WIth All Our Heart

What do you do from your heart? What you do you do with all your heart? These are strange times. Young people today are bored with traditional sport and recreation. Instead, they are into "extreme" sports. So, you would be forgiven for thinking that these same young people would be extreme and passionate about everything else in life. Not so. Rather, their catch cry is a seemingly apathetic: "Whatever". And the casual observer would be lulled into thinking that these same young people didn't really care. But this is definitely not the case.

Apathy is sometimes the disguise this generation wears to hide the almost continual sense of rejection they have either experienced or fear. But this approach to life can't successfully be Christinised. God's Word reveals that the victorious Christian life is lived out of the heart of the believer. And just to add emphasis, the Word of Life reveals that we should seek God, love God, and obey God, with all our heart.

Deuteronomy 4:29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul..”

Deut. 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Deut. 10:12 ¶ “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

One of the defining characteristics of a Christian is that they have been given a new a heart from which they now seek, love and obey God. Ezekiel, the Old Testament prophet, predicted the outstanding result of the New Covenant when he prophesied-

Ezekiel 36:26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

While the emerging generation appears to apathetic toward so much of life and its future, appearances can be misleading. Nearly everyday the Media presents this generation passionately protesting what they consider to be environmental vandalism. There's definitely no "whatever" apathy here! All this confirms that even the whatever-generation can approach those things in life they feel are important with great passion- or, with all their heart.

But the things that these young people get passionate about (like, "Global Warming" and carbon emission levels) are less than insignificant compared to the things that God wants us to be passionate about: our right standing with God, our eternal destiny, loving our neighbour, caring for the less fortunate, building families that love God, the fate of those who have not yet heard the Gospel, and the fellowship of believers.

The Bible student who studies the way the Bible uses words like, mind, think, believe, will soon discover that these words are directly associated with our hearts, not our "brains". The heart is not only the source of our feelings, but our thoughts, according to the Word of Life. Indeed, Scripture says that our life flows out of our hearts (Proverbs 4:23; John 7:38).

Let us not attempt to Christianise a 'whatever' approach to life. Instead, let's worship God with all our heart-

Eph. 5:19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart,

Over the coming months, the world is going to try and win even believers to become more passionate about its causes (Global Warming, Sexual Preferences, Disarmament, Carbon Emission Trading, Two Thirds World Debt, Environmentalism). While we can feel strongly about these things with a Christian mind, there are probably over 100 things more important and urgent according to the Bible. But this won't stop secular humanists hijacking Christian language to hoodwink believers into becoming half-hearted Christians and whole-hearted secularists.

There has never been a more urgent time for believers to be whole hearted God adorers who live out our devotion to Christ the Lord with all our heart.

Father, help us to be most passionate about You and Your Cause. Lord, as the world seeks to squeeze us into a different way of thinking and force us to accept their values about what is important, may we keep our devotion to You, our love for our family, our charity toward our neighbours, our care for the poor, our burden for the lost and the ignorant, our compassion for the oppressed, and our care for the unborn. Continue to renew our hearts so that they are completely Godward. Help us to give You our heartfelt best.

Amen.