Fasting: Transforming the Condition of Your Heart
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 NIV
Series: Fasting: Renewing Your Mind, Body, and Spirit
Devotional: 3 of 4
Our hearts are in desperate need of being transformed into the likeness of Christ. The thoughts, feelings, ideas, and images that we continue to allow to take up space in our minds - many of which have been formed by a world set against the Ways of Jesus - eventually make their way down into our hearts, forming us into a particular type of person.
In the same way that we took time last week to consider the current condition of our minds, we also need to slow down long enough to examine the current condition of our hearts. As we do, it might be tempting to want to evaluate the person we are becoming in Christ under ideal conditions. However, wrestling instead with the following questions will give us a more accurate picture of our inner character.
What comes out of your heart when you are tired? What about when you are hungry? How about when you are up against a tight deadline at work? Under these less-than-ideal conditions, what does your heart produce? Is it love, joy, and peace? Or does it look more like anger, frustration, and irritation?
Scripture has much to say about the condition of our hearts, emphasizing the connection between a person's inner character and outward actions repeatedly.
The prophet Jeremiah provides us with a sobering reminder of the condition of the human heart that God has not yet transformed. "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9 NRSV)
Proverbs 4:23 instructs followers of Jesus to "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
And Jesus, when speaking to his disciples and the crowds about the nature of the heart and its influence on our words and actions, said, "The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45 NRSV)
These verses, and many others like them, reinforce our daily need for reading, meditating on, and memorizing Scripture (especially in times of prayer and fasting) as we seek to allow the Holy Spirit to renew our mind, body, and spirit.
So, what is the connection between the discipline of fasting and how the Holy Spirit wants to transform our hearts more and more into the character of Christ?
In many ways, the discipline of fasting is like a pressure test that reveals the actual condition of our hearts, driving what is in our hearts to the surface of our lives. Fasting, therefore, becomes the training ground where we give the Holy Spirit permission to bring our hearts into alignment with the will of God.
As the days, weeks, and months go by, a regular rhythm of fasting produces a new song out of the depths of our heart - a new song of surrender to the will of God. A song that starts as a cry for help when the hunger pains come. A song that, in time, begins to echo throughout our day, then our week, and finally our life, touching every aspect of who we are.
OnThe3rdDay Devotionals
Devotionals that illustrate Biblical principles in a simple and short format that can be applied to your everyday life.
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