Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
I have a friend who had a heart attack and survived, but it had a major impact on his life. He was never really the same again. He became so concerned about his health that he left the church he was pastoring for a less stressful lifestyle.
Watching him go through this brought home to me just how vital our heart is. We can survive without many of our other organs and some of these organs are important, but not essential to survival. However, we cannot survive without a heart.
It also reminded me about the other heart, our spiritual heart. And that heart is just as important to our spiritual life as our physical heart is to the physical body. When there is trouble with our spiritual heart there will be trouble in our spiritual life.
As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person. Proverbs 27:19
Our spiritual heart is who we truly are, the essence of our being, our authentic self. It is that part of you that makes you, you. It is your inner being where your dreams, desires and passions live. It is that part of you that connects with God, the spiritual realm and other people. It is the part of you where Christ lives (Eph. 3:17).
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23
The heart above all is the most important and should be our first priority because it is “the wellspring of life.” Everything else flows out of it. Everything means our relationship with the Lord, with others, our callings, gifting, talents, vision, purpose, and destiny and on and on! That is why the heart is mentioned about 1000 times in the Bible.
Because everything we are and do flows from the heart we must take care of it. I have learned three things I must keep from influencing my heart everyday of my life.
1. Sin. Don’t let your heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13). Don’t be sin conscious, but do guard against sin because it is always lurking at our doors and its desire is for our hearts (Gen. 4:6-7).
2. Religion. The enemy’s oldest tactic is to deceive us into replacing spirituality with religion (2 Cor. 11:3-4). This is real serious, Paul called it witchcraft (Gal. 3:1-4). If the Apostle Peter stumbled over legalism (Gal. 2:11-21) then we could. Be attentive to keeping your hearts rooted and grounded in love (Eph. 3:17-19) and established in grace (Heb. 13:9).
3. Overdoing it. Living and being stewards in the kingdom is a matter of the heart and there is danger in overworking the heart. We can do this in our thinking, work, ministry, dreams, etc. The disciples did and it shut their hearts down; “their heart was hardened.” (Mark 6:52). The word hardened refers to a hardness that comes from work, like a callous on our hands. Mark 6 reveals that Jesus told them to take a rest (Mark 6:7-12, 30-32). They didn’t and it caught up with them.
I have learned to daily draw an imaginary line in my heart and put all the thoughts, events and issues of the day behind me, while shifting my heart attitude and thoughts towards the other things God has placed in my life.
Many Blessings, BW