Happy Valentines Day! We hope that your day is filled with love and maybe some chocolate!
This week at JSAW’s staff meeting, we looked into Ephesians 4 where Paul writes commanding us to no longer live as the world lives. In verse 18 he talks about the hardness of a person’s heart and how it can separate us from God. Verse 19 goes on to share that those with a hard heart loose sensitivity and “indulge in every kind of impurity.” We see things in the movies so many times that eventually we become indifferent or even begin to accept sin. Our heart becomes hardened and nothing can break through. Not the needs of others, not the voice of God, not the conviction of the Holy Spirit, nothing!
Compare this with the “tender-heart” that Paul talks about in verse 32 that is able to forgive. This got us thinking about the texture of the heart. Is my heart hard as a rock or is it tender? In Ezekiel 36:26 God says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Think about the texture of your heart today. Am I sensitive to the voice of God? Do the needs of others move me into action? Do I feel and respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit?