A Cardiometer for the Inner Man
Weekly Update Feb 13-17, Vol. 6
Last week I had a physical with my family doctor. He gives me the once over and measures my blood pressure, height, weight, etc. But as important as these indicators are to my overall physical health, there is another area that is even more important, my heart.
The Hebrew word for heart is “lev”. It is the real man. It is more than emotion or passion, it seems it is closer in meaning to the will of a man. We know from Jeremiah 17:9-10 that the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind.
It is very difficult to know our own heart. Yet it is with the heart that man believes. And David was a man after God’s own heart. We get glimpses* into our heart from looking at our expenditures, for where “our treasure is there will our heart be also”. Our tongue instructs us well, for “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks”.
But the best cardiometer is God’s word. “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12 NASB
Many times as I am reading the word, I sense that I have a hard heart, which is deadly to the Christian. Some symptoms of a hard heart are: the things of God seem unreal, my spirit is not responsive to the life giving words as I read them, or I am callous to the promptings of God.
When I sense I have hardness creeping into my heart I often pray with the Psalmist, Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! Psalms 139:23.
And I remember the wonderful promise in Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
May God bless us with soft hearts this week,
Steve