The Heart Jesus Wants

I feel this deeply—and I think the Lord is inviting us into it:

God wants our hearts.

Not our performance. Not our polish. Our hearts.

And the truth is, most of us don’t know how to carry our heart. We’ve never been taught how to govern it, how to tend to it, how to actually live from a whole heart. We learned how to act right, how to fit in, how to push through—but not how to deal with what’s really going on inside.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Above Everything. Look after your heart. That’s profound.

Our emotions. Our relationships. Our choices. Our walk with Jesus. It all flows from what’s happening in the inside.

But here’s the challenge—most of us are walking around with hearts full of pain, full of fear, full of suspicion, full of brokenness, full of lies. Some of it got in through trauma. Some of it through disappointment. Some of it through choices we’ve made or things that were done to us or said to us.

Unfortunately this brokenness bred an unhealthy self protection. And instead of guarding our hearts with the Lord, we started guarding our hearts from Him. We shut down. We built walls. We made inner vows like, “I’ll never trust again,” or “I’ll never be vulnerable again.”

But here’s what happens—bitterness grows, fear grows, and it clouds our ability to see clearly and especially to see and hear God.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” That’s not about behavior. That’s about having a heart that’s been tended to. A heart that’s been purified of the things that distort our vision. A heart that’s been cleansed by His tender love and purifying fire.

That may sound impossible. But I’m telling you—Jesus can do that. He’s anointed to heal the brokenhearted. That’s not symbolic. That’s literal and real.

Some of us have been living from a divided or broken heart for so long, we don’t even know what the real us feels like or sounds like anymore. We’ve been acting out. We’ve been performing. We’ve been trying to survive. We’ve been reacting from wounds we maybe didn’t know we had or we never invited Jesus into.

I promise you there’s a better way.

A freer way.

A truer way.

The true you—the one God dreamed up before the sin, before the trauma, before the pain—is still in there. And Jesus is calling you back to yourself. He’s not asking you to get it together first. He’s just asking for your yes. To come out of hiding. To bring Him the authentic you with all your wounds and wreckage. He just wants what’s real.

So here’s the invitation:

Take a moment.

Ask the Holy Spirit:

What’s going on in my heart?

What am I carrying that You want to heal?

Where have I let the weeds grow up to block my vision of You?

And then bring it to Him. Just like it is. No filters. No defenses.

He’s not flinching. He’s not angry. He’s not tired of you.

He’s moved with compassion.

He sees the real you.

And He wants to make you whole.

It isn’t your lot in life to live anxious, guarded, wounded, and burnt out by always performing for love. You were made to live freely receiving, confident in love. Free in heart. Unshackled from shame. It all starts with one simple step:

Jesus, here’s my heart.