As Valentine's Day nears it's appropriate to pray for your heart - not medically or romantically - but spiritually. In scripture, our heart is the muscle of faith. Elaine Storkey, writing for Scripture Union, explains that the heart is our source of wisdom:
The heart is where we gain understanding and where we make our response to God. That is why the psalmist asks God to search his heart (Psa. 139:23). We are asked to guard our heart (Prov. 4:23), to apply our heart to understanding (Prov. 2:2), to keep God's precepts in our heart (Psa. 119:69), and to love God with all our heart (Matt. 22:37). In the Bible, wisdom and understanding do not begin in the mind but in the heart.
Let's pray for hearts that beat for Christ, pure and strong:
(Matthew 22:37)
Your words, Jesus. You want my heart, but other people and pursuits seem to claim my allegiance.
St. Paul prays for me across the millennia: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. (Ephesians 1:18)
King David pleads on my behalf: Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)
King Solomon makes an appeal: Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)
Protect my heart, Lord Christ, that I may claim my inheritance of hope and power. Amen.
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