THEIR HEARTS ARE FAR AWAY
- Key Verse
- "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." (Matthew 15:8, NLT)
READ THE CHAPTER
Central Truth
Church membership and attendance are good, professing to be a believer is great, but are our hearts in line with our profession?
Reflections
According to Washington Post of June 24, 2008, and Tulsa World of June 23, 2008, 91%-92% of Americans profess to believe in God. This result came out of an interview of 36,000 adults. 80% of Americans believe in miracles, more than 50% pray at least once a day, and 44% attend churches or synagogues regularly, at least once a week, while 55% attend at least once a month.
These statistics shows that most Americans believe in God and more than half attend churches, where we sing praises to God, worship and pray to Him - honoring Him with our mouth, but where are our hearts? If our hearts are right with God, our society will be different than what it is today. Homicide, burglary, robbery, drug dealing, rape, racism, cheating, domestic violence, gang activities and a host of other devilish acts will not be so common. As believers, if our hearts are right with God, not only would we not be part of these evil activities. We would speak eloquently against them, so that those who do not believe in God, and who might be perpetrating this evil, would stop out of shame, and become aware that they are in the minority. Our society would have been a better place to live.
Statistics also shows that 88% of the world population professes to believe in God (Cambridge University, 2005), and in some countries, over 70% of the population attend churches regularly. In developing countries, people attend open-air Christian crusades in hundreds of thousands, and up to a million in some cases to listen to the preaching of the Word of God, and at the end the majority indicate that they have decided for Christ and are born again. Yet the societies do not feel the impact of those decisions. Corruption, murder, oppression, tribalism, tyranny and all sorts of evil prevail. Why? Jesus said, because we honor God with our mouth in churches and Christian gatherings, but our hearts are far away.
Help us Lord so that our hearts and actions will line up with our words, Amen.
Discussion Questions
1. What does Jesus' statement, 'You are the salt of the earth' (Matthew 5:13) mean to you?2. How can we season the earth?
3. In what sense are we 'the light of the world?' (Matthew 5:16)
vivian
January 21, 2010 12:54 PM
Thank you.You reminded me it's time for us Christians to really act as disciples of Christ and walk in love. Love has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost but it is tragic to see that a lot of times, we still don't represent God's kingdom because of the way we act. They will know us by our love. Love is the key. If we truly are God's children, love should be evident in our lives.It can be simply displayed in a warm smile, a handshake, a greeting, even just a nod to let people know we see them.To be acknowledged they even exist is a big deal to some. If we walk around with that look on our face that says " don't talk to me, I don't know you" or we walk away from people who look "different" from us ,then we have truly lost that opportunity to let our light shine. May the Holy Spirit speak to us.
Kemi
January 23, 2010 04:31 PM
You reminded us of the essence of our Christain faith and the importance of keeping our hearts/actions in line with the word of God. No wonder, the bible says " Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life".(Prov.4:23).Great job!