What’s Your Heart Condition?
In 1998 459,841 people or one in every 5 deaths in America were attributed to Coronary Heart Disease. It is amazing what the Lord has allowed the medical field to learn about the condition and repair of hearts. It is very interesting to watch a Dr. take a vein from a persons leg and build a bypass around a blockage, to watch that person have their heart intentionally stopped, worked on, restarted, and see that person only a few days later go home with a new lease on life.
The English word heart is used 830 times in the KJV. Yet the Hebrew word that is translated heart and it’s synonym is used 840 times in the Old Testament alone. To say the least, God has a lot to say about the heart. Sometimes the word heart is used in reference to the blood pumping organ in our chest. But most of the time it is to speak of the seat or center of our emotions, sometimes to speak of our inner person-our spirit, sometimes to speak of our personality.
But one thing is sure---if our heart condition is good spiritually---we will be a person of compassion, encouragement, cooperation, and love. If our heart condition is poor spiritually-we will be an uncompassionate, discouraging, divisive, and unloving person.
4 conditions of the heart:
I. A HEART THAT IS HARD. EPHESIANS 4:17-19
A) Three key words:
1) Darkened---To cover with darkness-usually intentionally
2) Blindness---A hardened callous that covers
3) Past Feeling-No longer feel pain because the callous numbs.
B) The continual ignoring of the conviction of the Holy Spirit will callous our heart so that we no longer feel the sting of that conviction.
1) As a believer---ILL. First time committing a sin versus the 100th time.
2) As a lost person under conviction-I have seen people that knew they were lost that no longer felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit when they heard the Gospel presented.
C) Symptoms of a hard heart:
1) Rejecting the preaching and teaching of the Word as (not for me)
2) Uncompassionate outlook like the Levi and Priest that passed the man who was beaten on the road to Jericho.
3) An uncooperative spirit towards others who don’t do things "my way" like the Pharisees attitude toward Christ.
II. A HEART THAT IS ROTTEN. MATTHEW 23:27-28
A) Jesus was talking to the Pharisees-I can guarantee you that not one of them had ever touched the body of a dead person. They were so filled with pride about their perfect living (in their eyes).
B) Jesus said you are white and beautiful on the outside and rotten and unclean on the inside. Ill. In Israel----describe the tombs on the hillside.
C) I Sam 16:7 teaches us this can work two ways:
1) When people only see a shepherd boy, God may see a king.---God knows your potential.
2) When people may think that a person is the "Super Saint"-God my see all kinds of uncleanliness inside the heart.
III. A HEART THAT IS SLOW. LUKE 24:13-26
A) These two men were not sinful, evil, hard hearted, or rotten hearted. They simply were distracted by their ideas and agendas.
1) They were discouraged and disillusioned
2) They knew all about Jesus.
3) But their focus was on how He would fulfill their expectations of a temporal kingdom.
B) They had been told of the great things that had happened at the tomb but it hadn’t soaked in yet.
C) We get slow hearted when we get:
1) Distracted---by worldly or even too much business in Christian things.
2) Discouraged that God didn’t do things the way we think He should.
3) Displaced---Hearing what God is doing and looking from the outside in instead of becoming a part of what is going on.
IV. A HEART THAT IS ON FIRE. LUKE 24:27-35
A) When they communicated with Jesus in the Word.
B) When they communicated with Jesus in fellowship.
C) When they told others of what Christ had done.
We come to know truth not only reason, but still more so through our hearts.
