The Heart

The heart – It is an interesting subject. We all know we have an organ in our body called the heart. Its purpose is to pump blood. This blood as it courses through the body takes impurities out of the body and brings nutrients to the organs that need them. This process is vital in transporting life-giving oxygen throughout the body and carrying carbon dioxide back to the lungs to be expelled from the body. The heart is essential for physical life. If the physical heart fails, physical life ends.

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 But the heart that intrigues me is the spiritual heart. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it. Yet it is there. It can be healthy, or it can be sick. When the spiritual heart fails, it can mean eternal death. But when it is healthy and strong, it can mean eternal life.

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During the summer of 2011 I went through a period of extreme discouragement. Circumstances in my life were sucking away my joy. Unfulfilled expectations left me deeply disappointed. I had been hurt, and I found myself struggling to overcome the pain and move on. During this time my husband went on several long walks with me. He listened mostly as I talked (or perhaps I should say ranted). Sometimes he would gently voice a few observations he was making. I remember snapping back at him more then one time with the tears streaming down my face, “My head knows that, but my heart is telling me something else.”

During this time I found myself drawn to the Psalms. David's cries to the Lord appealed to my hurting heart. The Bible tells us in Acts 13:22 that David was a man after God's own heart. My desire is to have a heart like God's, so it soothed my spirit to know that David had struggles too.

I was hard on myself for the struggle I was having. I would tell myself that I should know better. I should be stronger. Many negative messages were being fed into my heart. I even told myself people didn't care and that it hurt too much to care about them. I felt no peace. My stomach was in a continual knot. Tears were an almost constant companion. Then I stumbled across I John 3:19-22.

“This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater then our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.”

My heart was convincing me that I should have the strength to do better. In effect it was condemning me, but God had set me free from that condemnation through Christ. I needed reminded of God's power. I began to feed new messages to my heart. “Life giving” messages of hope in God, strength through His power, and happiness in Him began the healing process in my wounded heart. I was able to ask God with confidence to free me from my struggle with the downward spiral I was caught in.

Satan used my own heart to trap me. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” My heart deceived me into thinking only of me and the pain I felt and not on the one who has all power to heal.

Jesus is the Great Physician. He is the only cure for an unhealthy spiritual heart. He is the answer for all those living on the brink of spiritual heart failure. It is important for us to understand what the Scripture teaches about the heart. Our spiritual lives depend on it.

I've been spending time reading through David's life, reading the Psalms, and using a concordance and looking up all the references to the heart.  I am learning so many things, and it excites me.  I hope you will join me over the next few weeks for some devotional thoughts that "get to the heart" of the matter.

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