How is Your Heart Today?
Good Morning Friends,
Just as the body cannot function well without a healthy heart, neither can the Christian without a spiritual heart. We will be sluggish in our work, hard at hearing God’s word, and slow to recognize His presence…less loving than we could be. Prayer and Bible study and especially acts of faith and fellowship keep our spiritual hearts pumping strong towards an eternal love and purpose. There is a peace and joy about this reality that is real health. How is Your Heart Today?
Scripture: 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.
Acts 28:27 (NRSV)
For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
Romans 10:10 (NRSV)
A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22 (NRSV)
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:7 (NRSV)
I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.
Psalm 119:11 (NRSV)
I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
Ezekiel 11:19 (NRSV)
Message: Too many live at war while desiring peace. Too many have dull hearts… hardened hearts. But if we want to change our lives, our futures, our families, our relationships, it is surely our daily habits that must change. The activities that fill our daily lives become habits and traditions and spill over for good or bad. The wrong habits distract us away from our purpose in life, from that still small voice, from a spiritually uncluttered heart. Religious and political bureaucracies to which we become victims can certainly harden our hearts. We need to beware and we need to recognize the cure for bad behaviors and hearts of stone. In today’s scriptures we explore the generative nature of good habits on a healthy heart. A heart that scripture says is the center of our thoughts and ideas, a heart that perceives, understands, deliberates, reflects, plans and feels. A hardened heart loses its spiritual perception and recognition of what God is doing. It forgets past blessings. A hardened heart compromises, is complacent and condemning. It is a slippery slope. That is when we need to chisel away at that hardened heart, repent of the lifestyle that is killing us and give up the debilitating and life threatening aspects of habits that can kill us. Friends, we need spiritual hearts that are set on heaven so we can rise above the problems of the world and in our life. So know that it is in small daily gestures that the peace and love of a healthy heart is born on a global scale. It is a gift, but a gift we must work daily to put into full use. To avoid a spiritual and emotional heart attack in a complex multitasking world we need to remain focused on God while still working with the regularity and beat and rhythm of the days.
Pray we have a heart that believes. Pray we have the witness of a kind heart. Pray when our hearts are broken that we find comfort in God. Pray that in God’s continuing acts of creation that God creates in each of us a clean heart. Pray we put prayer and reading of the Word into our daily habits. Pray we find our spiritual hearts becoming a treasure of hope. Pray we have a joy in our hearts that spills over to those who are around us. Pray we have a cheerful and generous heart. Pray we have a heart that is motivated at work and is grounded in the knowledge that God is in control. Pray we have a heart at peace. Pray we are healed so we might continue to be used by God for the Glory of God. Pray God’s Holy Spirit be our pacemaker, prompting our spiritual hearts to beat to the rhythm of God’s will.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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