Rend Your Heart

Joel 2:13

So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.

Rending of a garment was an outer sign of religious emotions easily manifested and was frequently hypocritical. It is usually done by tearing the garment violently. The Lord is calling for us not to rend our garments but to rend our hearts.

Rending our hearts is to do some deep soul searching. This is something most of us find hard to do. It requires us to go beyond the carnal mind and flesh. We have to get real with ourselves. We will have to look at ourselves for who we really are. The revelation would be humbling because most of us live our lives in the puff up state of fleshly desires.

So we don’t go there. We would rather rend our garments to appear outer pious so we can feel good about ourselves rather than look at the blacken state of our sin sick soul. Most of us can’t handle it because it would cause us to humble ourselves, cry out because of the state of our souls, and realize doing it our way is leading us to a doom’s day of destruction. So we numb our consciousness with phrases such as I am blessed of God, I am favored of God, I am the apple of his eye and most of us are like this man:

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying:”The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. “And he thought within himself, saying, “What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops? “So he said I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.

“And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” “But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:16-21

Where your treasures are there your heart is also. Life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Luke 12:23 These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. Matt 15:8 Rend your hearts and not your garments. Turn back to the living God. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and great in kindness. He will relent of the just punishment we deserve and will receive us unto him.