WEDNESDAY June 19th
Ephesians 3:17
‘. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love. . .’
Now, I have already mentioned some of the reasons why we need to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, but here Paul says,
‘so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’.
The heart is the central part of our being, and we use this phrase about being born again, ‘I asked Jesus into my heart’. It means that we have asked Jesus to come and to take up residence in our lives, to be at the centre of who we are and in all that we seek to do. It is as if the heart is the throne in which we allow Jesus to reign as Lord.
The heart is often mentioned in Scripture, and we will turn to some of the references.
We are encouraged ‘to love the LORD your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul and with ALL your might’, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30.
We are also encouraged to ‘trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding’, Proverbs 3:5, both Iain and I spoke from these verses on the same Sunday recently, Iain referring to the word heart appearing 3 times in the first 6 verses of Proverbs 3.
An important one is found in Matthew 6:21 when Jesus was talking about the importance of where we lay up our treasure, he says ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ This means that what we set our hearts upon will become our primary focus. And surely, if we follow the first of the references mentioned, our hearts should be set upon the things of God, set upon the things that matter for eternity and not upon the things that are temporal. It doesn’t mean that the temporal doesn’t matter, Jesus balances it all out for us by reminding us that if we ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these (the other) things will be added to you’, Matthew 6:33.
I am going to mention one more, well it is going to lead to an extra one afterwards! if you have time, look up some other heart references yourself, but this final one is so apt for the troublesome days in which we are finding ourselves, Jesus said ‘Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me’, John 14:1. Jesus can bring peace into our troubled hearts as we learn to lean on him and to trust in him fully. Paul puts it this way ‘. . . The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’, Philippians 4:5-7.
The One who we have invited into our hearts, is not only the Saviour, the Lord and the King, he is also the Prince of Peace – imagine it, that he is the one who sits on the throne of your heart.