April 8 – Spiritual Maintenance… Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 9:1-10:22 / Luke 12:1-34 / Psalm 42:6-11 A few years ago I woke up on a January morning to a cold house. The furnace thermocouple was dirty from soot buildup and needed to be cleaned. The thermocouple is a safety device that shuts off the gas flow when it doesn’t sense the heat from an ignited flame. I was familiar with the problem and knew how to fix it because the thermocouple needed cleaned every year. Sometimes the smallest things create the greatest havoc in our lives. We don’t value maintenance because we can’t see anything visibly wrong. Expensive consequences occur when we neglect to do proper maintenance on homes, vehicles and our bodies. Those who fail in maintenance find themselves running from one emergency to another and from drama to drama. Maintenance is not valued so they are driven by the chaos of the emergency. Our spiritual lives also need proper maintenance. Jesus speaks to His disciples about the necessities of life and says proper maintenance is required, “But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.” (Luke 12:31) God’s kingdom was to be the desire, drive and passion of the disciples. As a result of seeking, their lives would be aligned for God’s provisional blessings. Jesus later states in chapter 17, that the Kingdom is placed in the heart of man. The heart is the seat of emotions, desires and passions. The heart is powerful yet can be manipulated and led astray. It is not a good discerner and Jeremiah describes the heart as being deceitful above all things, mysterious and difficult to understand. When our heart is in the world, we cling to the things of the world and cannot come into the Kingdom of God. But when we give our whole heart to His Kingdom, His Kingdom will reign in us. The key to governing our heart is to understand its relationship with our treasure. Jesus explains, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (vs.34) Our treasure: those things we value. Our heart: those things we desire. Our heart’s desires will always follow the treasures that we value. Whatever we admire and esteem, we will certainly love and have great affection for. Our heart does not mandate our treasure but the opposite occurs…our treasure fashions our heart to pursue our treasure. Believers have difficulty with the worldly passions of their heart because they have lost the value of Christ in their lives. The issue isn’t their heart but their treasure. They do not deem prayer, His presence, Word or Spirit as valuable, important or cherished. A treasure chained to the earth will imprison our hearts to the things of the world but “a treasure in heaven will not be exhausted, no thief will come near and no moth will destroy.” (vs.29,33) Seek His Kingdom; treasure Him and your heart will come into alignment…that’s the key to spiritual maintenance!
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 23:37:32 +0000
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