Heart Check

A few weeks ago one of my good friends had a WhatsApp status up titled ‘Heart Check’.  She shared her reason for the status, which resonated with me so much I spent the rest of my weekend questioning the state of my heart.  I checked my motives for doing and saying certain things and soon realised that I was way over due a thorough examination and Heart Check.

Cognisant of the state of my heart, I knew there were many infectious thoughts and motives that I had allowed to contaminate it.

I realised, I needed to work on my breathing, too many shallow breaths, caused by anger, quick frustration and a lack of patience.  I was definitely starved of essential nutrients given by The Word, and full of  sin, lusts of the world and desires of the flesh.

Rewind a few weeks. I was having a conversation with another friend and we were talking about being fruitful. She shared a conversation she had with a mutual friend of ours about the fig tree that was cursed by Jesus because it wasn’t producing fruit (Matthew 21:18–22). She explained this friend’s belief of why this incident involved a tree,  was because trees have roots. Therefore, it wasn’t just about the lack of fruits on the tree but the fact that there was something wrong with the roots; it was the very core of the tree that made it barren.  

As I mulled over this, I agreed, the tree didn’t produce fruit because there was something wrong with its source, the roots.  

Roots:

 – Feed the tree as most of the nutrients for it to grow is obtained and stored here

– Anchors the tree; providing stability through times of harsh weather

So if something is wrong with the roots; the foundation of the tree it doesn’t take a scientist to determine there will be something wrong with whatever the tree produces or doesn’t…

The same could easily be applied to our hearts; our core and central control system.  Issues with our heart means issues with the rest of us.

 

From the get go, God introduced the law of producing your own kind.  In Genesis, He states:

“…Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.  And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” 

(Genesis 1:11-12)

God further reinforces this law by stating:

“…Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

 (Genesis 1:24-25)

Now, the fig tree obviously wasn’t producing its own kind else Jesus would have found and eaten the figs He was looking for.

 

When we are not producing what is expected of us by God we need to go back to our roots and perform a vital  heart check.

• What is clogging up the systems designed to feed us, bring us nutrients?
• Why is the Word not coming up and giving us strength, sustenance?
• What has blocked The Word from working in our lives?
• Why are we not stable during the harsh conditions of life?
• Why do we toss to and fro with circumstances?

Heart Check

• We don’t want to be cursed, wither and die (a spiritual death) because our roots are so saturated in sin we no longer have any evidence of God in our lives.

Heart Check

• Do you have the heart of God?  Are you moved by what moves Him? Are you disgusted by what disgusts Him? Do you have a heart of love, compassion, forgiveness?

Just as we get our physical health checked out regularly, we need to take time out to have regular and thorough heart checks. When I did this I found the state of my heart to be quite shocking.  I’d like to think I’m a nice person, but this exercise (which I am still doing today) revealed that indeed ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt’ (Jeremiah 17:9). Honestly, I thank God for His grace, that despite His finds after searching my heart  (Psalm 139:1), He is still at hand to help.

We are kindly reminded that ‘…we have been born again not of corruptible seed, but of the incorruptible seed, which is the Word of God’ (1 Peter 1:23), which is good because it means there is hope!

Regular heart checks exposes things that can lead to heart failure, bareness and death!  It gives us the chance to take it to Jesus, the Great Physician to help us.

To keep our hearts working in good order and to be fruitful we need to:

Remain in Him, as He also remains in us. Because no branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine,(Christ) neither can we bear fruit unless you remain in Him (The Vine).

(Taken from John 15:4)

In truth and with love

Faith xox