We are told diligently guard our hearts in order to preserve the flow of the springs of life. This daily devotional looks at what issues of life mean and how they tie into belief and practice.
Nuggets
- The issues of life are determined by the status of our character in our hearts.
- Belief is influenced by the heart based on the changes God performs on it.
Devotions in the Belief and Practice series
I came across this sermon when we were doing the Focusing on God’s Word devotion. I thought it was really interesting, but it wasn’t exactly fitting into reading and studying God’s Word.
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So, I stuck it in the drafts folder. I wanted to see how Waterland fleshed out belief and practice with respect to our hearts.
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Let’s take a look.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
The Issues of Life
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4: 23 ESV)
The issues of life are determined by the status of our character in our hearts.
When I was reading the sermons for the From a Wrong Heart to a Right Heart series, they talked about issues of life.
Marling took a crack at explaining what the issues of life are. It is a little different than what we would normally think is being discussed.
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Today, this would be seen as I am having issues with my car, or with my kid, or at work. We are thinking synonym for problem. That isn’t the definition that is being used here.
It think what it is talking about is more elements that make up our status. The issues are our words, actions, thoughts, and feelings. It is what is coming from our hearts.
Why is what comes from our hearts so important when we look at it this way? Marling took a stab at explaining. He wrote,
“For though aptitudes, temperaments, and moods have much to do with the tone and quality of our life, states have more. A dark moral state stretches a permanent veil of cloud over the heart, that thins and chills all the light, while a mood or a sorrow may sail only like the swift blackness of a shower through our air. And we can do a great deal to control the moral states of the heart; we are responsible for them. Moral evils, such as envy, avarice, selfishness, license, only vivify with various colouring the one fundamental evil, sin — distance from sympathy with God, alienation from the heavenly Father, indifference or disloyalty to His will and love. This is our central foe. This is what corrupts the issues of life.”
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I know. It is a little convoluted, but I think Marling made some good points.
We don’t want the state of our heart to be a bad character. King argued that such a state has an component of permanency to it.
I liked where King said we have control over our moral state. We choose what type of a person we are going to be. Our parents don’t. Circumstances don’t.
We do. We choose our reactions.
We choose to choose to be like God.
What all of this is saying to me is our character is formed in our hearts by our choices. It comes out through our words, actions, thoughts, and feelings to show God and others the status of our hearts.
The Issue of Confession
“Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10: 9-10 ESV)
Belief is influenced by the heart based on the changes God performs on it.
I know. We generally focus on the confession part of these two verses.
What we are confessing is what we believe. We have to believe it in our hearts.
We just talked about this verse in several past devotions.
- Our worship comes from our lips, not our actions, so it is a confession.
- We have to do more than just say in our minds that we are accepting God’s Plan of Salvation. We have to make an outward confession that we believe. Still, there is more than that.
- Just believing isn’t enough. We have to confess — we have to talk about it.
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To me, that means we need both the inward and outward. We have to genuinely believe Jesus is our Savior — and tell others.
Spurgeon reminded us that God tells us point blank what He wants. There is only one way to salvation. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14: 6 ESV).
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Go back up to our list of what we have said recently. We have to do more than confess, and we have to do more than just believe.
We can’t do one without the other. Morrison said the same thing. He wrote, “There is no Christian faith without Christian confession, and vice versa.” Melville said we can’t done without the other.
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Making the Connections
We learn from this that believing in our hearts alone isn’t enough. If we do that, we could be the one Jesus talks to at judgment day. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 7: 21 ESV).
What belief has to do is show the status of our hearts. We have to show that we truly believe God.
How Do We Apply This?
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Make it genuine.
Stay tuned for the completion of this series in the next devotion.
Father God. We praise You as Sovereign God. We believe that You are Creator and Sustainer of all life. We admit that mankind was separated from God after the original sin, making us sinners; believe Jesus paid the penalty for those sins to become our Savior and Redeemer; confess You as Sovereign God; and demonstrate that commitment by submitting to living our lives following Your laws and commandments. Amen.
What do you think?
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