Pause! Right now stop what you are doing. Put your hand over your heart – or place your fingers on your wrist to find your pulse. Be ever quiet and still as you feel the beat of your heart. That steady beat keeps you alive. Can you imagine how ineffective your heart would be if it was a stone heart?
You Have Two Hearts
You actually have two hearts. One is the physical heart already mentioned. It pumps lifeblood through your body to nourish cells. Its steady rhythm keeps you alive.
Your second heart is something you can’t see. You can sense it and sometimes even “feel” it – but it belongs to another dimension: the unseen realm not yet visible in the physical world. This heart has a strong, steady rhythm when you tune it to God. It pumps life through your inner person so you thrive each day.
Both hearts help you have an Alive and Active Life. But your second (invisible) heart is the critical pump that must be maintained and calibrated daily. If this invisible heart is not taken care of, you will be left with a stone heart.
How Does a Stone Heart Develop?
There are many reasons a person’s heart can become stone-like. Let’s look at a few.
- When your invisible heart slips into a lack of attentiveness, it starts to experience a lack of functionality.
- Sometimes a deep wounding of your inner heart damages it severely. You need healing.
- The absence of a plan to maintain the health of your spiritual heart can cause it to decline.
- Your invisible heart can also become a victim of spiritual heart diseases.
A damaged heart begins to decline into atrophy.
Atrophy Changes a Soft Heart to a Stone Heart
Atrophy of the heart begins death of the heart. As it slips in and out of this deteriorating state, more and more of the heart dies. It becomes cold, and uncaring. The flow of nourishment ends. So, a heart of flesh eventually becomes a heart of stone. It’s a sad thing to lose your pulse and steady beat in life.
If you sense you might be in this process, you are not alone. Many folks have struggled with spiritual heart health. There is hope. This could be a new beginning instead of an end.
What Causes A Stone Heart?
We already explored some reasons your inner heart might begin to atrophy. But – what really causes the atrophy process? What’s going on underneath? It’s the “underneath thing” God wants to fix in order to heal your heart.
Scripture says your heart declines when you lose the ability to see and hear God or when you replace your hunger for God with other desires. Rev. 2:4 says, “I have this against you: You have departed from your first love!”
Seeing. Hearing. Hungering
The seeing, hearing, and lost desire are not physical sense sets or drives of your body. They are sets and drives in God’s invisible dimension. Spiritual eyes and ears help you navigate the unseen world. 2 Cor. 4:18 tells us to fix eyes not on what is seen, but rather on what is unseen. Not on the temporary, physical dimension, but on the eternal dimension. Jesus often said, “The one who has ears better listen!” (Mt.11:15; 13:9; 13:43; Mk. 4:9; Lk. 8:8; 14:35)
Jn. 12:37 says, “Although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in Him . . . “ So His miracles never became a reality for them. Disbelief stripped them of health and the healing Jesus wanted to give them.
So, what causes eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear? How does hunger for God fall off? What is really happening “underneath?”
What Is Underneath A Stone Heart?
There are two kinds of rebellion. First is an active kind that deliberately sets up personal preferences and plans above God’s. The second is a passive kind – a laziness or lack of alertness that settles into whatever is easiest. Both are rebellion.
Active habits such as smoking, drugs, drunkenness, over-eating, etc. erode your physical heart and body. Passive habits such as no exercise, not taking necessary medications, lack of hygiene, etc. pull your physical being down. Both these patterns are a kind of “rebellion” against proper care of your physical person. They affect your heart. Whether active or passive, not taking responsibility of your physical heart and body will produce poor heart health.
It’s the same process for spiritual heart health. Whether active or passive, rebellion atrophies the heart. The result is a stone heart. Without the flow of God’s life through you, numbness and/or bitterness sets in. It’s a terrible way to lose yourself!
What can be done? You need intervention, healing, and care. You need an IV dripline.
IV Dripline For a Stone Heart
Rom. 4:17 says, “. . . God . . . makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do.” God is the only Source of life, and He can raise the dead. So, He’s your best chance at healing a stone heart into a soft heart again. He offers help through His IV dripline.
Your faith may seem tiny – only a pinhole. But that’s all it takes! A tiny pinhole where your faith pierces from your dimension into Mighty God’s dimension becomes the portal through which “spiritual fluids” flow, much like the fluids of a hospital IV dripline. You hook up to the dripline by faith. Just pierce a tiny pinhole by faith – and you’re in! God takes it from there.
You do have two additional things to do. 1. Actively seek God. 2. End all rebellion – both active and passive. Jer. 19:13 says, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me seek me with all your heart.”
What God’s IV Dripline Does For a Stone Heart
Why not connect to God’s IV dripline and adopt His “Heart Healthy Plan.” This plan does things you can’t see at first. It includes time in His Word, conversation with Him about all details (prayer), and it includes the trio of trust – obey – rest.
God’s IV Dripline fluids do 7 miraculous things to change your heart of stone back into a living heart.
- God’s fluids nourish you through the pinhole of your faith and wash through your entire life.
- This gentle yet powerful lifeline flows into your soul and renews your innermost heart.
- As His miracle fluids infuse your life with nutrients needed for restored health, they heal your heart.
- His dripline literally opens His dimension into yours – the beginning of living in the unseen dimension.
- God’s lifeline becomes your reality – your life.
- You come alive as you begin to see and hear what you never could before.
- God’s IV dripline transforms you.
You can have an Alive and Active Life in Christ! Why not hook up?
Remaining Unbelief
Mk. 9:24 tells a story of a dad who desperately wants healing for his son, possessed by much evil. This dad begs Jesus, “IF there is anything You can do . . . “ (v. 22) Jesus says to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.“ (v. 23) Immediately the father cries out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (v. 24) The heart cry of this father is enough for Jesus. The father connects with Jesus through a pinhole, and Jesus does the rest. Life-giving flow begins in spite of remaining unbelief.
As you follow Jesus, you may still sense some unbelief inside your heart. Be honest like the boy’s father. Cry out to God to help your unbelief. He will. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (Jas.1:6-8) So – believe. Then – “Calm and quiet (your) soul” (Ps. 131:2) as the drip line begins to work.
Once you have a heart healthy plan, daily hook up to God’s life-giving dripline. Stay close to God. Jas. 4:8 says, “Come near to God and He will come near to you . . . “
You can have a tender, throbbing heart instead of atrophy. Give your stone heart to Jesus. Adopt healthy heart management steps. Take daily inventory. Pull out your spiritual stethoscope and listen to your heart.
Practical Application Questions
What is the state of your heart?- Is there any active or passive rebellion going on? Be honest!
- Are you willing to punch a tiny faith pinhole into God’s limitless power?
- Why not hook up to Jesus’ IV dripline each day by faith. Why not come near God?
- How have you adopted God’s Heart Healthy Plan?
- Time in God’s Word? (reading, memorizing, meditating)
- Conversation with God?
- Recording your questions, growth, observations? (journaling)
- Choosing to trust, obey, and rest in Jesus no matter what happens? (Your 3 Most Important Keys)
Listen to God’s guarantee – “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezek. 36:26)
You can have an Alive and Active Life.
** This post, Day 15, is a partial excerpt taken from Despicable We: Daily Studies in Ezekiel.
