Heart And Home

Heart and Home

Psalms 101:1-2

Question?

What is the most important part of a house? At first you might say the foundation, the heating system or the plumbing.

• But the most important part of a house is the home.

• And the most important part of that home is the hearts of the people who live there.

Psalm 101:1-2

I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise.

I will be careful to lead a blameless life- when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart.

That’s what David said when He was dedicating his house to the Lord. "I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart" (v. 2).

• If you want to wreck your house, start wrecking your home.

• And if you want to wreck your home, start wrecking your heart.

• But if you want your house and your home to be all that God wants them to be, then make your heart perfect.

What is a perfect heart?

It’s one that has integrity, wholeness and oneness--a heart that is not divided. Nobody can serve two masters. No one can plow and look back.

You need to have a heart that is integrated and united. "Unite my heart to fear Your name," David said (Ps. 86:11). He walked around his new house and said, "I want my heart to be perfect, to be wholly fixed upon the Lord. I want Him to reign supremely in my home, because He reigns supremely in my heart."

There is perfect harmony between this testimony of David, and the testimony of the Apostle Paul in

PHI 3:14-15 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you

Understanding our hearts

1. It determines man’s moral nature and spiritual life, his reason and will.

His desires, thoughts, consciences, and intentions

1. Human passions and the desires of the flesh are the worst foes to the spirit.

This unclean heart is described by the lips of Jesus Christ himself: "Out of it proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matt 15:19).

And the description is followed on by St. Paul, when he speaks of the "works of the flesh" (Gal 5:19).

Understand the importance of keeping a pure heart

• How does a worm get inside an apple? Perhaps you think the worm burrows in from the outside. No, scientists have discovered that the worm comes from the inside. But, how does he get in there? Simple, an insect lays an egg in the apple blossom. Sometime later the worm hatches in the heart of the apple, then eats his way out.

Sin, like the worm, begins in the heart and works out through the person’s thoughts, word and actions. For this reason, David once wrote, "Create in me a clean heart, O God."

Seeking a perfect heart

1. Without an authentic relationship with God, we are left empty and detached. There is in all of us, at the very center of our lives, a burning in the heart that is deep and insatiable.

Most often we try to quench that yearning with a human relationship. We try to fill the gap in our existence with a friend or lover. But no human relationship – no matter how wonderful – can ever complete us.

2. Practice makes perfect

Quarterback Tony Rice led Notre Dame’s football team to a national championship in 1988. Before the season, sportswriters wondered whether Notre Dame could beat the tough teams with a quarterback like Rice, whose passing often was inaccurate. They didn’t know that coach Lou Holtz had bought Rice a dart board and told him to practice throwing darts an hour a day.

Rice didn’t see how that would help his passing, but he did as his coach said. Soon he began to throw passes with more accuracy and confidence--both of which were evidenced in a banner season.

• Christians likewise find the practice of sharing a sentence or two of testimony or prayer on a regular basis can sharpen those skills.

• Any activity will improve with practice.