"let your heart keep My commandments"
Proverbs 3:1
Interesting phrasing there.... the idea of my heart keeping His commandments. It's hard enough sometimes, to get my hands to keep His commandments... my feet... my mouth even.... much less my heart. He knows how often, when my children were young, that I asked them to do something, and then I was frustrated by the attitude with which they did it. They might have been obeying me technically, but it was accompanied by grumbling, murmuring or eye-rolling.
How often have I gone through the motions of obedience? How often have I followed the letter of His law with no thought to the greater good that might be accomplished through my obedience? How many more blessings might have been mine if my heart had been in agreement with my hands? And worse, how many thousands of times have I self-righteously done exactly what I was supposed to do, quickly and agreeably, but with my glory in mind, not His?
He wants my heart to be in it when I obey Him. When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, that the cup might pass from Him, His heart never wavered from obedience. His body, certainly, dreaded the pain that was to come, but His heart was never anything but willing. "Not my will, but Thine." Is this my prayer? Is it sincere?
I want my hands, my feet, my mouth to obey Him, but I want my heart to be the reason they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment