Where's Your Heart?

The heart as an organ is essential. If injured or diseased life is threatened. Figuratively speaking if you steal one’s heart you have their love. If you break one’s heart you abuse them.

Jesus said that “where your treasure is there your heart will be also” (Luke 12.34). That is a nugget. Think about it. What you treasure possesses your being.

My heart screams, “Wait a minute Lord, what do you mean? I love you! Really! I do!”

In my mind I am in love with Jesus Christ. He is my Savior. He is my Lord. He is the reason for my existence. He protects me and cares for me. I have given Him my heart and asked Him into it too. Those are pretty words aren’t they?

But let’s look at my heart relationship from a different angle. If Jesus were my husband/ wife (for the sake of illustration) what would my love life be like? Really. It is a legitimate question. How often would I speak to Him? What would I talk about? How would I show Him my affection? How would I treat Him?

My mind works against me. [Side note, the heart and mind are the same thing. Both represent my total being. My mind can fool me. Jeremiah in his classic literary work stated something important about my heart/ mind when he said, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”] So, if I cannot trust my heart, how can I know that I truly love Jesus Christ? What will guide me to a consuming love?

When I first saw my future wife it was a tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me that I was in love. She was vibrant, gorgeous and I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was love at first sight. How did I know? I felt it!

Did my mind lead me astray here? No. She was a jewel even before she became a Jewell. However, my motivation for love was based on a feeling. I could see no defects in her. She was a stunning goddess! She stole my heart.

In 1 Kings 11 something happened to Solomon’s heart that is a warning to us. He loved many foreign women. God had warned about the consequences of loving foreigners in Exodus. Yet Solomon chose to embrace them instead of eluding them. These women did exactly what God said that they would. They “turned his heart away” from God.

We see Solomon doing things that we can’t believe. He allowed his wives and concubines to build altars and temples to their gods. Ashtoreth, Milcom, Molech and Chemosh were horrible beliefs. They required devotion to the point of human sacrifice. Babies were given over to Milcolm’s consuming embrace.

Stunning! How could the wisest man who ever lived come to this? And what can we learn from his devastating diversion? Just this; be careful to guard your heart. Solomon said it best in Proverbs 6.25 when he reminded his son, “Do not desire (a prostitute’s) beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes.”

How could eyelashes capture a man? Easily, right men? Solomon’s heart was stolen over a thousand times and God allowed him to lived to regret his exacerbated love life.

The application for us is to focus on Christ’s love. Allow Him to captivate and conqueror me. Let Him alone dominate my thoughts and intentions. My flesh and the world’s allures will fight me tooth-and-nail but in Him I can resist and rest. As I meditate on His love for me and imitate it will I be truly fulfilled and satisfied.

Daughter and dog...

About six months ago we discovered that Ann was pregnant and were very excited for she and Jackson. We will have babies on this side and that of the Atlantic. We weren't prepared for that news and we we were even less prepared for the news that our little dog is pregnant. To date we have spent more on the dog than on Annie (don't tell her... Ann that is). Ann has yet to discover whether her baby is a boy or girl. Both ultrasound images were inconclusive. Though I did some further investigation of my own and was startled with what I found. to me it looks as if the baby is definitely a boy and has some resemblance from both sides of the family. Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

Urgent Prayer (part 2)

Does God ever give you a gut punch? He did that just a few days ago when I watched a missionary story from the other side of the world. It was short but poignant, and it punched me in the belly button and brought a few tears too. One thing that shook me was the final statement that the missionary made. He was questioning himself and said, I wonder if what I have done will make a difference. This question comes to a missionary's mind now and again as they ponder how vast God's world is and how tiny one’s work is. As I thought, and identified, with his sentiment, the Lord brought a verse to mind that I had used recently in a youth talk. It was this one in John 12:24, “ Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. ” When, in Matthew, the sower sowed his seed, it was the Word of God. Here in John, Jesus indicates that the seed is the life of the servant. Jesus talked of his comi...

Church Isn't a Place

Many times we say, I'm going to church on Sunday. What some fail to understand is that "church" isn't a building. I remember our pastor saying, "the church is an organism, not an organization." He was teaching us the Bible truth about the church. Jesus Christ is the head of the body, and the church is his body on earth. Another pastor once said, "God's hands have human fingers." This is a difficult concept for some to grasp, pun intended. However, it is important to understand that God accomplishes his work through human beings. He uses us, the church, to do his will and work. It's not that if we don't do his will that he is stymied. But he does use willing servants. To be in the church, one must be a part of the family. You cannot be in the church if you don't have the Savior. The church is not for the lost; it is for the edification of the saved. The lost can come and hear the message of salvation. But the church is made up of t...

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