Lydia’s Heart: Jesus Does What We Can’t

The mystery of the human heart was captured by Jeremiah: “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is.”

The respective Hebrew words for ‘heart, mind, soul, spirit’ have semantic fields which vary somewhat from their English counterparts, but Jeremiah’s point is made, whether it be about the ‘mind’ or the ‘heart.’

Jeremiah’s analysis about the intrinsic sin found in people is confirmed by other texts. Ecclesiastes notes that “the hearts of mortals are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live.”

The ‘madness’ in Ecclesiastes is less about rationality and sanity, and more about morality.

It is clear, then, that human beings cannot overcome themselves and their nature. Happily, Jesus intervenes, as we see in Luke’s account of Lydia’s conversion:

On the day of rest — a holy day we went out of the city to a place along the river where we thought Jewish people gathered for prayer. We sat down and began talking to the women who had gathered there. A woman named Lydia was present. She was a convert to Judaism from the city of Thyatira and sold purple dye for a living. She was listening because the Lord made her willing to pay attention to what Paul said. When Lydia and her family were baptized, she invited us to stay at her home. She said, “If you are convinced that I believe in the Lord, then stay at my home.” She insisted. So we did.

Luke indicates that Lydia received the Gospel because “the Lord opened her heart.” This is the activity of the Holy Spirit.

So it is that Luther, commenting on Psalm 51, writes that “the forgiveness of sins depends simply on the promise which faith accepts - not on our works or merits.” Forgiveness is contingent upon God’s promise, “not on our works or merits.”

Without God’s promise, there is no forgiveness, and His promise alone suffices to forgive. The promise is a precondition which is both necessary and sufficient. We do not accept His promise, but rather the faith which the Holy Spirit implants in us accepts the promise.

God’s activity is grace: God is not an immobile object, but rather constantly in action - and much of that action takes place inside people. As Luther phrases it,

Grace is the continuous and perpetual operation or action through which we are grasped and moved by the Spirit of God so that we do not disbelieve His promises and that we think and do whatever is favorable and pleasing to God. The Spirit is something living, not dead. Just as life is never idle, but as long as it is present, it is doing something - for even in sleep life is not idle, but either the body is growing, as in children, or other works of life are felt in breathing and the pulse - so the Holy Spirit is never idle in the pious, but is always doing something that pertains to the kingdom of God.

As God says, in the present tense, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” This statement, in Isaiah’s prophecy, indicates a perpetual present (cf. the letter to the Hebrews: “as long as it is called ‘today’”).

Keeping our focus on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), we see that He is always doing something, both inside us and in the world at large. Peter reminds us that God’s work is done through us, not by us: the followers of Jesus are “carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Jesus at Work in Us: He Does the “Heavy Lifting”

As a follower of Jesus, I am constantly reminded that not only am I unable to do ‘good works,’ but also that I can’t even want to do good. Born as I am with a flawed and imperfect human nature, my best efforts are impure, and my most noble desires are still somehow subverted by my innately selfish tendencies.

The Good News (note the capital letters!) is that God sends His Holy Spirit into me - into my heart, mind, soul, and spirit - to override my human nature. So it is that Paul, writing in his letter to the Philippians, indicates that actions that seem to be our actions are actually God’s actions. It is God who produces in us the desires and actions that please Him:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

It is God, and not me, who first creates the sanctified “will” inside me - the desire to what is good - and then who is working within me that I act in order to fulfill His good purpose. So it is not me who desires to do good, but rather God causing that desire within me. It is not me who does actions that please Him, but rather God causing me to act thus.

As Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “I no longer live, but” Jesus “lives in me.” Therefore anything good - desires or actions - is attributed to God.

Likewise, in the letter to the Hebrews, the author of that text informs us that when we “do His will,” it is not only because He has first “equipped us,” but also because He is “working in us.”

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

First God equips me, then He works in me that which is pleasing in His sight.

When Paul writes to the Ephesians that God “is over everything, through everything, and in everything,” and when he writes to the Colossians that Jesus “is everything and in everything,” these texts show us that God is everywhere and always active: when Paul writes that God is “through” everything, it means that He is active “by means of” everything.

So it is that the Psalmist sees God as active. God has “pity on me,” wipes “out my rebellious acts,” washes “me thoroughly from my guilt,” cleanses “me from my sin,” hands “down justice,” teaches “me wisdom,” purifies “me from sin,” washes me, wipes “out all that I have done wrong,” creates “a clean heart in me,” renews “a faithful spirit within me,” restores “the joy of” His “salvation to me,” provides “me with a free spirit,” and rescues “me from guilt” (cf. Psalm 51).

Commenting on this Psalm, Luther writes:

Grace means the favor by which God accepts us, forgiving sins, and justifying freely through Christ.

God accepts us - even though we are unacceptable. We do not accept God because we cannot accept God: we lack that ability. God plants the good impulse into us. It is a gift from Him.