I was thinking about the criminals that were crucified along side with Jesus. I was thinking about how they both reacted completely different to what was going on.

Luke 23:39-43: And one of the hanged criminals blasphemed Him, saying, if you are Christ, save Yourself and us. But answering, the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are in the same condemnation. And we indeed justly so, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this Man has done nothing amiss. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise.

One of the criminals made fun of Jesus just like many did there by questioning if He was the Christ. The other criminal got angry at him and told him that they deserved what they're getting but that Jesus didn't do anything wrong. That criminal asked Jesus to remember him and Jesus responded by saying that he would be with Him in Paradise. Why did Jesus except him? From what we see this man did not have a chance to repent. He wasn't baptized. He knew he was going to die and like many of us that's when we want to find God and hope to make it to heaven. Why did he get to be with Jesus when he died? The only answer that I could think of is that Jesus knew the criminals heart. It was a "matter of the heart". Jesus saw this man's repented heart. Although we don't know much about this man, Jesus did. This gives all of us hope. It doesn't matter what you've done in the past but as long as you've had a repented(changed) heart, God does see that. But that happens with you. I believe Jesus knew that if that criminal would have been freed, he would've changed.

1Samuel 16:7 shows that God doesn't see what man sees which is what we show on the outside. God looks at the heart. The heart is something that God can truly see. Sometimes we are good judge of characters but we can never know completely a man's heart. It's very difficult to be completely transparent with each other. God is the only One who sees everything even when we try to hide. That's why we need to be very careful to judge someone. I do believe that sometimes people make it pretty easy to judge. Whenever I hear someone say "God knows my heart" I take a look at there actions and I can't help but to laugh a little because everything that person is doing is showing what's in there heart and that person is right; God does know that persons heart and so does everyone else around them. Now before anyone says that I may be judging I need to be clear on this. I'm not talking about the individual who is struggling with a stronghold that is doing everything they can to break it. I have strongholds of my own that I struggle with that's why I have to always put guards around me because when I don't, I stumble. I'm talking about the one who isn't doing anything to change there life.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article giving my thoughts on being a "Transformer". I wrote on how if we wanted to know the will of God and how to change our lives through Christ we needed to renew our minds by changing the way we think. I believe that our hearts are a big part of that change. But what I began to ask myself was 'does our heart have to change first before our mind?' Does changing the mind change our hearts or does our heart change our mind? I tried to think about who I was and who I am. Which one affected the other? I realized that who I become is a big part what I exposed my mind to. Every positive and negative thing in my life was a result of what I surrounded my life with. The Bible says that how a man thinks in his heart than that's who that man is(Proverbs 23:7 ). This can be confusing because it links our thoughts with our heart. I came to the conclusion that it really didn't matter which one affected the other but what is important is that they did affect each other. Being the Church requires us to always look to change both. I'm not only asking God to transform my mind but to purify my heart because I have a lot of junk in my mind and obviously in my heart. Then I need to make the effort to set boundaries, expose myself to positive things, surround myself with people who will keep me accountable and fight. This does not go away by itself. We need to do our part. There is no magical fix.

For me our hearts seem to represent our soul. The Bible give hundreds of references to our hearts. Some of them speak on guarding our hearts, having a pure heart, having an evil heart that separates us from God, having a hard heart and one of the most important things about our hearts; loving one another with a pure heart(1Peter 1:22). We will see the evidence of these things by our actions and not by our words. That's what being the Church is about. Let's not forget about the Holy Spirit that is the greatest counselor we could ever have. These things are our daily battles and definitely battles that I sometimes lose. But I am working on it so pray for me. I thank God that He is not like us but we definitely need to work at being like Him. He did create us in His image and we can't forget that. Since I am talking about the heart I want to end this by saying that David was a man after God's own heart (1Sam.14:13). That's why God chose him. That's what God is still looking for. Maybe we should all be trying to seek what's in His heart. Do we even know what that looks like? Sounds like something to study.