A Strong Heart
It is okay at times to have a spiritual heart health check. Just as when one goes to have their heart checked by a doctor, and they run tests to determine the strength of the heart by putting it under stress, likewise, life brings challenges that put one's spiritual heart under duress. Challenges test the strength of our spiritual heart and reveal its condition.
The psalmist said it this way during a moment of introspection.
Psalm 40:12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me; My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up; They are more than the hairs of my head; Therefore my heart fails me.
When a believer engages in introspection that involves self-evaluation with the idea that performing at less than 100 percent results in isolation and rejection, they are bound to experience spiritual heart failure.
The heart needs to be grounded in New Covenant revelation and understanding if it is to be strong and equipped to endure even the hardest trials of life. Spiritual heart conditioning involves giving it what it needs most to be strong. We will never get beyond our need for the true New Covenant Gospel.
Psalm 27:13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
When difficulties or challenges present themselves to us, our hearts will be tested. Good spiritual heart health is turning the negative into opportunity by seeing things through the eyes of faith that produces trust in Christ—eyes that see Him as He is and know His faithfulness, yes that see and perceive His great love for us.
You and I will never be able to trust Him beyond the point of our knowing we are loved by Him. A strong heart is one rooted and grounded in Him and His love. Even now, if this devotion reveals any hint of weakness in the heart, it is an invitation to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the love of Christ to your heart to strengthen it. It should lead us to speak the Gospel to our hearts again and again till it sends down deep roots that can find the water of the Spirit no matter how serious a drought we might think is occurring in the natural circumstances of our lives. Today, I leave you with a true gospel-rooted prayer in the Scriptures for you to meditate on for the strengthening of your heart.
Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
