Pattern of the Perfection of Hearts

UV 2835/10000 Pattern of the Perfection of Hearts
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
I Peter 3 v 15

In the book of Proverbs, it is written that we should guard our hearts diligently for out of it are the issues of life. When we correlate that key verse with this uni-verse, we discover how to guard our own hearts. Just as any human creation or invention cannot repair itself, our hearts can be mended only by the Creator and Redeemer Lord. Our hearts are the workshop of the Lord. He is constantly at work in our hearts through the agency of the Holy Spirit. We can guard our hearts diligently only with the help of the Lord, with the power of the Holy Spirit. Diligently, implies a diligent study of the word precedes and accompanies the daily and moment to moment surrender of our hearts or our attitudes, desires and basic emotions to the Holy Spirit who is the Sanctifier. He perfects our attitudes, our desires, our emotions to make it pleasing and worthy of the Lord Jesus.

Once our hearts are guarded, strengthened, purified and perfected in, by and for the Lord, our lives will be silent but eloquent and compelling testimonies or evidence of the power of the Lord at work in us. Now, when we are asked about what makes us strong in faith, we will be able to answer with grace and humility the questions people with seeking hearts ask of us. There will be a certain ring of conviction and power behind our words as we defend our faith. Our hope in Christ is reasonable since it is based on our personal and practical experience of His grace at a deep level- our hearts. Lives lived with such faith only makes the gospel tasty and attractive to those who are struggling without hope and meaning or power in this world.

We can never ever say that our hearts or lives are perfect but we are “always getting there” as we do our best to listen to the move of the Holy Spirit deep inside our hearts. We need to always come before the Lord with a broken heart of genuine repentance at even our smallest errors and wilful acts of defiance of the will and word of the Lord. We need to pray for the healing touch of the Lord inside our hearts and His help to sanctify our hearts so that we no longer commit the same error or offence. Even as this sanctifying process is going on, we must always be ready with a word-based answer to the queries and searching questions of those we work with or come in contact with in the course of our lives.

Prateep V Philip