Prescriptions for the Heart
Doctors tell us that we need regular physical check-ups, particularly if we have a family history of heart disease. Just because we look healthy on the outside doesn’t mean there are not problems on the inside. Arteries can be blocked and the heart can become diseased and weak. If these issues are detected they can be dealt with and prevent later serious complications. Concerning spiritual matters we all have a family history of heart disease:
Jeremiah 5:23 “But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and
gone away.”
Jeremiah 4:14 “O Jerusalem wash the evil from your heart and be saved.”
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind.”
Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft,
false testimony, slander.”
Matthew 15:7-9 “You hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: These people
honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Jesus dealt over and over with heart issues. He did not stress how to keep the law, wash hands, dress, fast, feast, observe the Sabbath (go to church), and other things that outwardly reveal ones devotion. If our heart is not right then we aren’t right.
We should be concerned about our spiritual heart as much or more than our physical heart. We have a prescription from the Great Physician who promises to cure our spiritual heart. Jesus came to perform radical heart surgery by cleansing and transforming us from within. We must be willing to place ourselves on God’s operating table and let the Holy Spirit examine our heart. He will diagnose what we may be unable or unwilling to see for ourselves.
What is the condition of your heart? Where does the Great Physician find you? Are you pretending all is well when in reality you have a deadly disease eating away at your spiritual heart? Do you desperately need heart surgery? Are you willing to make an appointment with the Great Physician? Will you get on his operating table and allow him to examine your heart and perform open heart surgery this week?
Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a pure heart O God.”
Psalm 86:11 “Teach me your way O LORD and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.”
Psalm 139:23, 24 “Search me O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Isaiah 61:1 “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted….”
Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord. They will be my people and I will be
their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.”
Ps142: 5-6 “I cry to you O lord, I say “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Listen to my cry for I am in desperate need.”
Isaiah 57:15 “For this is what the high and lofty one says – he who lives forever – whose name is holy;
“I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (In this verse we read that God has two addresses: one is a ‘high and holy place’, the other is ‘with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit’.)
Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and form all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you.
In Mark 10: 46-52 we find Blind Bartemeus ????? SP crying out for Jesus. He acknowledges his need, abandons all and follows Jesus. How long has it been since you had a heart examination by the Great Physician? Does your heart need to be revived? Do you long for a fresh touch from the Lord? Cry out to the Master!
