Linda Buishas
It doesn’t surprise me when I look back at earlier articles, that I’ve mentioned the heart in numerous ways, numerous times; broken hearts, joyful hearts, thankful hearts, hardened hearts and even heart messages. I really enjoy sharing about the heart! It’s no small wonder, since our spiritual heart is a major topic in the Bible. Our heart is the essence of who we are and when our hearts are right with God, the way we live our lives will flow from it.
God looks at our heart (1 Sam.16:7). If we’re doing all the right things, but we’re not motivated by God’s kind of love, it’ll profit us nothing. (1 Cor. 13:3) When we accept our salvation through Jesus, we become new creatures. The old man passes away, and the spirit is made brand new (2 Cor. 5:17). We can think of our spiritual heart as consisting of our new Born-Again spirit and our soul (which is our mind, will and emotions). God wants our heart to be aligned with Him. That’s the way we can have a closer relationship with Him, experience His presence more fully and have the abundant life Jesus came to give. (John 10:10).
When Paul spoke about someone being like a gentile in Ephesians 4:17-18, it was an admonishment to not be like a lost person who just lives out of their brain and not their heart. Once we allow our heart to be changed, our actions will follow. A good heart can lead us instead of our carnal mind and external circumstances (2 Cor. 5:7). It helps us to grow closer to our Father in Heaven and be more tuned in to His Spirit inside of us.
The issues of life flow out of our heart (Prov. 4:23). It’s important to make a heart-check; are our hearts softened to God’s love, His Word and His promises or to the World and what it says? Our hearts become sensitive to whatever we focus upon, and the heart becomes hardened to whatever we neglect. Upon what do we place the most importance or spend most of our time? If we’re neglecting the things of God and listening to the doubt, unbelief, fear, anger, criticism, and negativity of the world, our heart becomes insensitive to God. We’ll even hear it in our words, Matthew 12:34 “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
If Romans 1: 20-28 describes how people turned away from God, “They glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened”, may we do the opposite of those who walked away from Him. Let’s glorify the Lord, be thankful for what He has done, use our imaginations to see victory instead of defeat, and have a transformed heart, aligning it with things of the spirit and not of the world and with God’s own heart and we’ll grow in the wonderful fullness of His presence.