own righteousness is like filthy rags before a holy God. God requires more than just sacrifice. He wants our very hearts so He can pour out His mercy. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17). God desires and expects from us integrity of heart, not a superficial or outward show of the formality of prayer and fasting.
When we come before the Lord in brokenness of heart in true humility, rendering our hearts with all honesty and transparency, allowing the searchlight of His Holy Spirit to reveal any sin, asking God to purge and cleanse us of those areas that have hindered the flow of His Spirit…it is in that place of confession and repentance, crying out to Him with all of our heart, that we will experience a deep cleansing and restoration that only the blood of Jesus can bring. It is there we understand repentance as being God’s springboard allowing us to freely ‘dive’ into His grace. It is there we find restoration and renewed strength and the zeal to do His will.
As we render our hearts to a loving, gracious and merciful heavenly Father, we will begin to experience again the purity of heart that allows God presence and power to flow freely in and through us. It is then we are in a position to intercede for our nation, our loved ones, the lost…having full confidence that God is not only hearing our prayers, but is actively at work answering our prayers (Isaiah 65:24).
Joel 2:32 is the result of rendering our hearts. When we meet God’s requirements we will experience deliverance from the sin that so easily holds us back rendering us unfit and ineffective to be used of God in this critical hour. “And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered…”(KJV)
