Where is your heart

Christianity, at its core, is not simply another religion containing a long list of rules – it is a heart level relationship with the Living God through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Because Christianity consists of a heart-level relationship with God, it is the goal of the enemy to somehow come between our heart and God’s heart. And the way he tries to do this is by seducing our hearts with other things. In the parable of the sower Jesus describes this very tactic of the enemy, using the illustration of thorns growing up and choking a plant. In Mark 4:19 Jesus tells us that one of the “thorns” the enemy uses is “the desires for other things” which “enter in” to our hearts “and choke the word.”

Picture a plant of some kind growing in a small pot. If someone comes along and plants some thorns of some kind in that pot, it won’t be long until the fast-growing thorns begin to use up all the nutrients found in the soil of that pot, resulting in the growth of the plant being stunted considerably, and maybe even stopped altogether. The same thing is true in our hearts. Just like the soil in this illustration, there is only so much of us to go around. Consequently, there are only so many things we can give our time and attention to. And the fact is that each new thing we give our hearts to takes time away our time and attention from something else.

You might think that just because we give our time and attention to something doesn’t mean that our heart will follow, and to a certain degree this is true. For example, you can give your attention to some difficult problem at work, without having it affect how much you love your children. But as many children and parents have found out, though often too late, it is very easy to give so much time and attention to your work that your relationship with your children does suffer – in some cases greatly.

The simple fact is there is no better way to discover where our heart really is than to see where we spend our time, attention, and money. This is the point Jesus was making in Matthew 6:21when he said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The time we have each day is, without question, one of the most valuable “treasure” any of us have been given. Consequently, where we spend our time says a lot about where our heart is. But merely spending time doing something does not necessarily indicate we have given our hearts to something, we must also consider our affections – the things we give our time to by choice. The fact is we have a choice about how we spend most of our time.

Ultimately we will choose to spend our time wherever our desires or affections direct us, which is why, in Colossians 3:2 Paul admonished us to: “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” However, like most things, this is easier said than done. Every day the world around us is clamoring for our time and attention and luring our hearts with “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.”

We do not and cannot live in a vacuum. The only way we can resist this constant pull of temptation to seek what the world seeking, is if our hearts and minds firmly fixed on the “things above” Paul referred to in Colossians 3:2. Jesus made this same point in Luke 12:29-31, telling us not to seek what the world is seeking, but to “seek the kingdom” of God instead. If the kingdom of God is our consuming passion, then our time and attention will be spent seeking it, and we will not have to worry about our hearts being lured away by the desires of the world.

Take a good, honest look at your own life today. Is the kingdom of God your consuming passion, or have you let your heart be lured away by the things the world is seeking?