God wants to grow a beautiful garden in your heart, but–you must keep it free of the thorns and weeds that choke out all the goodness He has planted. If you have not been born again, then YOU—not GOD—are in charge of your heart. You can only grow what YOU plant on your own. You cannot grow the fruits of HIS Spirit—especially HIS unending love, joy, and peace. If you have not surrendered to receive God’s gift of salvation—that is where you must begin in building a foundation for healing your heart. If you HAVE been born again, but find yourself constantly overwhelmed by unhealthy emotions, then perhaps you are ready to reconsider your relationship with God’s Word. No matter how much I grow as a Christian—to have healthy emotions—I must constantly renew my mind in God’s Word to reorder the loves of my heart.
Healthy emotions result when—we constantly renew our mind in God’s Word to reorder the loves of our heart.
When our heart is hard or indifferent to our relationship with God and we don’t passionately love His Word—we are cultivating a destructive mess for our heart! In the parable of the sower, Jesus taught us to scrutinize our own heart as it relates to our relationship with the Word:
“Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!“
Matthew 13:3-9 NKJV
The same seed is cast by the same Sower—the difference is the soil: My friend, what kind of “soil” do you have for receiving God’s Word?
WAYSIDE SOIL: Are we like the wayside soil and allow little to no room at all for God’s Word in our life? Is most of what we feed our heart through our eyes and ears centered on everything except God’s Word? Are we disproportionately focused on social media, news, entertainment, secular education, our job, or sports?
STONY PLACES: Are we like the stony places, where we sometimes have flashes of enthusiasm in receiving the Word, but we quickly burn out? We “get in the Spirit” while we’re at church, but when we’re all alone—we quickly fall into loneliness, depression, and anxiety—and we wonder where God went?
THE THORNS: Are we passionate about the same things our world culture cares about? Are we so consumed by the deceitfulness of riches that it has become our greatest love and is constantly threatening to choke out the fruitfulness of God’s Word?
THE GOOD GROUND: Are we so passionate about God’s Word that it is overflowing with the fruit of His Spirit in us and extinguishing the fires of our unhealthy emotions and thoughts?
The proof of our passion for God’s Word is in the manifestations of the fruit of His Spirit pouring from our life!
Good ground and God’s Word make a gloriously rich combination! Psalms 119 is pure gold! The Psalmist reveals the indestructible connection between someone who passionately loves God’s Word and having a full, satisfying, comforting, safe, joyful, peaceful, strong, wise, and loving life! As I meditate on the following excerpts and compare my own relationship with God’s Word to the Psalmist’s, I find the ground of my heart needs much more work in order to reap the extraordinary benefits of God’s Word. To have a healthy heart, I need to love God’s Word more!
“My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your word. My soul melts from heaviness; strengthen me according to Your word.
Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.
Behold, I long for Your precepts; revive me in Your righteousness. And I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts.
This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life.
The law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
Those who fear You will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in Your word.
Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, According to Your word to Your servant. My soul faints for Your salvation, but I hope in Your word. Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, So that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth.
Your faithfulness endures to all generations; You established the earth, and it abides. Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.
I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I am afflicted very much; revive me, O Lord, according to Your word.
Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever, For they are the rejoicing of my heart.
You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in Your word. Uphold me according to Your word, that I may live; and do not let me be ashamed of my hope.
Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.”
Psalms 119:25, 28, 36-37, 40, 45, 50, 72, 74, 76, 81, 88, 90, 92-93, 97, 105, 107, 111, 114, 116, 165 NKJV
What about you?
When you read Psalms 119, do you passionately long to pull the weeds and get rid of the stones in your heart in order to make more room for God’s marvelous Word? When we are born again and Christ lives within us—His Spirit is drawn to His Word. We are drawn to surrender to Him in all areas of our life in loving obedience. When our heart belongs to God, we long to know His ways! We do not want to live enslaved by our enemies, who only wish to trash and bomb the garden of our heart. When our mind is trained in God’s Word, we instantly recognize the toxicity of anything contradictory that we’re about to allow into our mind through our eyes, ears, or even from our own fleshly desires. God’s Word warns us before we plant it. We know the end game of the enemy and we don’t want to play anymore. The more ground we clear the ground of thorns, the more the sunlight reaches the seeds of God’s Word and the more we grow in what we ALL want MOST! What do we want most? What is it that money can’t buy???
The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, JOY, PEACE, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Galatians 5:22-23
God’s Word and His Spirit transform our heart into His garden of life so that all who enter are nourished and loved!
We would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional. Did God speak to you or challenge your daily walk with him? Or is there a topic that you would like Kimberly to cover or expound on? Please share with us in the comments below.
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2 Responses
We must love God’s word like our life depends on it
What we feed grows! What we starve dies!