The Care and Feeding of the Heart? Thanksgiving… “Eight Days a Week!”

Welcome back to The Training Table. So glad you’ve decided to maintain the best spiritual nutrition while you’re running the good race (Hebrews 12:1)!!

Undoubtedly, the feast set before us may be one of the most unusual and potentially long-lasting Thanksgiving messages you will ever ingest. Please chew on it for a time… well beyond the holidays!

I’m a creature of habit in many areas of my life. One such habit is my daily route for my cycling road rides. My ride begins on the same road every time. Depending on lots of things, the route may vary considerably along the way, and it usually ends along the same route as well. Boring? Far, far from it: For me, cycling is just a means, not an end!

So, at the beginning of every road ride I get a great reminder and blessing of seeing a very big sign, at a very specialized facility—pictured in the adjacent photo: St. John’s Mercy… Heart Hospital. What comes to mind when you first think of this?

The Bible and the “Heart Hospital”: The Maker is the Most Qualified Physician!
As everyone is well-aware, the hospital is generally a place we hope to avoid—unless employed there, or we’re visiting a loved one or friend, and even at that, it’s often not an easy place to be for most of us, is it?

[Hospitals specializing in heart medicine are, by far, one of the fastest growing and busiest treatment specialties in the world. That’s because heart problems top the list of all medical maladies. But that’s another, big, and important topic of its own. If you’re interested in an “unexpected resource”, check out “Deadly Emotions”, by Dr. Don Colbert.]

Whenever I glance up from my bike and read the big Heart Hospital sign, I think of several of the 1,500+ passages from the Bible about the heart. God created and cares deeply about our heart!

By far, the passage that bubbles-up most frequently is one of my favorite Bible passages, Ezekiel 11:17-21. It’s one we all should be full of a deep awareness of , and thanks for each and every day: It’s one of the Bible’s most concise yet robust articulations of God’s redemptive plan—in a macro (God’s people and all mankind) and a micro (each one of us) sense:

“Thus says the Lord God ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And when they come there, they will remove from it all itsdetestable things and all its abominations. And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.I will remove from them their heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh. That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I willbring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”

Brealking It Down… In Thanks!
Please take careful note that the God of the Bible is the only God who has created our heart, and He has mercifully provided a very clear 5-step process for curing it, and caring for it—in the Heart Hospital of His Trinity, Love, and Truth!

From The Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 11:17-21, give thanks for “God’s Heart Hospital”. Please note, whenever we go to the hospital there’s a method in place to get things in order. It’s called triage: “A process in which things are ranked in terms of importance or priority.”

The Bible, God speaking through men, is well-reasoned and abundantly clear about how God’s Heart Hospital is prioritized:

1) Give Thanks… For God’s Unmerited Mercy and Compassion*
“Thus says the Lord God (to a rebellious and heard-hearted people): ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you (back) the land of Israel” (verse 17—parenthesis added).

2) Give Thanks… For Repentance, The Necessity of Seeing and Removing Idols
“And when they come there, they will remove from it all itsdetestable things and all its abominations” (verse 18).

3) Give Thanks… For Holy Spirit’s Supernatural Work in the Heart
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.I will remove from them their heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh” (verse 19).

4) Give Thanks… For God’s Commandments, Our Recommitment to God Motivated by Gratitude
“That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (verse 20).

5) Give Thanks… For A God Who Loves and Respects Us So Much That He Will Not Cross Our Will
“But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I willbring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD” (verse 21).

*NOTE: God’s mercy and compassion always precedes the law—but it does not eliminate the law. Not one thing we could ever do, but only the mercy of God, re-gathers His people—we who have been scattered by our obstinate hearts and distrust of God. It’s only His promised compassion and forgiveness that makes our return to Him remotely possible.

The Law of “First Things First”
Beloved of God, if we can maintain our first and foremost focus and priorities based upon the Bible message above, ALL ELSE—whether in enraptured bliss or in the most deep and desperate darkness—will be enshrouded with thankfulness, hope, and Shalom rest.

For God’s Heart Hospital, and His preventive care of discipleship, please… give thanks!

Thank-Full… Until we ‘sup again,
JohnDoz