Your Daily Devotional for August 15, 2006

 

August 15, 2006

 

The Heart of the Problem

by Dr. Paul Chappell

 

 

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

 

Jeremiah 17:9

 

It was the second Christmas of our married life, and with newlywed-like impulse, we decided to forego the two-foot high plastic tree that graced our coffee table the year before. We had found the perfect tree instead. It was wide at the base and came to a perfect point on top. With blissful Christmas cheer we paid the $25, maneuvered it into our Toyota truck, and drove to our apartment.

 

I tried to set it up in the corner, but our perfect tree immediately fell, turning our tree stand into green and red scrap metal. Another tree stand and multiple attempts only brought about the same problem: the tree wouldn’t stand up. When I probed into the forest of green needles, I discovered our perfect tree had a huge flaw. The base of the tree began straight and centered, but the middle of the trunk contorted in pretzel-like twists, bending this way and that, but coming out straight at the top. It was perfect on the outside but hopelessly flawed within. It could never stand on its own.

 

In our not-so-perfect Christmas tree I saw the story of some Christians. On the outside we like to show that we have it all together, but on the inside we know different hurts, pains, disappointments, anger, and bitterness. Worse yet, there is that contortion of our souls the Bible calls sin. No matter how many ornaments we hung on our tree, we knew it could never stand on its own, and no matter how many “decorations” we attach to our lives, we can never be right with God on our own. Some people decorate their lives with such things as ministry, Bible reading, or prayer, but these things mean nothing if our heart is not dedicated to God.

 

God does not want you to go on in life with a twisted and contorted heart. He loves you and wants your heart to stay yielded and committed to Him. As we see in our passage of Scripture today, our heart is very deceitful. We can often go days or weeks without realizing that there is something wrong with our hearts.

 

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” God says that we should pay extra attention to our hearts because it controls our lives. Think about it; if there is bitterness in our hearts, our attitudes will be sour. If our hearts are saddened, our countenance will be one of grief and pain. If our hearts are glad, then our faces will show joy!

 

It has been said that the heart of the problem is often a problem of the heart. Sometimes we Christians can get so busy with the work of the ministry that we forget the heart of the ministry. We are not only working to help others become closer to God but to also help ourselves draw closer to Him.

 

Spend time alone with God today and reflect upon His Word. Ask Him to reveal the true condition of your heart. Correct anything that may come between you and Him and strive to draw closer to Him because of it. Unless we daily sit down with God’s Word and ask Him to show us any flaws inside us, we can never hope to keep our hearts right with Him.

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