To keep the status of our hearts in the right spot, we need to focus on God’s Word. This daily devotional looks at how following His Word heals us.
Nuggets
- We have to follow God by focusing on His Word when He calls us to salvation.
- God’s Word combats the disease of sin, so ABCDing heals us from that disease and gives us life.
We’ve looked several times at Charnock’s sermon entitled The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts. But we still haven’t gotten through all of his points.
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To read a related devotion, click the appropriate button below.
Let’s start this back up and see where it takes us.
“A fourth sort of directions is concerning good motions; whether they spring naturally from a gracious principle, or are peculiarly breathed in by the Spirit. There are ordinary bubblings of grace in a renewed mind, as there are of sins in an unregenerate heart; for grace is as active a principle as any, because it is a participation of the Divine nature. But there are other thoughts darted in beyond the ordinary strain of thinking, which, like the beams of the sun, evidence both themselves and their original. And as concerning these motions joined together, take these directions in short” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
Pay Attention to His Words
“My son, pay attention to my words; listen closely to my sayings. Don’t lose sight of them; keep them within your heart” (Prov. 4: 20-21 CSB)
“Refer them, if possible, to assist your morning meditation; that, like little brooks arising from several springs, they may meet in one channel, and compose a more useful stream” (Charnock, The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts)
We have to follow God by focusing on His Word when He calls us to salvation.
Scriptures provide us with God’s Word. We can imagine that they are God talking directly to us.
Because He is. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (II Tim. 3: 16 ESV).
Yes, it may have been Paul, Moses, and all the others who hefted the pens. They only wrote what God directed them to write.
That is one reason we need to pay attention to them. Sovereign God has decreed them.
We also need to pay attention to them because, one day, we will be judged by those words. God has told us point blank how we will be judged.
Being judged by the do’s and don’ts is secondary. The only question that has bearing on how we spend eternity will be have we ABCDed or not.
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
Solomon said that we need to pay attention. That means, first, they have to get our attention.
Lawson noted that “the motives that call for our attention are exceedingly powerful.” Why wouldn’t they be powerful? The Heavenly Father is speaking to us.
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What God is calling us to is salvation. He is calling us to change our characters to be like Him.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
God’s Words Bring Life
“For they are life to those who find them, and health to one’s whole body. Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life” (Prov. 4: 22-23 CSB).
God’s Word combats the disease of sin, so ABCDing heals us from that disease and gives us life.
God can and will heal us from our sins. But that is only the start.
Once we are converted, we begin to navigate the Sanctification Road. That is how we change our character to imitate God’s.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Glossary
One thing we have to do while we are being sanctified is to guard our hearts. That is going to take patience and diligence.
Why do we need to guard our hearts? King 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.”
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Aptitudes, temperaments, and moods are changeable. We need to guard what status they are sliding toward.
Some may say we do that through our intellect. The Christian Age argued that the heart controls the intellect, not the other way away. Their evidence of this is that we are controlled by feelings, not thoughts.
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The Essex Congregational Remebrancer expanded on that. They said that our actions and behaviors come from the heart. Those start as thoughts, connecting the intellect with the heart.
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Actions and behaviors come from the heart because that is where our character is. It is who we really are.
Sometimes, we act based on our understanding. Sometimes, we don’t.
Then again, sometimes, we act based on our character. Sometimes, we don’t.
That is because the heart is wicked (Jer. 17: 9). Also, our feelings hijack our reasoning and make us act without following our heart.
We keep the heart by watching so that is does not turn from God. It does not mean we are making less of ourselves.
It means we are actively working to submit to God’s Will as stated in His Word.
Making the Connections
I love what Davidson said. He told us that we have to keep the reservoirs of our hearts full.
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It reminds me that marriage was likened to a box. We have to keep making deposits to the box to keep it full.
If we just make withdrawals from the box, soon it will be empty.
How Do We Apply This?
• Use our thinking to meditate on God’s word and apply it to our own lives so we can choose Him in all we do.
• Follow all God’s laws and commandments completely in order to work out our salvation.
• Corral our thoughts to keep them focused on God.
Resources
Father God. We thank You that you have given us Your Word as a guide to our lives. It not only shows us how we are to live, but it also points our way to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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