Applying My Heart...

Thank God for new beginnings! We don't even have to wait for a new year to have a fresh start with God, but I'm glad He allowed us to have a calendar so we could have a greater sense of a new start. 


Many who have been in solitary confinement have sought to maintain sanity by keeping some sort of crude calendar, scratching notches into the wall, or whatever way they could find to keep track of their days. 

The lack of sunlight and having no schedule and nothing to do was enough to drive them crazy. Nowadays and in our culture we feel enslaved by the calendar at times, but when you consider the alternative, a calendar and schedule truly are blessings!


While a New Year causes people look forward to many things and make goals and resolutions, for others, it can be discouraging, as they allow themselves to think and dwell upon their painful or sinful past. 

God says: 


Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, [and] rivers in the desert. ~ Isaiah 43:18-19


A friend on Facebook posted a reminder today that we not focus so much on our past that we miss what God is saying and doing in our present and what He wants to do this year.


God has new wisdom and knowledge for you and for me this year! I don't want to miss what He's saying.


Proverbs 1:5 says:
A wise [man] will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:


Proverbs 2:2 says:
So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, [and] apply thine heart to understanding;


Too many times I do not apply my heart (mind, will, and emotions) to understanding His ways. His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. I want my fleshly defaults to become less and less my default; I want HIS way of thinking to become my default. I am His lamb, and He loves me so tenderly. Thank You, Jesus, for pursuing me.

Jesus and the Lamb, Photo credit



My prayer today: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth..." (I Samuel 3:9) I want to incline my ear to Your wisdom. I want to apply my heart (my mind, my will, and my emotions) to understanding You and Your ways--the way You would have me listen, speak, move, breathe, live my life, and relate to others in my life.

Come Thou Fount

Keukenhof Gardens, Netherlands


Have you ever meditated awhile on the words of the hymn "Come Thou Fount" by Robert Robinson? Would you take a few moments just to read carefully and dwell on these thoughts?


1. Come, thou Fount of every blessing,

 Tune my heart to sing Thy grace; 

 Streams of mercy, never ceasing, 

 Call for songs of loudest praise. 

 Teach me some melodious sonnet, 

 Sung by flaming tongues above. 

 Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, 

 Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Jesus is the Fount that pours out every blessing in my life. When I realize that everything I have is a gift from Him--whether perceived good or bad*--my spirit (which is redeemed) wants my heart (my mind, will, and emotions, which are still carnal) to be tuned into that fact! Then I want to sing and tell everyone I know about His grace and never-ending streams of mercy!

*"Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting, e'er to take as from a Father's hand."
(from the hymn "Day by Day.") 

 2. Here I raise mine Ebenezer*; 

 Hither by Thy help I'm come; 

 And I hope, by Thy good pleasure, 

 Safely to arrive at home. 

 Jesus sought me when a stranger, 

 Wandering from the fold of God; 

 He, to rescue me from danger, 

 Interposed His precious blood.

Oh to fully realize and continually remember that it's only by God's help that I have come to whatever place I've matured thus far in my life. And to acknowledge that it's only by His grace and pleasure (because He desires it) that He will safely conduct me home to Heaven. I'm so grateful that He searched for me when I was a sinner--born in sin--and that he "interposed" His precious blood on my behalf! 

 
*Ebenezer is a reference to I Samuel 7:12, meaning "hitherto hath the Lord helped." Other study helps indicate its meaning as "stone of help." It was a memorial stone erected by Samuel as a remembrance of the Lord's help in defeating the Philistines. 

3. O to grace how great a debtor 

 Daily I'm constrained to be! 

 Let thy goodness, like a fetter, 

 Bind my wandering heart to thee. 

 Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 

 Prone to leave the God I love; 

 Here's my heart, O take and seal it, 

 Seal it for thy courts above. 

I am such a debtor to His grace! Because I was saved as a young child and did not dabble much in the world, at times I have not understood everything from which Jesus saved me. Now daily I can recognize more and more from which He saved me! I can recognize my proud heart, my arrogance in thinking I've been spiritual, my quiet rage and inward bitterness others don't see. Yes, He saved me from so much! And it's His goodness that makes me want to more tightly bind my heart to His! He doesn't force me to live for Him. I want to, because I'm so grateful for His grace daily shown in my life, ever willing to deliver me from my pride and arrogance, my anger and bitterness. My flesh makes me prone to wander away, to sink back into these besetting sins, but my spirit wants Him to take my heart and keep it close to His--a daily choice to walk in the power of the Spirit of God that lives within me! What freedom! Freedom to choose Him, not the destructive way of living!