TRUE HEART

TRUE HEART

Heb. 10:22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

I remember being stopped in my tracks reading something by Henry Scougal from the 1600’s several years ago. Scougal was a young Puritan pastor from Scotland who is known for his book “The Life of God in the Soul of Man”. Scougal said you can judge a man’s worth by the things that he loves. Wow! That statement was huge in my life. I was finally beginning to connect the dots. I was beginning to see the role our heart plays in our Christian walk. Even our everyday, ordinary life is spiritual and our actions flow from our heart. Solomon spoke about how our heart was connected to our lives in this powerful scripture verse.

Prov. 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.

Out of our hearts flow the very issues of our lives. If you think about it, our actions are directly connected to the things we love. Whether in choosing the person we spend our life with, where we are going to live, what kind of career we will pursue and of course those football games (I wonder how many people have season tickets to the Saints games that can’t pay their bills).
Andrew Murray brought out the role our heart plays in his comments on today’s verse.

“In man’s nature the heart is the central power. As the heart is so is the man. The desire and the choice, the love and the hatred of the heart prove what a man is already, and decide what he is to become. Just as we judge of a man’s physical character, his size and strength and age and habits, by his outward appearance, so the heart gives the real inward man his character; and “the hidden man of the heart” is what God looks to. God has in Christ given us access to the secret place of His dwelling, to the inner sanctuary of His presence and of His heart; no wonder that the first thing He asks, as He calls us unto Him, is the heart — a true heart; our inmost being must in truth be yielded to Him, true to Him.”

We have access to the most valuable of all resources. We have been given an open door into the very presence of our God through the blood of His Son. For those who have tasted His matchless love, our hearts race at the thought of access into the Holiest of All. We would go anywhere, pay any price, our even make the ultimate sacrifice just to be with Him. Those who have never tasted this grace have no knowledge of this love. All this talk of sacrifice and commitment sounds like the words of a fool to them. But to us who are being saved, He is the treasure in the field and no cost is too high to experience His love.