mgpcpastor's blog

The joys of advancing years include a more necessary interest in personal health.
Stanley Gale observes that, by contrast, an individual’s spiritual health can be in jeopardy at any age, and that there are a number of commonly observable conditions that precede a breakdown in faith.

From Gale’s post:

What are the signs of spiritual heart failure? We can note at least six symptoms.

1. Attendance in weekly worship becomes optional and irregular. This is pretty serious. God designed us to be worshipers. He sought us to be worshipers. And He turned our hearts from idols to worship Him as the true and living God. You can be sure that neglect of corporate worship is a sign of a heart that is not given over to God in everyday life.
2. A spotty prayer life. Like shortness of breath and struggle for oxygen, irregular prayer does not breathe in the oxygen of God’s grace in continual awareness of Him and dependence upon Him. This condition often takes in shallow breaths of periodic prayer that fail to fill the lungs or hyperventilate in panic prayer in times of great distress.
3. Gospel habituation. Habituation is where you tune something out after a while, like you might not notice the loud ticking of a clock in your home but a visitor hears it loud and clear. We can do that with the gospel. It can become familiar, ordinary, and unamazing. God has given us ways to keep that from happening, like hearing Christ preached and celebrating the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, but our diseased heart doesn’t take it in.
4. Poor appetite and inadequate diet. God has given us a rich banquet in His Word, all the nourishment we need for our growth in grace. But we rarely partake. We don’t feast on it. We content ourselves with snacking on a nugget every now and then. But even then we don’t savor it. We don’t chew on it through attention and meditation, drawing out its flavor and absorbing its nutrients of truth.
5. Inactivity. A healthy heart has blood flow in and blood flow out. Heart failure affects this circulatory system. It becomes enlarged for lack of exercise. It doesn’t spread nutrients throughout its own body or the body of Christ. It does not look to serve but to be served, unlike the One whose heart was in perfect health. With no sense of sacrifice or suffering, it becomes weakened and ineffective.
6. Spiritual Listlessness. Indifference to the things of God and tolerance of what dishonors Him are signs of arterial sclerosis, hardness of heart. One contributing factor to this condition is isolation from fellow believers. Without them in our lives to stimulate us to love and godliness, our hearts can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Separated from the body of which we are a part, our fire grows dim and our enthusiasm wanes.

How do we address spiritual heart failure? Prescription for each symptom is found in the Word of Life. But it begins by approaching the Great Physician, asking Him to “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24)

Read the whole post here.