The Ways of the Heart
Frank Allnutt

Section 3: The Ways of Christ-Hearted Man

Page 2: Modes of the Heart

The Bible, when consulted with an open heart, can reveal our mode of heart and guide us into closer functional conformity with the heart of Christ Jesus. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the Word of God penetrates the depths of our hearts to reveal all the unholy thoughts and intentions that divide the heart, soul from spirit:

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:12, 13).(1)

As we move on in our study, there may be characteristics of the Half-Hearted Christian that you see in your own life. Do not let this discourage you; God has provided you with the way to wholeheartedness—through His Son, who is the “way” (John 14:6), and through His Word. The writer of Hebrews gives us the encouraging good news that:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

In Figure 3-1 two Christians are illustrated to show their different modes of heart or functional conditions. Both are depicted as walking in order to signify that their representations are functional rather than ontological. At any given time, a believer’s heart can be divided or united.

Figure 3-1:

Notice in the illustration that the Half-Hearted Christian’s soul is functionally divided from the spirit, and is shaded to depict its state of conditional and functional separation from the spirit and indwelling Holy Spirit. By contrast, the Whole-Hearted Christian’s soul is functionally united with his spirit, and is white to signify that it is filled with God’s holy light.

The Half-Hearted Christian lives “out of character”—his functionality and behavior do not coincide with his new life, nature, and unity with Christ. This believer is living in self-sufficiency and is estranged from fellowship with the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Whole-Hearted Christian, on the other hand, lives in conformity with his unity in Christ and experiences the dynamics of Christ’s life through his entire being. One believer lives a fleshly life of conditional darkness, bondage, and defeat, and the other lives a spiritual life of the light, freedom, and victory in Christ Jesus.

King David loved God, yet there were times when he experienced the guilt and frustration of living halfheartedly and out of fellowship with God. In the book of Psalms, he prays out of a “broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17) for a “clean heart” (v. 10) and for a united or whole heart (Psalm 86:11 and elsewhere). God answered his prayers and we find him with a functionally united heart, abiding with God out of a whole heart, undivided heart, or with all his heart (Psalm 9:1 and elsewhere).

As promised by God in Ezekiel 36:26, 27, the New Covenant believer has been given a new heart with a new spirit part and a new soul part. He is indwelt by the Holy Spirit who imparts to him new life (Christ’s eternal life) and a “new spirit” (new disposition of Christlike love) which, when operative, functionally unites the spirit and soul of the heart. This enables him to function in fellowship and harmony with the Holy Spirit. Even so, the Christian can function out of either a whole heart or a divided heart. The Half-Hearted Christian functions most of the time out of a heart that is functionally divided by sinfulness, and experiences confusion and frustration not unlike David when he lived out of a divided heart.

Halfheartedness does not change a believer’s standing and relationship with God or his spiritual nature and unity with Christ. To help us better understand this, the Bible refers to us as new clay jars, lovingly formed by the creative hands of the Master Potter, our Father in heaven. Now, let’s consider for a moment how a clay jar might be used: It could contain honey or rat poison. But the contents do not change the substantive nature of the jar: The honey does not turn the jar into honey, and the rat poison does not turn the jar into rat poison. And so it is with us: A soul with sinful content and function does not substantively change the Christlike nature of the heart. The mode of our heart and how we function and behave out of heart determines whether we will serve as vessels to contain “rat poison” or “honey,” and whether we will produce “fruit for death” or “fruit for God.”

As Adamic people, the functioning of our old spiritual hearts was controlled by our flesh or sin-nature, and was conditioned by life’s experiences and the influences of old spiritual masters—Satan, sin, the world order, and God’s law. We strived for self-sufficiency by getting along the best we could through our limited resources and resourcefulness. Our old spiritual hearts rendered us incapable of true holy living. We were unable to discern spiritual truths. Lies, deceptions, and fantasies became the corrupt basis of our knowledge and attitudes, values and beliefs, feelings and affections, desires and choices, and behavior and accomplishments.

