Inside Out: A 40 Day Journey to Transforming Your HeartSample

Heart Attack! 

"HEART ATTACK! I think I'm having a HEART ATTACK!" These are not the words you want to hear coming from your mouth. Unexpected heart attacks occur because we can't physically see our hearts' health and aren't intentional in keeping it healthy. 

Our hearts are the most critical organ in our body.  From it flows the blood that brings us life.  When our hearts stop working correctly, we stop working correctly. Often, we don't think about strengthening our physical heart because we can't see it. It's out of sight, out of mind.  Exercise is good for the heart. But that takes time, commitment, and endurance.  Oxygen is good for the heart. But sometimes, with the anxiety and stresses of life, it's hard to breathe.  Peace is good for the heart, but sometimes fear and uncertainty overwhelm us, and our heart beats faster than it should.  When we don't regularly consider keeping our hearts healthy, we become susceptible to a life-threatening heart attack.

It is the same with our spiritual hearts. We do not know how unhealthy, how sick our hearts are until, all of a sudden, we find ourselves giving in to some sort of sin that we'd never thought we would do. HEART ATTACK. Or we say something that destroys a relationship, and we can't believe those words came out of our mouths. HEART ATTACK. We cannot prevent these attacks on our own because we don't even realize where we are spiritually sick.  

How can we protect ourselves from a spiritual heart attack? Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." We need to learn the depth of our hearts.  We cannot see things on our own, but God can reveal them to us when we ask Him.  If we take time to focus on our physical hearts health by changing our eating habits, exercising, and monitoring our hearts, our health will change! That is true with our spiritual hearts. When we take time to focus on what's inside and are open to purging out what is killing us, we will live the abundant life that Jesus promised us.

This 40-day journey will be like open-heart surgery on our spiritual hearts. Maybe you don't feel you need surgery. Your heart isn’t that bad!  The Bible says differently in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" If we don't realize the depth of the depravity, the deception, and the desires of the flesh growing in our hearts daily, we will become very spiritually sick.  You may say, "But…but…surgery is scary!" Yes, but it is necessary to help our hearts function properly and thrive in life.  Surgery requires desperation.  This is the only way to get the help we need.  It requires complete surrender to the Great Surgeon and Healer, God. Only He can make our hearts clean and new.  

This journey may be humbling, but, I pray, it also fills you with hope.  We do not have to have our hearts under attack.  We can attack the unhealthy places inside us with vigilance and come out victorious. Let's start looking from the Inside Out and live the life God's planned for us! 

Take a Moment:

• Where have you experienced a spiritual “heart attack” in the past? How did it affect you and others? 

• Why are you resolving to commit to this journey toward your spiritual health? How will it benefit you and others to be vigilant with your heart’s health?

Prayer: 

Heavenly Father, you are my Creator. You are my Surgeon. You are my Healer. I come to You longing to have my heart become healthy. Show me where my heart is deceiving me and making me sick. May Your Spirit open my eyes to the areas I need to work on and help me to work on them with all vigilance.  I begin this journey with great expectancy that You will bring victory in my life from the inside out! Amen.