The Rest of The Lord

HEART MATTERS

 

I thank God for the daily devotional called Our Daily Bread (ODB) that is published by RBC Ministries. Today May 06, 2014, the writer was Poh Fang Chia who is a fairly new name to me. The topic for today was "Heart Matters" and the scripture it was based on was (Prov 4:20-27) and it was loaded with information about the physical organ we call our heart. Things I had never heard before, such as "Our hearts pump at the rate of 70-75 beats per minute. Though weighing only 17 ounces on average, a healthy heart pumps 2000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels each day". Those are amazing statistics, information that we often take for granted; truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made. See (Psalm 139:13-15) in the NLT version for details. However when the "heart" is mentioned in scripture it is usually not referring to our "blood pump", but to a "spiritual heart", which is considered to be "the center of our emotions, thinking, and reasoning". It could be thought of as the "command center" of our life. I'm sure that is what the writer of this chapter of Proverbs had in mind.

 

Just read (Prov 4:14-27) again carefully, and see how the word "heart" is used, and you can see clearly that he is not referring to it as a pump for our blood.  In the NLT version that I use, in verse 23 it reads "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life". That verse alone tells us that we need to be thankful to God for His Word that can help us to keep our hearts in alignment with His every day. We can gain rest and security from scriptures like (Psalm 91:1-8) for example, along with many more Psalms. Then in (Matt 22:37) we read one of the places where Jesus describes the greatest commandments. "Jesus replied you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments". NLT Our brother Poh Fang Chia included a poem,

 

"Dear Jesus, take my heart and hand, and grant me this I pray;

That I through your sweet love may grow, more like you day by day".

 

Then he finished with "To keep spiritually fit, consult your Great Physician".

 

I consider this some good advice!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                                06/05/14