In The Octagon With My Heart

Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Matthew 15:19

For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

For the last couple of years, I have found myself in a raging battle against my desires. I am constantly doing what I don't want to do. I want to be a good student; I slack off. I want to have pure eyes; I begin looking at the women on campus wearing tight clothes. There is this battle between a desire to do what Christ desires of me and what my heart desires. Yes, this is a battle between the Spirit and Sin. But it is also a battle between me and my heart.

I don't watch UFC all too often but the matches I have seen were intense. Professional athletes enter their ring, the octagon, and just pumple each other into submission until one has his fist raised in the air as the victor because the other guy either tapped out or was knocked out.

I need to go into the octagon with my heart. Too often it feels like my heart has been punching me violently in the ribs, wrapping its arms around my chest and slamming me into the caging tearing my flesh and making blood gush from my forehead, hurling me onto the floor again and again until my breath is knocked out of me, and then wrapping its arms around my neck choking me into submission. Why does my heart do this? Because it is the well-spring of my desires. I am a wretch and completely depraved. So I give in to my heart's deadly desires to partake in sin. I tap out without even fighting.

My eyes though have seen the glory of Christ crucified and my heart begins to tremble and fight back. The Spirit though just provokes me again and again: Get up, boy, and fight; fight for your joy in Christ.

So now, with God's grace, I will stand and fight my greedy heart and pumple it into submission. The stakes of victory are high. If my heart has its fist raised in victory, death is its reward. But, if my hand is raised in victory, the reward is God. This is the greatest prize worth fighting for: Joy and pleasure in God.

This fight is going to be bloody and violent, but that's how it has to be to make my heart submit to what Christ desires of me.

Father, pour out your Spirit on me and my struggling brothers and sisters that we may have the wisdom to fight our decptive hearts in order to cherish more deeply Christ crucified. The prize is the greatest: You. Glorify your name by displaying your holiness in us; give us the power to crush our hearts in the octagon. In Jesus' name, amen.