Last Friday I saw my heart. It was like a large rubber egg bobbing up and down, inflating and deflating. You’ll know what I mean if you have ever experienced an Echocardiogram. That’s the thing that enables the medics to determine the size of your heart and how well it is working especially the valves.
I’ve already spoken to you about the ‘heart’ from a spiritual perspective (SQ 71), the core of our being, the place where thoughts are born, where emotions are experienced, where attitudes are formed. That came to mind as I was watching the grainy black and white image of the organ that quite literally keeps me going. I was taken back to the night I was ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. One of the vows I was required to take went like this:
‘Are not zeal for the glory of God, love to the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire for the salvation of men, so far as you know your own heart, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into this Ministry?’
The response expected is a definite: ‘They are!’ But how was I to take that ‘so far as you know your own heart’? Well Scripture reminds us that we are ‘dust’, fragile beings, imperfect, flawed and sometimes our ‘motives and chief inducements’ will not stand up to much scrutiny. The Psalmists, the Prophets and Jesus are constantly reminding us of the darkness that can emerge from the hearts of men and women. So in standing before God and His people I confirmed that I had examined my heart and so far as I was able to say my motives and inducements were sound. To put it like this, I wished to work for the glory of God out of love for the Lord Jesus with the desire that others would come to know Him as Saviour and Lord.
That doesn’t mean that the need for the heart to be monitored ceases from that moment. Remember what the Psalmist prays:
‘Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’ (Psalm 139: 23-24).
As long as we remain on this side of eternity it will be necessary for us to be be aware of what’s going on in the depths of our being especially our tendencies to stray from ‘the way everlasting.‘ This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. The night before His death Jesus made this promise to His disciples:
‘If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth.’ (John 14: 15-17)
The Greek word translated ‘Counsellor’ here can also mean ‘helper’, ‘advocate’, ‘comforter’, ‘encourager’. Put them together and we have a picture of someone who stands alongside another, especially in times of trouble, and guides them according to the ways of the Kingdom of God. In a sense, the Holy Spirit is our heart monitor. He reveals the ways of the Kingdom as they are found in the Word, shows us where we have departed from them, and encourages us to make the changes that will enable us to be more faithful as followers of Jesus. To be the kind of people who can say that as far as they know their own heart their main motive in life is to work for the glory of God, out of their love for Jesus and driven with the desire to share with the world what they have found to be true in Him.
