Stewardship
– Heart Trouble
I've Got the Greatest Cardiologist
Of all the adjectives, questionable or otherwise, that I have ever had
applied to me in my life, SWEET is NOT one of them.
Sometimes “less than bright,” or “pudgy,” or “hat-wearer,”
yes, but not sweet. I
don’t even particularly like hearts, unless they have writing on them and you
can eat them for Valentines. It
didn’t really bother me because I thought sweet people were sort of sticky and
had no sense of humor. However,
when I began to realize some of these gentle folk were anything but candy-coated
and that their sweetness went straight to the heart, I began surreptitiously to
seek them out, to see if that good-heartedness would rub off on me.
Well, it hasn’t worked, but at least I now have some great friends who
inspire me, who encourage me, and who have enough sweetness for a whole army of
grouchy, tubby cynics like me.
But WAIT! With apologies to my sweetie-pie sidekicks, does not Jeremiah, that Gloomy Gus of Scripture, tell us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? I don’t hear any sweet-talking here! And you don’t have to stick with the Doomsday crowd to read other accounts of the heart of man – why, the whole reason for the Flood, according to Moses in Genesis, was because men’s hearts were evil ALL THE TIME! But, oh, how precious is God’s patient faithfulness! If we but GIVE our hearts to Him, He cleanses and purifies them and puts only the best desires in them! How can we love Him with just a little tiny piece, reserving the rotten rest of them for our own polluted peccadilloes? Oh, my friends! Stewardship of the heart is NOT satisfied by allowing God into one-tenth of it, reserved for Bible studies and “good” deeds! One fragment is not acceptable for the matchless Savior, Who rightfully demands that we surrender all. Lord God, crush my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, tablets where the Holy Spirit may engrave the glorious gospel of Christ, His principles, His commands!
And when you think about it, the heart is the EPICENTER of all behavior—oh, how much more wonderful to be used as a consecrated hurricane for the cause of our Righteous Redeemer than one which wreaks havoc and destroys in selfishness and sin! And if our hearts are not right with Him, how can ANYTHING be? It’s no wonder we have trouble with all those other areas, like conversation and giving and faith and attitudes, if we haven’t had the Master’s cardiac transplant first of all. Maybe that’s why the Lord Jesus Himself said that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts FIRST, then all our souls and all our minds.
Oh, my dears! Do we not notice that when we are focusing totally on our gracious Lord that our thoughts are higher, our words purer, our awareness of His blessings even keener? It absolute thrills me to notice what I consider His thousands of small daily “treasures” – finding a parking place on the overcrowded Belhaven campus or having some insignificant thing go perfectly when it could have been so difficult, or reaching someone I desperately needed to talk to who was actually at HOME. Every single day is just jam-packed with God’s little presents! And that’s not even the tip of the ol’ iceberg! HUGE things like protection from evil, safety on all fronts, and His precious promises never to leave us are but a few of the breath-taking benefits He showers on us. Thank You, Jesus, that You don’t tithe! There’s no measly 10% in what You lavish upon Your children. You shower us with more than we can even comprehend. Even when the worst does come, it never comes to us that it has not passed through the nail-pierced hands of the Savior! I have that reminder from an unidentified Scottish (naturally) pastor stuck to my refrigerator door, and it is one of the most cherished assurances to which I cling every single day.
Let us grasp tenaciously Psalm 139 – “search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” In fact, you just can’t say it any better than David—“a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Hallelujah, all praise, glory and honor to our Rock of Ages and our Heartthrob!