Heart Pandemic

I Kings 8

33 When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unto thee in this house:

34 Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers.

35 When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against thee; if they pray toward this place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflictest them:

36 Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants, and of thy people Israel, that thou teach them the good way wherein they should walk, and give rain upon thy land, which thou hast given to thy people for an inheritance.

37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;

38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

40 That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

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In the midst of the national/global COVID conversation that has been swirling around us for the last several months, there are a couple of things that should be highlighted that haven’t gotten much traction —

A directed focus upon changing our physical lifestyles through proper nutrition and exercise. Meaning: Physical health and healing comes not just through chemicals but through the right, and necessary, nutritional input.

AND

A directed focus upon changing the sinful condition of our lifestyles through proper biblical information and application. Meaning: Spiritual health and healing comes not just through human wisdom and insight but through the right, and necessary, spiritual input.

Failures in both areas reflect upon a society that has categorically cast off the moorings of a biblical mindset and lifestyle. We don’t think like God wants us to think and we don’t eat what God wants us to eat. Therefore, we are now a people that has abandoned itself over to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. In other words, we’ve told God to take a back seat while we drive … and we haven’t even bothered to read the driver’s Manual.

God, in His holy and infallible Manual for life, has told us how He wants us to live and how He wants us to eat. He did that in order to help us along our journey towards eternity. Out of His incredible love for us, He has told us how not to self-destruct. But we, in our faulty wisdom, have decided we know more than God and that He should just sit back and enjoy the ride while we drive. — Not going to end well, is it?

Disobedience to God has devastating consequences.

Maybe not right away. But in time, the snowball of sin and rejection of God gets so huge it can’t be stopped unless it hits something and gets smashed to bits.

And …

Towards that end God, at times, can and will use a PLAGUE/PANDEMIC to bring us down to our knees.

To know that should be a no-brainier. But for a God-rejecting decadent society that has drifted far from all things godly, the possibility that God might be just trying to rattle our cages doesn’t dot the conversational landscape of our Country or world.

And … dare I say it? …

God’s people appear to be just as ignorantly in the dark about this as the world — and perhaps even more so.

Don’t think so?

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When was the last time you considered the possibility your heart might be plagued by something that is harming you physically and spiritually? We need to realize and accept that our personal condition, might in some small way, impact not only our own private world but the societal world around us. It’s an interesting thing to at least consider.

We believers can’t always get off the hook so easily by pointing our hyper-spiritual finger at the lost world. There must come a time when we assume our share of responsibility for the cesspool of the world in which we live.

We are part of the problem — a big part of the problem.

This mess didn’t all happen without us having some skin in the game. The plagues of our own hearts that we have so conveniently ignored and left unaddressed are as much a source of the flotsam in which we live as anything else.

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Have you considered the amount of time, effort and money we expend on developing and maintaining our physical bodies? We want to look and feel good. So, as a course of life, we make sure we take the necessary steps for proper maintenance. One could almost go so far as to say we, at times, are obsessed with our physicality.

While in comparison …

Have you considered how much less time, effort and money we put into doing the same thing for our spiritual lives? I’m not saying it should be in equal measure for both. What I am saying is that we need to take a deeper and closer look at the mindset, or lack thereof, we bring to caring for our spiritual wholeness.

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I think we, God’s people, have a disconnect.

What’s that you ask?

OK, I’ll be happy to tell you.

We do the best we can to ensure we don’t get snared by a physical plague while at the same time overlooking the greater need to not get snared by a spiritual plague. Our physical hearts might be well conditioned, but what about our spiritual hearts?

Could it be that while focusing on not getting physical ailments we have forgotten to consider that something worse could be happening to us?

Could it be that the the ravages of the physical are being brought on through the neglect of the spiritual?

Could it be that we aren’t just dealing with a physical pandemic but a spiritual pandemic as well?

In the Bible the two go hand-and-hand. For example:

“He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.” Proverbs 22:8

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” III John verse 2.

One final thought.

Could all our tampering with the Word of God have something to do with the degradation, physically and spiritually, of our Country and world?

I trow so …

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.” Revelation 22:18

Not only have we told God we’re going to drive this vehicle called life, we’ve also told Him we’re going to rewrite and update the Manual as often as we deem necessary. We’ve become very adept at merchandising the profitability of God. And in doing so, I submit we’ve become a weak, sickly body that can’t fight off the diseases our our own sins let alone the world’s. We’ve diluted and diminished the Manual too much for our own good.

We can’t allow ourselves to get side tracked by the physical when a greater threat is sweeping across the land — a spiritually devastating plague of the heart that, in all reality, is that which is going to bring it all crashing down upon us.

Solomon states that hope will be found by means of a contrite confession of our sins. Sounds good to me.

37 If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpiller; if their enemy besiege them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there be;

38 What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:

39 Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)

40 That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

Amen.