Rending your heart and not your garments?

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banjo71

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In Joel 2:12-13, God says


Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repententh Him of the evil.

My question is with the garment part - God says to "rend your heart, and not your garments." What is rending your garments symbolic of, and why are we not to do it? I'm not sure I know the answer to this.
 

WhiteKnuckle

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Seems to me that,,

Your outward appearance counts for nothing. It's what's inside you that counts.
 
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banjo71

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Seems to me that,,

Your outward appearance counts for nothing. It's what's inside you that counts.

What if I've got a sin that I keep stopping, starting, stopping, starting.... I am in bondage to some sin. I can come to Him in my bondage?

I am really having a problem with a particular sin. I try coming to God with all my heart, and I feel like I've got to clean up my act before He will listen. Other times, I think that God is more merciful than that, and He'll help me turn my life around. I was brought up very legalistically and am a perfectionist. I hate those qualities. I want to enter in as a child. I need help.
 

HammerStone

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Tearing your garments in those days was something major. I don't know that we have a modern equivalent, to be honest. Some cultures wail loudly when they're mourning or upset, and that would be the closest thing.

Basically it was done as a gesture of deep, deep emotions of grief. There are numerous instances where the prophets talked about it in the Old Testament. One example is at II Samuel 3:31 among others. I'm reminded when I read this passage of the high priest tearing his garment in front of Jesus at the accusation of blasphemy in Matthew 26:65. It was supposed to be a sign of "wow, that's really, really bad!" You could say that the verse in Joel anticipated this action in the unjust condemnation of Jesus. The outwardly pious high priest did the appropriate physical thing on the surface, but his heart was far from where it should be. It was certainly not torn open for God during this.

What the verse in Joel is speaking to is in the same path of the verses about circumcision of the heart. We are not to focus on the physical, but more importantly on the spiritual. Rending clothes would have been a symbol of the deep repenting emotion the Lord was looking for, but here He's saying it's about more than just the outside. We are to open our hearts completely. Paul later talks about a spiritual death as we are made to live in Christ. Obviously tearing the heart would invoke this kinda thought. It means putting it all out there for God.
 

Disciple

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to me it seems like the 'garments' here resembles our outward appearance, what is seen of others (were often to caught up trying to be christian like outwardly), and 'rending your heart seems to be our inside, our intentions, whats not seen, and whats true.
 

aspen

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Seems to me that,,

Your outward appearance counts for nothing. It's what's inside you that counts.

Absolutely. I think garments may also mean your ego or false self. God wants our true self.
 

Foreigner

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In the time of the Old Testamant, the tearing of clothes was done at the time of a calamitous personal event or to show true repentence for something.
It was an outward sign but it involved no real sacrifice. Simply a surface event.

The "rend your heart" that God is talking about is telling the person to actually feel on the inside what they normally just display on the outside.
He is telling the person they must be sincere in the turning away and repentence from sin.

"Turn to me with your whole heart."

How? With fasting, weeping, and rending of your heart.

In other words, make a real effort. He says, "Show me you are serious in turning away and seeking my face."
 

WhiteKnuckle

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That's kind of a point too.

You have a problem. You commit the same mistake over and over despite your best efforts. You were probably taught the same thing as me, "If you sin, God can't hear you!", so, you feel that if you keep making the same mistake over and over that God wont hear you.

He does, and will help you change. It's hard to get the view of "God the destructor" out of your head sometimes. But, imagine the patience you have with a new born baby. Do you get angry if you try to feed them and they spit their food all over their face? Or do you know, that one day, they'll learn, and you are going to be there to teach them?

You can come to the Lord with anything, and your heart being truely wanting to stop this habbit, the Lord will hear you. He says, "Knock and the door will be opened."
 

paul1234

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God dose hear your prayers you a child of God he is lisening to me he love for you infinty

I can only talk here about what happened to me when I kept on sinning stopped

What you have to remember is you cart stop sinning on your own only only jeus and God can do that for us you have to want to stop sinning that’s why god gave you free will to sin or not to sin

Do please this read the holy bible each day when read it just read a small bit close your eyes and really think about what you had just read

Reading the holy cleanses our heart mind and spirit daily it’s a daily cleanses

Repent to god of all your sins when you pray place your hand on your heart pray slowly look back at the sins you can commited and say to god I want to change so much please give me your strength I have none of my own with out your help lord I can do northing on my own pray for pure in heart

When your feel temptations pray in those moments and don’t give into it stand firm

Ask the holy spirit for the gift of self control over sin with your own affords sin will no long be master of you

Do not sin and fight it only when we stop sinning we are born again in time your will be a new creation

Hope this will help you my prayer we be with you

we are to live in the world but not to be of it becouse all around is sin put your guird up twenty four hours a day

i will pray for you please pray for me and please pray for all sinners around the world with out are prayers they will not make it