Keep Your Heart (6)

… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10.22

Engaging the affections
As we look to the Word of God, our desire, wherever we may be reading, is at least in part to instruct our minds in the beautiful things of God and His will. We need to pay careful attention to the teaching of Scripture about affections – what they are, how they should be focused, and how they may be made more vigorous. By being alert to whatever Scripture teaches about affections, we can begin nurturing our hearts consistently with the kind of holy affections that are the fruit of a true and vibrant faith.

Jonathan Edwards has some very good suggestions about how we may do this. He writes, “If true religion lies much in the affections, we may infer, that such means are to be desired, as have much tendency to move the affections.” By “move” here he means to engage them, get them properly focused, and begin to nurture them to a growing vigor or fervor. To what means shall we turn?

Prayer
First, Edwards says we must turn to prayer. Here’s what he says: “…in the duty of prayer; it is manifest, we are not appointed, in this duty, to declare God’s perfections, his majesty, holiness, goodness, and all-sufficiency; our own meanness, emptiness, dependence, and unworthiness, our wants and desires, in order to inform God of these things, or to incline his heart, and prevail with him to be willing to show us mercy; but rather suitably to affect our own hearts with the things we express, and so to prepare us to receive the blessings we ask.”

Now let’s not miss this. Edwards is not saying we shouldn’t exalt God in prayer, humble ourselves before Him, and lay our requests at His feet. He’s saying we should do this, but not to inform or persuade God as much as to affect our own hearts with God’s greatness and our utter and complete dependence on Him. Prayer provides a conversational setting in which we may visualize the beautiful things of God and reflect on the state of our affections before Him.

Prayer is a context, in other words, for talking with God so that the way God sees things – Himself, our lives, our needs, and so forth – becomes the way we see them as well. This can be an invaluable aid in nurturing godly affections.

Singing
Second, Edwards recommends singing as an aid to nurturing godly affections. He writes, “No other reason can be assigned, why we should express ourselves in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections.”

He’s right, of course. We all understand the power of music to engage and move our affections. Music can lift our spirits, bring us to tears of joy, move us to boldness and shouting, and much more. So why don’t we sing any more than we do? Scripture offers many instances of commands to sing to the Lord, but not a single instruction merely to listen to Christian music. Yet where the music of our faith is concerned, this is where most of us find ourselves engaged. Perhaps we have our priorities mixed up?

The sacraments
Third, Edwards says that the sacraments of the Church should be a resource to move our affections.  Such “sensible representations,” as Edwards called them, of the work of Christ as we encounter in baptism and the Lord’s Supper are designed to affect our hearts and not just engage our bodies in rote activities. The better we prepare for the sacraments, and the more faithfully and devoutly we apply our hearts and minds to participating in them, the more they will help nurture the kind of affections that lead to godliness in Christ Jesus.

Preaching
Edwards also mentions the role of preaching in shaping our affections: “God hath appointed a particular and lively application of his word, in the preaching of it, as a fit means to affect sinners with the importance of religion, their own misery, the necessity of a remedy, and the glory and sufficiency of a remedy provided; to stir up the pure minds of the saints, quicken their affections by often bringing the great things of religion to their remembrance, and setting them in their proper colours…” Here is counsel to pay careful attention to the preaching of the Word, so that we don’t miss the ways Scripture can move, convict, and improve our hearts.

Keep it up
Finally, Edwards insists that affections must be nurtured through practice, what he calls “a spirit of earnestness in the Christian work and course.” We must apply ourselves in daily life to suppress and overcome affections that distract us from our walk with the Lord, and to implant and improve those that do. Only daily practice, walking in obedience to the Lord, will bring together all these other means to help us grow in godly affections as we should.

We can grow our hearts and keep them growing toward maturity in Christ, but we must do so consciously and conscientiously, waiting on the Lord to cleanse, renew, and improve this liveliest spring of our Christian lives.

For reflection
1.  Why is prayer an excellent place to work on keeping our hearts?

2.  Can you think of a hymn or praise song that especially engages your affections? In what ways? How does feeling this way affect your walk with and work for the Lord?

3.  Explain how taking the Lord’s Supper should affect our hearts. Which affections should we expect to experience? How can taking the Supper improve our affections?

Next steps – Transformation: How many of these “means” for nurturing proper affections are in place in your life? Where can you improve? Find a prayer partner to pray with you as you work out a better regimen for nurturing the affections of your heart.

T. M. Moore

This is part 1 of a multi-part series on Keeping the Heart. To download this week’s study as a free PDF, click here.

The Lord uses your prayers and gifts to help us in this ministry. Add us to your regular prayer list, and seek the Lord concerning whether He would have you share with us. You can contribute to The Fellowship of Ailbe by using the contribute buttonat the website, or send your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452.

Where does the heart, and all the soul, fit in our Christian worldview? Our free online course, One in Twelve: Introduction to Christian Worldview, shows you how to understand the workings of your soul in relation to all other aspects of your life in Christ. For more information and to register, click here.

For a deeper study of the spiritual life, register for our course, Introduction to Spiritual Theology, and discover more of the presence, promise, and power of God’s Kingdom for your life, your church, and the times in which we live. The course is free, and you can learn more or register by clicking here.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.