How to Test the Contents of Your Heart
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the heart. The Bible says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). The same verse in The Message translation of the Bible says, “Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts.”
It is so important to carefully monitor and pray for our hearts. They are the starting point of everything! The thoughts I think, the expressions on my face, the choices I make, the conversations I have… The state of my heart is brutally (or beautifully?) exposed over and over again throughout each day. When my heart is filled with the peace, joy and love of Christ, then His peace, joy and love will spill out in my thoughts, words and actions. But on the flip side, when my heart is brimming with anger, bitterness and resentment, traces of that same anger, bitterness and resentment will taint my mind, my conversations, my decisions and my interactions with people. In Mark 2:8, Jesus identified what the teachers of the law were “thinking in their hearts.” He knew what they were THINKING … in their HEARTS. If that little phrase doesn’t convince you that what’s in your heart directly impacts your mind (and therefore impacts everything you do and say), then I don’t know what will!
When I pray for my heart, I pray for it to be just like Jesus’ heart. I want to love who/what He loves and hate what He hates (sin)! I want to see people and situations the same way He does, and I want my desires to be His desires.
In the Bible, when Jesus encountered people whose hearts were not right, He took action. The state and contents of our hearts are a serious matter. When reading the Gospel of Mark the other day, I was so convicted about the importance of making sure my heart is filled with Jesus. Throughout all four Gospels, we often see that toward the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, after He healed people, he told them not to tell anybody what He had done. We can speculate that one reason He wanted to keep His power and identity under wraps was because He knew it would stir up unrest and conflict amongst the religious leaders who were perhaps jealous of Him or felt threatened by how Jesus was challenging their comfortable status quo. Even so, in Mark 3, when the Pharisees were questioning Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath (when the law prohibited work/effort of any kind), He was so upset about what was in the Pharisees’ hearts that He took action—action that started a chain of events that ultimately led to His own crucifixion.
He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. -Mark 3:5-6
Jesus went from trying to keep His haters at bay one day, to straight up confronting them the next—all because their hearts were hard and misaligned. What’s in our hearts matters! It is of urgent and utmost importance. Take inventory of what’s in your heart today; it’s too serious to ignore and let slide any longer. Jesus was so troubled by the Pharisees’ hearts that He set into motion His own path toward the cross just to call attention to their stubborn hearts—maybe just for our benefit as we’re reading the Bible thousands of years later. What is He saying about your heart today? Not sure how to evaluate what’s hidden in your heart? Don’t know what steps to take? Start with praying this verse:
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. -Psalm 139:23-24