Tuning your heart to God's

Posted by Mike Smith at 9/2/2007 1:03 AM
Categories: Romans, Attitudes, Proverbs, Philippians, renewing minds

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.  [NIV]

 

        Proverbs tells us to guard our heart because it is the "wellspring" of life, other translations say the "source" of life. I like to think of our heart as the orientation of our life. Is our life oriented toward God or oriented toward the world. That depends on whether our heart is aligned with God or with the world. How do you know? And if your heart is aligned with the world, how do you realign it?

        Knowing is easier than changing. If we're honest with ourselves, we know our own focus. We know whether we are focused on the Lord or on the world. Do we spend our time and energy on things of eternal importance or on things of temporary significance? When it comes time to change, we start with prayer. We are always fairly powerless to change ourselves on our own. Real change comes from the Lord. But it usually requires some effort from us as well.

        Again, Proverbs tells us to guard our heart. The NASB says to "watch over" our hearts. The verb that works more clearly for me is to tune our hearts. We tune our heart to God's heart by focusing our mind on him, his plans, his work, his attributes. We tune our heart to the world by focusing our mind on the things of the world.

        For instance, if I see an attractive woman on the street, and I let my eyes and mind stray where they shouldn't, I'm tuning my heart to the world. I'm not viewing this woman the way God does. He sees her as a beloved person who probably desperately needs Him. I am viewing her simply as a body I would like to use. It's not just sin, it's tuning my heart away from God and toward the world.

        If I am driving through town, and some slow person is in my way, how do I think of this person? Do I view them with the value and love that God views them, or do I see them only as an obstacle in my way.  If I continually think of people as objects, either desirable or as obstacles, I am tuning my heart to the world's attitude and away from the Lord's. Similarly, if I focus the majority of my attention on amassing money, I am tuning my heart toward the wealth of this world, cementing the wrong priority in my heart.

 

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  [NIV]

 

        Guarding our hearts means rejecting the world's attitudes, its fantasies, hopes and hatreds, so that our hearts are not conformed to the pattern of this world. But that's just a negative, and it's not enough just to reject the world's pattern. We have to tune our hearts to God's.

       

Philippians 4:8  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. [NIV]

 

        We are called to be as Christlike as possible. This means having our hearts aligned with God's. We need to see people the way he sees them. Only then we will have the fervor for ministry and evangelism that he wants us to have. Only then will we be as sensitive as we need to be to his leading and to see the needs he wants us to meet.

        We tune our hearts to God's by thinking his way. By seeing the unique value in people, by focusing on God and his charge to us. Instead of being consumed by all the petty concerns of our lives, the low dreams and goals we have set for ourselves and the worthless daydreams we conjure, we are to focus on what Paul points us to in Philippians — truly praiseworthy things. We should focus on the love of God, the plans of God. When we see that attractive woman on the street, rather than undressing her with our eyes, we can say a quick prayer for her salvation and go on to what the Lord wants us to be thinking about. Does that sound hard? No one ever promised that genuine spiritual growth would be easy!

 

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