Sunday, March 25, 2012

Sunday Meditation


The Heart of the Matter
   
Author Bob DeMoss writes, "Your heart is the core of your being. It's the essence of who you are. It's where your mind and will, our emotions and convictions come together to shape what you believe and the choices you make." He's saying that our behavior is determined by what is in our heart. Scripture backs up this idea: "As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man." (Proverbs 27:19)

Behavior dictated by the heart sounds fine - except that our hearts have a fatal flaw: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

What if we weren't gospel women? Apart from the Gospel, the best we could do to master what is in our hearts would be to refine our civilities and manners. But patting ourselves on the back because we're "not that bad" is false comfort because the most cultivated sensibilities can never get to the core of the problem in our deceitful, incurable hearts. Only the Gospel can get to the heart of the matter.

The heart! It's the place where we are born again. "That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)

Once we've confessed and believed in our hearts, the Word of God helps us address our deep need for an ongoing conversion of heart: "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Romans 4:12)

When the Word of God begins its gracious surgery on our hearts, it is painful. It demands submitting to God's will in areas that we either deny exist or that we'd prefer to think are none of His business.

                                  —  Barbara Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Woman 

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