What is the Heart of Your Character?

What is the Heart of Your Character?

 

Good Morning Friends,

 

The Hebrew culture believed that life was in the blood. The images of Jesus on the cross and the sacrifice of animals and circumcision of infants as a sign of a life in relationship with God clearly support this connection of life, blood and God. Add to this that the Hebrews used the word heart as a metaphor for the core of person’s personality and the message is brought home. They may well have known that the heart is a blood pumping organ that has little feeling, but instinctively they must have sensed that it helps us to deal with life’s pressures especially if we are seeking the heart of God and a life in Christ. What is the Heart of Your Character?

 

Scripture: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

 

Proverbs 4:23 (NRSV)

 

When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,

 

Jeremiah 29:13 (NRSV)

 

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

 

John 12:24 (NRSV)

 

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says: ‘You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.’

 

Matthew 13:13-15 (NRSV)

 

When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’

 

Acts 13:22 (NRSV)

 

Message: In yesterday’s parable about listening Jesus compared our lives and our hearts to seeds and soil so we might learn the right conditions necessary to cultivate a spiritual harvest. If we combine that thought with the example of the life of David we learn something important for he was a man under great pressure but did not always appear that way. Something was happening within. You see David was a man after the heart of God. This priority was critical. Now if you and I look at those things in our lives that disappoint and those things that prompt us to complain or worry and those things that are our deepest desires and dreams, we get to the heart of the matter at hand. Friends, all these things flow downstream into our hearts and either strengthen our spirits or contaminate our souls. This is the journey of our lives and it is here that God can conquer in and through us. Here God touches our hearts. Here is the heart of grace if we but seek God’s heart. Yes we must believe enough to act. We must risk as David did with Goliath. We must apply our hearts to understand that faith is based on what we know of God, more so than what we know of our selves. And that is why we need Jesus to be the guard of our hearts and minds. We need the desires of our hearts to turn to the love of God. This needs to be a priority otherwise the pressures of the world will destroy us from the inside out. Thankfully God looks at our core not our cover. God’s choice of us is conditioned by the response of the heart, not human reason but heavenly recognition. Look at David. The Bible describes him as the least, the smallest, insignificant and unimportant. He was given the lowliest of jobs of keeping the sheep…but a job that requires faithfulness, dependability, courage and commitment…all things on the inside…all characteristics of a good heart.

 

 

Pray our hearts are healthy under pressure. Pray
we have hearts of integrity.
Pray
we realize that our heart…our character… is the source of most of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Pray we not pollute our heart with damaging emotions and actions. Pray that our hearts be pure and our actions glorify God .Pray that we be still and experience what we have been searching for. Pray that Jesus would see our caring hearts. Pray
the heart of God’s love flow in and through us cleansing our character and exposing our best self.
Pray that the Lord’s purpose will prevail in us…that the plans of our hearts will submit to God’s peace.
Pray that we would have a thankful heart in all things and that this heart of gratitude would change our outlook on life in a way that honors God and the gifts He gives to us..
Pray that the song of our hearts be lived out in our lives as we meditate on the words of scripture. Pray that we would have a cheerful heart. Pray that our hearts put God first. Pray we are strong enough to love. Pray God transform our hearts.

 

Blessings,

 

John Lawson