“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4:23 NLT)
How do you see your life? As you inspect your own heart, what do you see? How about when you view the lives of those around you? Does your heart flow with love, grace, mercy, kindness, gentleness, and compassion? Or does what you see in others result in anger, frustration, impatience, and unkindness?
Our heart is a fickle friend. Sometimes we’re the “Good Samaritan,” but at other times we’re the Pharisee praying at the Temple, outlining how good we are and how despicable everyone else is. Why is that? Why the sometimes drastic, almost opposite responses to others?
On some levels, at least as I look at my own heart, it’s the proverbial “barometer” of where my life is headed. Thankfully I’m not as volatile emotionally as I used to be, but there have been times, even seasons, when I’ve believed everyone was going to heaven, then other times I can’t believe anyone is going to heaven.
Yes, I’m exaggerating to make a point, but the point is this: we can’t trust our hearts, thus the reason we must guard it with all diligence. If we simply follow our heart, it’s like driving 80 mph down a steep, winding road, blindfolded. It may be fun for a minute, until we miss a curve and go sailing over the edge. Regardless of how we feel about it, it’s not going to end well.
The only safe and reliable guide in finding our way is to yield to the Holy Spirit’s leading, trusting Him without reservation, being anchored in God’s Word. Jim Thomas wrote: “May we Bible believing Christians act less like moral policemen, more like Gospel paramedics, and never at all like we’re the final judge.”
Our mission as Jesus followers is to love God and to love others as ourselves. A paramedic is defined as “a person trained to give emergency medical care to people who are injured or ill, typically in a setting outside of a hospital.” How might that translate for us as believers in Jesus? In my understanding, paramedics aren’t typically physicians or surgeons, they’re role is to keep people alive long enough to get them to someone who can more fully address their concerns.
What if we saw our role more like that? Not to “fix” people, but to offer them loving support as they find their way to the Lord, who is the “Healer.” Like us, they don’t need to “clean up their lives” before they can come to Him, they only need to be willing to open their heart and mind to Him and let Him do the cleaning.
We don’t have to “police” others for Jesus. We only need to pray and direct them to the Lord. None of us have it all together and we never will this side of eternity. I’m not going to lie, sometimes it frustrates me to see someone who professes to love Jesus, speak, and act like the devil. But unless and until the Lord appoints me to work on His holy Police Force, I have my hands full dealing with the guy looking back at me from the mirror.
By God’s grace, let’s be a part of the solution, not add to the problem. Let’s be sensitive to those around us who need a touch from the Lord or a kind word that might encourage them on their way to finding newness of life in Jesus. Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do for someone is to listen to them. We almost always learn more by listening than we do when we’re talking. I know that’s true when I’m talking.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 