"As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” –Proverbs 27:19
The heart is the innermost being of our soul. Emotions and will flow from the heart. And our souls feed off of what we fill our hearts with. That’s where we drive our passion for meaning and significance. And Scripture encourages us to set our hearts on God’s ways and His calling to lose our lives for Jesus’ sake and the gospel.
A few examples of making our Lord and His ways the driver of our hearts can be found in Psalm 119. In this passage, we’re told to:
- Seek Him with all of our hearts (Psalm 119:2).
- Live according to His word (Psalm 119:9).
- Not stray from His commands (Psalm 119:10).
- Hide His word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11).
- Consume our souls with the longing for His laws at all times (Psalm 119:20).
In this Psalm, you see God’s intense desire for us to fill our hearts with His presence.
As believers, Jesus sits in the control room of our hearts, and He longs to impart His ways, thoughts, and agendas to us. He wants to use us to point our friends and family to God’s redeeming love that was displayed on the cross of Christ.
The more we see and understand Jesus and His abounding love, the more we will yield our hearts to be used by Him.
In today’s world, religion is portrayed more and more as being very dangerous. Culture’s message is clear—people aren’t interested in our Jesus stuff.
If we aren’t filling our hearts with the Lover of our souls, we will believe that lie and stay silent as the Church. But if we fight to be faithful in trusting our Father’s perfect love for us, we will not be a dying Church but an awakened Church that proclaims the good news of Jesus to our networks.
May we pray together with the psalmist, "Turn my heart toward your statutes, and not toward selfish gain (Psalm 119:36)." May we deeply believe that Jesus is the hope of the world and go public in word and deed with His redeeming love.
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John Maisel
John's travels for ministry behind the Iron Curtain led him to found East-West Ministries International in 1993. John and his wife, Susie, live in Dallas, Texas and have a grown daughter and two grandchildren.