Tuesday 26 July 2016

Heart direction

Nevertheless the high places were not taken away, for as yet the people had not directed their hearts to the God of their fathers. - 2 Chronicles 20:33

Everything seemed sorted for Judah. In spite of their desperate situation in facing the enemy God had delivered them.

But there was still a problem. The people had not ridded themselves of the high places where the false gods are worshipped. Why would they not do that?

Because while they might have done the right thing on the outside, they had not directed their hearts to the Lord. Though God gave them a great victory, they did not sort out their hearts.

The thing is that if we don’t get our hearts right eventually our outside is not going to be right. We can only put on a show so long because how we act comes from what is in our hearts. So because their hearts had not changed they did not get rid of the false gods.

We all need to ask ourselves where our own hearts are directed. We answer that by examining what is really important to us day after day. What gets our attention? What do we do and say? What do we watch? Where do we spend our time online? How important is church? How do we respond to hard times? How do we respond to people, especially those who don’t like us or mistreat us?

The direction of our hearts directs what we do. We can do all we want but we have to ‘change our hearts before we change our shirts’ as one song puts it nothing is really going to change.

What is the direction of our hearts?

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