Student or Disciple

As I thought about yesterdays blog, God sees the heart. God knows if our heart is in it. We can fool people but we cannot fool God. That statement "Students don't go to Heaven" stuck with me.  We can learn Christianity.  We can talk like a Christian, we can go to church every Sunday. We can dress up in a nice suit of clothes, carry our Bible in our hands and our heart not be in it. Many times in the scripture we can read of the Pharisees and their efforts to look good to the people around them. They would put scriptures on their forehead, they would have scripture on the borders of their garments. They really looked religious. Perhaps they fasted and said their prayers. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14  Do you see the difference in attitude?  One was a student and knew how to look but God looks on the heart. One came to God in a contrite and broken spirit. One saw his need for a heart change, he was a disciple that wanted to be like Jesus. One was self sufficient in his knowledge, from outward appearances, he looked good. He was a student. He did some things he was suppose to do, but there was no heart change. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. God works on the heart. It is that heart change on the inside that is going to make us stand when the storms of life come our way. Without a heart change, we take flight and collapse when the storms of life come our way. I have thought back to some major storms in my life. When the rain cleared, when the dust settled, I was still standing. God did a work in my heart years ago when I came to God like the tax collector or publican in the scripture above. I am not saying my life was perfect, I am saying like the Tax-collector, I saw my need to repent of the sins in my life. I knelt in prayer many a day and said God forgive me. My precious Uncle Val once asked me, why have you been married so many times? Then he said I'll pray for you. There had to be a heart change. The imperfections of our life can be fixed when our heart is tuned towards God. When we look to our creator to fix what is wrong with us. That is what the tax collector did in this scripture, he turned to God and said fix me. I am broken, I am not what I am suppose to be. I need to be forgiven. I need to be changed and made into your image. The tax collector is saying, I need a heart change. The tax collector is the wise man in the story of the house built on the rock. The Pharisee is the foolish man that built his house on the sand. Without the heart change we will not stand but collapse.  A disciple has a heart change and wants to be just like Jesus. A student learns of God but is self sufficient in his knowledge, If you gave a student,  a  Bible test, he could pass it. A disciple lives it, and is changed from the inside out. If we want to stand in the storms of life, we need to be more than a student. We need to be a disciple.   A heart change is required.  God bless, LVZ.