When we became Christians, very few of us truly understood what it meant to be new-hearted, new creatures in Christ, or to know Christ as life. Though we had been rescued by Jesus from out of the bondage of darkness and into the freedom and victory of His light, many of us continued to live in conditional darkness as if we still had an old spiritual heart and were still enslaved to old spiritual masters.

Christ Jesus dwells in the heart of every believer, never to leave. But if a believer lives out of a divided heart, he does not walk in Christ or in His ways; he is functionally estranged from the indwelling Spirit of Christ, and his fellowship with Christ is stained at least and severed at worst. Division of the heart affects the believer’s fellowship, not his relationship; his salvation and unity with Christ Jesus remain irrevocably intact and unchangeable.

Figure 3-2:

Figure 3-2 depicts the Half-Hearted Christian from two perspectives. The view on the left pictures this believer’s entire being—heart and body. Their whiteness signifies that the believer is positionally in God’s realm of light and that, ontologically, he has a holy nature. This is true for all Christians.

The view of this believer on the right shows his heart’s mode or condition and functionality. Because his heart is divided by fleshliness, he functions psychosomatically—primarily out of his fleshly soul and body, which are shaded to indicate he lives in conditional (not positional) darkness. His spirit, though substantively holy, is functionally passive, and the indwelling Holy Spirit is “grieved” (Ephesians 4:30) and “quenched” (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Thus this believer functions and behaves independently of the Holy Spirit.

God knows the condition of your heart, whether it is divided or united. He says, “I, the Lord, search the heart” (Jeremiah 17:10). He searches “all the innermost parts” [spirit and soul chamber-parts] (Proverbs 20:27). Through doing this He knows the secrets of your heart (Psalm 44:21). “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13).

God’s examination of those whose hearts are not right with Him concludes that, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8).

Just as God examines our heart, so too should we examine our hearts and lives. “Test yourselves,” Paul exhorts us, “see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

A person might consider himself a Christian by virtue of being born into a Christian family, living in a Christian community, attending a church, having prayed a “sinner’s prayer,” having been baptized with water, believing in the idea of God, or some other basis outside of having a genuine relationship with God through Christ, by faith and through grace (Ephesians 2:8, 9). Such a person is not a true Christian—not a chosen one, not “in the faith,” in Paul’s words. Please understand, however, that when I write of the “Half-Hearted Christian,” I refer to one chosen by Christ—a born again, new-hearted, new creature in Christ.

Examine also your heart’s condition. Is it united by love or divided by sin? For who among us lives sinlessly? “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.... If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10). “Let us examine and probe our ways,” lamented the prophet Jeremiah, urging repentance on the part of all Israel, “and let us return to [fellowship with] the Lord” (Lamentations 3:40, 41b).

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(1) Watchman Nee, in his widely-read book, Release of the Spirit, uses this verse in support of his teaching that the “outer man” (self- and worldly-conscious soul) is divided by God’s Word from the “inner man” (God-conscious spirit). In his view, the believer should endeavor to “separate” his soul from his spirit. The spirit, Nee maintains, should be used to “tame” and thus control the soul. Believers are certainly called to separate themselves from the world, to cease walking according to the flesh, and to walk in the Spirit; however, to use Hebrews 4:12 in support of that premise is to contradict other biblical teaching. The Word of God does not functionally divide the soul from the spirit, but rather reveals what causes that division—our fleshliness, worldliness, and other sinfulness that indeed do functionally divide soul from spirit—and also guides us toward a united or whole heart. Luke wrote of those who were “pierced to the heart” or smitten in conscience and thus convicted of their sins by the truth of God’s Word (Acts 2:37). God does not call us to fellowship with Him out of a divided heart, but rather a whole heart—with a love-motivated soul that is functionally united with the spirit, so that the two operate in harmony with the indwelling Spirit of Christ. The Greatest Commandment calls believers to love God with a whole heart, not a separated or divided heart.

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