Here is your regular, friendly reminder to head over to Proverbial Thought for today’s devotional thought from Proverbs!
We now continue our look at the Four Core Facts and the Four Core Values, having examined the desperate pursuit of God and diligent prayer. If you are interested in a more in-depth look at the Core Facts and the Core Values, look up my wonderful youth pastor, Jesse Bollinger, at Fervent Youth.
As I said before, all of the Core Facts and Values flow together. The Values are useless without the truth of the Facts. Without a desperate pursuit of God bathed in diligent prayer, there is little need for the third Core Value:
A Consecrated Heart
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8, NIV
This requirement of a person seems simple enough. To put it in overly simplistic terms, we are required to do good, be forgiving, and live life honestly … with God.
Why are these so difficult, then?
To do good, to act justly, often means to think of others before yourself and to sacrifice.
To be forgiving, to love mercy, often means showing love, grace, and, yes, forgiveness to those you feel are least deserving … or to whom you would rather not.
To live life honestly, to walk humbly, often means realizing you do not understand this world or yourself as well as you think. It always means realizing you are someone in need of a Savior.
These are the beginning steps to having a consecrated heart.
But what is the first step?
Why not start with what it really means to have a consecrated heart …
From Merriam-Webster:
1
: to induct (a person) into a permanent office with a religious rite; especially: to ordain to the office of bishop
2
a: to make or declare sacred; especially:to devote irrevocably to the worship of God by a solemn ceremony
b:to effect the liturgical transubstantiation of (eucharistic bread and wine)
c: to devote to a purpose with or as if with deep solemnity or dedication
3
: to make inviolable or venerable <principles
consecrated by the weight of history>
I especially like definition 2a. In fact, the second definition is the whole point.
In fact, this may help sum up this post pretty quickly.
Having a consecrated heart simply means that you declare your heart sacred, that you set aside your heart to be devoted completely to worshiping God.
Simple, yes? Declare your heart as God’s own.
For it to really mean anything, as stated before, it requires the Core Facts and the other Core Values.
You need faith that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was necessary for your salvation. Without this knowledge, you can consecrate your heart to anything. It happens all around our world every day. Look at all of the religions, numbers of gods, lack of gods (and God), and every other belief, including in the self. Apart from God, we can do nothing, especially save ourselves from condemnation. (A simple, quick explanation: No God = No humans, thus we can do nothing without God.)
You need to have a desperation to know God, which comes from a desire to know truth. (Many seek truth, but not all seek to know truth.)
We grow more desperate to know God through diligent prayer. At the same time, diligent prayer usually grows out of a desperation. (Kind of like wanting to talk to that boy or that girl on the phone at all times of the day or night, because you can not seem to get enough. You find yourself falling ever more in love the more the two of you talk. You know what I mean 😉 .) With the desperate pursuit of God and diligent prayer, it can often be a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma. It always depends on the person, the circumstances, and the ways of God.
When you believe something so strongly, you dedicate your life to it. That is what a consecrated heart is. It is praying “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10, NIV)
And it leads to the fourth Core Value: A Focused Life
What do you believe? Why? What do you spend your time doing and with whom and about what do you talk? To what have you dedicated your life?
Why?
a simple man of God 