King Solomon asked God for a hearing heart.
I Kings 3:7 “Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant an understanding heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this.
Suppose God appeared to you in a dream and said, ‘whatever you want I will give it to you’. What would you ask for?
In v9 above it says ‘an understanding heart’ but literally in the Hebrew, Solomon has asked God for a hearing heart.
Have you ever asked God to give you a hearing heart?
Solomon asked for a wise and sensitive heart that could hear directly from God so that he might govern God’s people Israel wisely.
We need to learn to listen to God with a hearing heart not our ears.
Conclusion
God wants us to keep our hearts soft and tender before him and each other. Let us purpose to be continually filled with His Spirit, with his love flowing into us and out of us and avoid anything that will harden our hearts. Ask the Lord to give you a sensitive and hearing heart.
Some further thoughts on our hearts
1. What is the condition of our hearts?
a. Are they "restricted", suffering from "spiritual hardening of the
arteries"?
1) Where is the love of God hindered from freely flowing?
2) By the "plaques" of ignorance, selfishness, hypocrisy?
b. Or are they "wide open"?
1) Where God's love flows freely
2) Nourishing not only our own lives, but the lives of those
around us!
-- May we all be "taught of God" to have Hearts Wide Open!
What Causes Heart Attacks?
Atherosclerosis is a gradual process by which plaques (collections) of cholesterol are deposited in the walls of arteries. Cholesterol plaques cause hardening of the arterial walls and narrowing of the inner channel (lumen) of the artery. Arteries that are narrowed by atherosclerosis cannot deliver enough blood to maintain normal function of the parts of the body they supply. Reasons include, family history, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and obesity.
Scope for spiritual heart attacks include Psalm 25:17 “The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Psalm 40:12 For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.
Matthew 13:15 “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.”
Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
The cure for a spiritually hard heart is to remember what God has done for you. Christ has died for you to save you from your sins, even though you did not deserve it. God loves you. God cares for you. Just as hardening of the arteries will kill you physically, so will the spiritual hardening of the arteries. Do you have a hard heart today?
Ask God to soften and renew your heart today.
Amen
Personal Prayer
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