How Is Your Heart?

How is your Heart?

(Start out by taking the label off a can of cat food and then placing that label over the label of a can of tuna. Then open up that can of tuna with the cat food sticker on the outside, and begin eating it. Then revel that it is tuna)

1 Samuel 16:7

I began preparing this sermon as my Dad laid in the hospital needing repairs on his own heart. Dad had lived, what we thought, a healthy life. But upon a catheter we found that he had not one, but four blockages. And on top of that we discovered that he also had an aneurysm that was so large the Dr. said that he didn’t know how he was still alive. My point being that just as it is important to examine your physical heart, it is even more important to look at your spiritual heart.

You can have a strong physical heart and live to be 100 but it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have the right spiritual heart. If you have the right spiritual heart then you can die today and you will ok, because we all know that you will be in a better place.

Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

So today, let’s do a catheter this morning and look at our hearts and determine what is necessary for us to have a healthy spiritual heart as well.

Read with me if you will 1 Samuel 16:7

A little background here, The Lord had told the Prophet Samuel to go to the house of Jesse to anoint the next king of Israel. Upon his arrival Jesse sent what he thought was a shoe in, his oldest son Elib. Now there were probably several reasons why he thought that he would be the one selected. First he was the eldest of the sons. It was the customs at that time that eldest son would be the one to inherit the throne. And we know that David was a good-looking guy and evidently it ran in the family. Being the eldest, he was probably the biggest, strongest in the family. But God told to Samuel not to look at the outward appearance, but rather look at the heart. Not the physical heart but the spiritual heart.

But why did He choose David rather than Elib? The Bible tells us that God chose David because he had heart like His. Saul the first King of Israel did not have Gods heart. He told Saul that was what He was looking for.

1 Samuel 13:14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

So what does God look at when He looks at your heart? First He looks at …

The ownership of it

You may have heard or have been asked the question, “Have you asked Jesus to come into your heart?” That is one of the terms used to ask you if you have ever entered into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, “Been saved” as we call it. And we do so by asking Jesus into our heart.

Romans 10:9-10 That is you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your HEART that God has raised Him from the dead, you WILL be saved. For with the HEART one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Like I stated earlier, it really does not matter if you are as strong as an ox or as good looking as any beauty queen, all that and a dollar might buy you a cup of coffee (unless you drink Starbucks). Unless you give your heart to Jesus you are living on dangerous ground. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or where you live, or what kind of job you have, or how much money you have. You cannot take any of that with you.

So have you given Him your heart? If not my prayer is that you will before this day is over. If you already have given Him your heart, then the next point is…

What shape is it in?

You see how your heart is reveals how you are.

Proverbs 27:19 As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man.

The heart reflects what we are. If you have the right relationship with God then you have a healthy heart, a good heart, a heart that is pleasing to God. And just as you need to exercise to have a healthy heart, you need to exercise to have a healthy spiritual heart as well. And by exercising I mean using your heart for the Lord.