Love, the Well-Spring of Life

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” – Proverbs 4:23.

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” -Psalm 16:11. “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” -Matthew 12:35. (ESV).

We know that the vital organ of our body, our heart, is the well-spring of life itself. Let something happen to the heart and its steady beating to take life-giving blood to every part of our body and to provide our very life sustenance is sorely affected.

But the heart is also considered the center of our spiritual and emotional life. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he” we read in Proverbs 23:7. In context, the writer of this Proverb is using a stingy person who asks another to dine with him, but in his heart does not really want anyone to participate with him in what he has to offer. When we think about the heart and how open and sincere or, conversely, how calculating and ill toward others it can be, we can agree that “as one thinks in his heart, so is he.”

We are encouraged to keep our hearts vigilantly and faithfully. To seek the Lord God with all the heart, mind, soul and body is, foremost to loving the Lord God devotedly and following Him with total commitment. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself”  (Luke 10:27, quoting from Leviticus 19:18).

Our society has tended for some time to render love cheap, to take love up and make a commitment, or to decide that love is not enduring and to break the bonds of love. God’s intention was not thus to cheapen love and make it of little regard.  Instead from the heart comes the well-spring of life itself. True love is without dissimulation.  It is enduring. It brings fullness of joy. And love is a gift of God “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God…We love Him because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:7, 19. NKJV). - Ethelene Dyer Jones 10.09.2016

Assurance Brings Joy

“You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy;.at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” –Psalm 16:11 (ESV).  “…it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” –Philippians 2:13 (ESV).

My students and members of the youth group I used to lead often asked me, “How can we know the will of God?”  Somehow they thought I had insight to such deep and probing questions of the spirit and about life.  My advice to them then (and as it still would be now that they are grown up and adults in their own right) is:  “God’s Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).  Consult God’s Word daily, assimilate its truths, and seek to live by them.  There are multiple promises that God’s Word will indeed guide us; here is one of them:  “”Deal with Your servant according to Your steadfast love, and teach me Your statutes” (Psalm 119:124).  Many more promises reaffirm that if we just take a little time to study daily and rely on the Word of God to give us direction, His guidance is available.  Couple Bible study with daily prayer, which involves both talking to and listening to God voice, and we are on the road to the assurance that brings joy.  And we are told when to pray, which, in essence, means being constantly in the attitude and mind of prayer:  “Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice” (Psalm 55:17). Do you want assurance and joy for this New Year of 2013?  God has both available for each of us who seeks.  Yesterday I had to undergo a test on my heart function, since I’m a “survivor” of (since 2007) five bypasses heart surgery.  I lay there undergoing the test (chemically induced, not “tread mill”) and scripture promises I had memorized kept going through my mind to give me comfort, assurance and joy.  This morning, from the imaging laboratory, I got confirmation that my heart is working well!  That led me to the assurance (and joy) that “God’s not finished with me yet” upon this earth!  So now, I will continue to seek God’s will, and “be about my Father’s business.”  I wish for you just such assurance and joy for the New Year!  Selah! –Ethelene Dyer Jones