Audit of the Heart

I have been learning a lot lately about the biblical word ‘heart’, and how important our hearts are to God. A book I was reading recently threw out a challenge. How much do we know about the biblical word ‘heart’? Do we give this area of our life appropriate attention, as we seek to live for the Lord? This challenge was followed closely by a teaching in a church I was visiting which encouraged the listeners to do a full heart audit.

As I set about this task of biblical heart discovery, I understood that the ancient Israelites who wrote the bible had no concept of the brain or had any word for it. They imagined all human intellectual activity happened in the heart. In Proverbs 4:23, it says ‘Above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it’. I quickly learnt how important our hearts are to God, and I especially love the verse in 1 Samuel 16:7, when Samuel was presenting to the Lord future possible kings, based upon their appearance. God tells Samuel, ‘The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’. As much as I love this, I equally find it quite scary!

How do we get our hearts right? In Psalm 51:10, after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba, David cries out to the Lord, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me’. I guess, as we are born sinners, sometimes the temptation is to please ourselves rather than God.

What is the attitude of your heart today?

If there are obvious things, then I encourage you bring them before the Lord. Maybe, like David, you can cry out to God to cleanse you from within. If things are not so obvious, then I encourage you to pray the scripture above, and ask the Lord to search your heart and test your anxious thoughts.

People can see our face, but only we, and God, can know what our hearts really look like.