Sermon Central
-
A Heart Condition What Is The Condition Of Your Heart
Contributed by Guy Takashima on Sep 10, 2013 (message contributor)
Summary: The conditon of our heart affects all areas of our life. The conditon of our spiritual heart is even more important because it affects our soul, spirit and body.
“A HEART CONDITION”
What is the Condition of your Heart?
I.) INTRODUCTION:
This morning I want to talk about the condition of your heart.
The heart is the most important muscle in our body.
It provides all of the nutrients and oxygen we need to live by sending blood to all the parts of our body.
Needless to say having a healthy heart is a very important thing.
The tragic reality is that each year Heart disease causes 25% of all deaths in the United States.
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women.
If you want to have a long and active life you need to have a healthy heart.
In the same way, the condition of our spiritual heart is just as important.
Today I want to talk to you about the condition of your spiritual heart.
The bible uses the word “heart” 1000 times.
It is used to designate the soul, spirit, mind, conscience, and will.
The Holman Bible Dictionary defines heart as the center of the physical, mental and spiritual life of humans.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia defines heart as the seat of the emotions, passions and appetites and includes our intellectual and moral faculties.
For our sake I am going to define the heart as the seat of our mind, will and emotions.
II.) IMPORTANCE OF OUR HEART:
The bible tells us in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
What Solomon was telling us is that the condition of our heart should be the first, chief, primary concern for every Christian.
He tells us the reason for this is because our heart is the wellspring of our life.
Webster’s dictionary defines a wellspring as a source of continual supply.
When I was young my family used to go trout fishing.
My favorite type of fishing is in streams.
I love to hike up a stream and find some fishing holes…the clear water and the warm sunshine was awesome.
When you think about it, that little stream provided life to that whole area.
Without that stream the trout, insects, animals and vegetation in that area would not be able to survive.
Everything depended on the water that came from that stream.
In the same way that little stream brought life to that area so too our heart is the fountain of life for our mind, soul and body.
That is why Solomon tells us that guarding our heart should be our highest priority because it is the wellspring of our life.
III.) GUARDING YOUR HEART:
Because the devil know the importance of your heart he is constantly trying to get to our heart.
It is his goal to get our hearts to become hard.
If he can do that he knows our spiritual life will quickly deteriaorate.
He does this by trying to get us to take offence at things, feed bitterness or hold on to unforgiveness.
Last week I shared about how messed up my marriage had gotten because my heart had gotten hard.
I thought it would be good to talk about that today because I was totally unaware of the condition of my heart and I wanted to help some of you who may be heading down the same path that I was.
I want to give you some signs that you can look for to see if your heart is getting hard.
IV.) SIGNS OF A HARD HEART:
In Mark 8:17, Jesus spoke to His disciples about the characteristics of a hard heart:
Jesus asked them: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?
In these verses, Jesus gives us four symptoms that are descriptive of a hard heart.
They are unable to understand, unable to see, unable to hear and unable to remember.
1.) UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND:
A hardened heart dulls a person’s ability to perceive and understand.
Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52 for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.
The disciples had just witnessed Jesus taking five small loaves of bread and two small fish, and feeding an entire multitude of at least 15,000 people!
What an awesome miracle!
But because their hearts were hard they were blind to the amazing miracle that had happened right before their eyes.
A hard heart is characterized by an inability to understand.
People with hard hearts are unable to recognize the reality of the supernatural.
Because the disciples were hard hearted they completely missed what had happened with the fishes and loaves.
