Stabbing At Maples.

The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’. (Psalm 14:1)

This past Sunday, Pastor Sam brought out an important aspect of this verse. The denial of God is not something that the fool says with his lips: rather, it is something asserted in his heart, the seat of his emotions and will.

How do we know what someone really believes? By the way they act. The actions of man are, at their core, an expression of the beliefs and intents of his heart.

Early in the sermon, we were reminded that we cannot love the world and love God simultaneously. Why? Because the world will sap away our possibility of loving God. And our pastor’s use of the word “sap” is apropos. In the process of creating maple syrup, a tap is placed into a maple tree. The sap from the tree slowly drips into a container placed below the tap, and eventually enough sap is collected for bottles of syrup to be packaged and shipped all over the world. But it’s a slow process.

In like manner, the world saps away our love for God over an extended period of time. The process begins slowly: a barely perceptible series of decisions that show where our heart really is. So we enter the church building, but we never actually attend the service because we’re “busy” having tea in the kitchen, or chatting it up in the hallway with a friend. We dutifully read our Bible, but because it is duty and not passion we fail to meditate upon what we’ve read, and the words do not transform us. We trade in the hard work of prayer for the easy work of watching television. Instead of speaking life and salvation into the nations, our day is absorbed in talking and texting and trysts. But, because we have walked into Bronx Bethany’s doors, we think we’re all right.

Guess what? We are not all right. And this is not my personal indictment. It is what the Bible warns us to avoid: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These things absorb the time, passion, and desire that God wants us to pour into Him and His kingdom.

What can we do? Well, we can spend more time with the Lord. Converse with Him. Meditate on His word and consider implications it holds for us as believers. Review the sermon notes from last Sunday and capture insights we may have missed the first time around. Ignore the calls of the world, which will always draw us away from our Lord.

Pastor Sam shared a truth that may help us as we assess our standing in Christ: “Worship is mediated internally, but expressed externally”, and the expression is not through the music, nor even through one’s physical presence in a church building. It is expressed through our day-to-day activities, the true reflection of the state of our hearts.

“Take the world, but give me Jesus.” Lord, help us to love you exclusively.