There’s
an old song called How About Your Heart? It asks how we would feel if there was a
window on our hearts allowing people to see what was really in there. Then it asks this crucial question. “How
about your heart, is it right with God?
That’s the thing that counts today.”
Others
see what we do, hear the words we say, watch our responses to people and
circumstances; and from this they form an opinion of who we are, all according
to the outside. We would probably be
surprised to hear what others would say if they were asked to describe us, because
the basis of their opinion would not include the intent of our heart.
Our heart is our innermost being. It’s who we really are. It’s where we think,
we reason, we dream, we plan, we make decisions and we feel sad or happy. No one else can experience what is in our
hearts. Proverbs 14:10 says: “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no
stranger shares its joy.” (Amplified Bible)
Yet 1 John 3:20 tells us God “is above and greater than our consciences
(our hearts), and He knows (perceives and understands) everything [nothing is
hidden from Him].” God knows who we
really are, whether our heart is spiritually healthy or diseased. He sees it, understands it and wants to bring
health to any diseased areas.
There
have been times when I
was tired…all the way through to my soul.
I have sat through church services like a wilted flower on the inside. My ears were dull of hearing and my heart felt
empty. There was nothing weighing on my
mind, no life-altering decision to be made or problem to be worked through. I simply felt surrounded by a thick cloud
that had desensitized every part of me. I
think we have all been there before – probably more than once. When that happens, it could be an attack from
the enemy, or it could be because we are spiritually dehydrated. And that is a dangerous place to be.
We
can be doing all kinds of things for the Lord and studying His Word, but still
have all the symptoms of dehydration – tired, weak, confused, and our hearts unsettled
and agitated. Our souls can feel like a
desert, even though spiritual things are going on all around us.
Early one
morning I dreamed about a little bird in a cage. When I saw him, I realized I had not fed him
in a long time, and a severe pain went through my heart. I had been so busy I had forgotten the bird
was even there. My heart broke to see
the faded yellow feathers that had been so bright before. As I put my hand into the cage, its weak
little body leaned against my hand. I
can still almost feel it there. I gave
it bread and water, and then woke up. I
was still grieving when I awoke.
Sometimes
we treat our hearts like that little bird, and where they used to be vibrant
and alive, they become empty and dull. Our
work for God can become sterile business transactions rather than acts of love,
when we are not feeding our spirits. Our
minds are full of Scripture and our wills are still set on following God, but
something is missing. The problem is our
heart is hungry and thirsty for lack of a relationship with Jesus. Don’t put off spending time lingering in His
presence. Just think how it grieves the
heart of God when we ignore Him when He has invited us to come boldly into His
presence.
In
John 4 we are told that Jesus stopped to rest by a well in Samaria one day. He encountered a woman there who needed much
more than the water she came to draw from the well. His words to her are relevant to us
today.
“Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water
shall thirst again: But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water
that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.” (John 4:13-14)
The water springing up is available, but
if we don’t drink it, we will dehydrate spiritually.
Another
time Jesus cried out to the whole crowd during the feast of the Passover. “In the last day, that great
day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him
come unto me, and drink. He that
believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water. (But this spake he of
the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost
was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (John 7:37-39)
As
you reread that passage, hear Jesus’ voice just like it was the first time you
have heard Him make that invitation, then respond to His call to ‘come unto Me,
and drink’.
Our
hearts can be full of living water if we will come and drink! We can have in our innermost being an endless
supply of living water. But we have to
surrender our heart before that water will flow there. We are meant to have the Spirit of God in us
without measure, but we can’t have Him and everything else in there, too. We have so many things vying for our
attention. We need to be careful not to
choose the urgent over what is really important.
In The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer explains
how God prepared the earth for Adam and Eve before He ever placed them in it. His
creation was for them to enjoy, but the throne of their heart was to be for God
alone. All the outward “things” were
meant to be exactly that, outward. Tozer
wrote, “Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered
upon him.” But we all know it didn’t
stay that way, and that’s where we have a problem. We allow “things” in our hearts and leave God
on the outside.
We are the only
ones who can make the decision of who gets first place in our hearts. We have to uproot the usurpers if we are going
to keep our heart for God alone. When we
get so busy with ‘things’, we block our hearts from the flow of God’s Spirit because
we have blocked off our Source. That’s why it’s so important to guard our
hearts.
Proverbs 4:23
says, “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you
guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.”
That is the well springing up and the rivers of living water Jesus
talked about. We have to be careful what
we allow to enter our hearts – thoughts, dreams, decisions, priorities, plans,
affections. We have to be careful what
we “set our hearts” on. We are told to
set our affections, our hearts, on the things that are above. Hold the things of this life loosely and cling
to God with all we have. We are in this
world, but we are to be of the Kingdom of God.
There’s not room for Jesus and “things” in our hearts.
David, the
shepherd/king wrote often how he longed for the presence of God in his life,
and he would seek after Him with his whole heart. David made a lot of mistakes, but he was a
man after God’s own heart, always returning to His God. Nothing was important enough to keep Him
away.
The
Apostle Paul said he gave up all the positions and accolades of the world “for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…that I may win Christ.” (See Philippians 3:7-11.) He recognized that all those “things” were
supposed to stay on the outside, not allowed to sit on the throne of our heart on
the inside.
Few people these
days seek God with such passion and self abandon as these great men of
God. And so we have very few great men
and women of God.
When is the last
time we have sought after God with all our heart because we longed for His
presence? Not for something we desired
from Him, but because we desired Him. We
can know the eternal God through personal experience, not just what we read
about Him or hear about Him. But we
cannot know Him like that if our hearts are divided into two areas. We cannot live our secular lives as we always
have and move into our sacred mode when we are at church or Bible study or
prayer meeting. We cannot be completely
surrendered to Christ Jesus and surrendered to this world at the same
time. It’s impossible. We need to be constantly aware of Him beside
us, open to hear His voice when He speaks, and quick to obey.
How
can we hear His voice? We hear His voice
when we allow the Holy Spirit to cause the written Word of God to come alive in
us. Then it is no longer words on a page
that we try to live up to, but the voice of God speaking directly to us,
enlightening us to see what we could never see on our own. I’m not talking about an audible voice, but I
am talking about a living voice! And
sometimes, His Spirit will speak to our spirit, and we know it is the voice of
God.
When we walk
side by side with someone, we generally share conversation as we walk. We stay in step with them, and even in
silence we are aware of them beside us.
We learn more and more about one another as we spend time together. The more we learn, the safer we feel to share
the deeper things. It’s that simple to
walk with God. God wants who we really
are, not the person on the outside, but the real person on the inside. We have made knowing God and walking with Him
so hard that we can never quite grasp it, but it’s not hard. We don’t have to beg God to fellowship with
us. He is waiting for us to come and
drink.
The
bottom line is that God wants us to know Him.
He wants our hearts to be one with His, completely undivided. He wants us to love Him as simply and
passionately as He loves us.
How
about your heart?
Is
it right with God?
Whatever
it costs, put Jesus on the throne.
