22.Sep.2009 A Matter of the Heart
I Thessalonians 5: 23-24 (Message): May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it!
Mark 7: 1-23 (NLT): One day some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus. They noticed that some of his disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating. (The Jews, especially the Pharisees, do not eat until they have poured water over their cupped hands, as required by their ancient traditions. Similarly, they don’t eat anything from the market until they immerse their hands in water. This is but one of many traditions they have clung to—such as their ceremonial washing of cups, pitchers, and kettles.)
So the Pharisees and teachers of religious law asked him, “Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.”
Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,
‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’
For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.”
Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. 10 For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”
Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, and his disciples asked him what he meant by the parable he had just used. “Don’t you understand either?” he asked. “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.)
And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”
How often do we as humans create something and think it is from God or of God or will please God, when in truth, it only leads us into bondage? The ceremonial washing of the hands as depicted in the above story is a good example of some of the things we as humans try to make more important than allowing God to have His way with our hearts. You see, the heart is what matters the most.
Humans are like God. Genesis 1:26 states that God wanted to “make human beings in our image, to be like us” (NLT). We are created in the image of God. This means, as God is three in one (Father, Son, and Spirit), we are also three in one (body, soul, and spirit). Your body is you just as much as your soul is you and your spirit is you. We, as humans, tend to ignore this fact. We decide to focus solely on the spirit or on the soul or just on the body. One area gets strengthened and the others are neglected; life is out of balance that way. This is not God’s intention. He is a God of balance and harmony. Yet, we Christians are out of balance. We ignore our soul, for that is the realm of sin! We neglect our bodies, thus effectively cutting short our time here on earth for which we could be doing God’s will. We focus only on the spirit! That is like saying we only want God or just Jesus or just the Holy Spirit; we don’t want all three! That is out of balance! And that is not of God.
God wants us to live a healthy, balanced life, and in order to do that, we need to focus on the heart. Now, we all know about the human heart. It is the most vital part of our anatomy. The physical heard is the organ that keeps us alive. Without it, no blood would flow through our veins. No air would be transported to the rest of the body. Life would cease to exist without the heart. The leading cause of death in the West ins heart disease. We need to focus on keeping our heart healthy. A healthy heart equals a healthy life; a healthy life means more time to accomplish the mission God has given each of us while here: spreading the Kingdom. So, focus on keeping your heart healthy.
The spirit part of you has a heart as well. The spirit-heart is that part of you that is God conscious. It is that part of you that yearns for God. It is that part that reacts to seeing the magnificence of creation all around and wondering if it was an accident or created. It is that pull of longing when beautiful music is played. It is that phantom feelings when we yearn for something more. Remember the old adage about having a hole inside that cannot be filled? That is the spirit heart yearning for God. And God fills that place upon salvation. Suddenly, life is breathed into the spirit heart.
Lastly and most importantly is the soul-heart. The soul is not evil. Yes, it is the part most warred upon, but it is not the root of sin and death in life. The soul-heart is the seat of our emotions, thoughts, and intentions. It is that part of us that longs to do right and yet fails to do so. Paul himself lamented that he wanted to do what was right but somehow managed not to. It is the soul-heart that Jesus is concerned with in the above parable. It does not matter what rituals and ceremonies we go through if our heart is not strong. God is most concerned with this heart. This is the soil (reference the “Soil and Seed” series) where the fruit of our lives is grown. What comes out of this heart determines if we are pure or defiled. To quote as popular band, “It is a slow fade.” Sin is not instant. A man does not up an cheat on his wife out of the blue. It is a process. An unguarded heart becomes susceptible to a stray thought that takes root and grows into a twisted tree that bears the fruit of adultery if the soul-heart is neglected. God warns us constantly to guard our hearts. It is the soul-heart that He wants us to guard. It is from there that the well-spring of life flows.
So, as you grow in life and relationship, be sure to pay attention to all three areas of your make-up. Take care of your physical heart so you can live longer and work harder at what it is God asks of you. Take care of your spirit-heart so that your relationship with God will continue to grow. And strengthen your soul-heart so that the fruits of the Spirit can grow.
Body, soul, and spirit; three-in-one; the image of God.
