THE MINISTER’S RELATIONSHIPS #2
WITH HIM/HER SELF
Anyone who has a heart
For a number of years our church did a weekly lunch for retired people and one of the ladies who attended was very refined and very sweet and I remember walking past her house one day when she was outside tending her garden, so I stopped to have a chat. She was a believer and although she spent a lot of time on her own, she said she did not mind that because she was at peace with herself.
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How ever many people we relate to, at the end of the day we are left with just two relationships – God and ourselves. If we are at peace with God in our hearts, we will hopefully be at peace with ourselves, and all other relationships will flow from that.
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In the Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man does not have a heart and it’s the main focus of his concern for himself. Our main concern, whether we like it or not, is what is in our hearts? Because everything we do flows from it:
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“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Proverbs 4:23
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There’s another scripture found in Proverbs 23:7 in the New King James version, which says as a man “thinks in his heart, so is he.” This is very fundamental. What do you and I think in our hearts? - Those things that NO ONE else knows about except God:
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Would we like those thoughts to be flashed up on a big screen for everyone to see?
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Those thoughts in our hearts are the REAL ME - the real you. Do we like that person? If not, we need to be real about it and change what we are thinking in our hearts.
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From the beginning of the humanity, once Adam had sinned, the book of Genesis reveals this shocking truth about the human heart:
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“The LORD saw… that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen 6:5)
“Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood.” (Gen 8:21)
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Jeremiah says: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (17:19) and goes on to say: “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”
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Every year I ask my students what is more important for ministry – our calling or our character? And very often the majority think it’s the calling - but actually, as I say in the podcast which goes along with this message – we are all called, but some are gifted in certain areas. A person can be a most gifted minister, but that ministry can be completely destroyed by unrepented/unresolved flaws in our character.
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Paul says: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18) but that is not an excuse, instead he says: “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
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When king David sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and arranging for her husband to die in battle, after being convicted of that terrible failure of character, he repented deeply and wrote Psalm 51. One of the lines in that Psalm that comes out beautifully in the Revised Standard Version says:
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“Behold, you desire truth in the inward being,
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”
Psalm 51:6 RSV
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As ministers old or young, we need to pay attention to our hearts because all ministry flows from that. I cannot be a blessing to others if I am not in blessing myself and I cannot be in blessing if my heart is not right before God.
There are over 920 references in the Bible to the human heart showing how basic this is to our relationships - with God, ourselves and others.
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You may like to join me in praying this prayer:
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Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me… And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
(Psalm 139)
The Podcast that goes with this message can be found on the PODCASTS page of the website.
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