The Heart and the Mind: Doing good things the right way

 But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon,  the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark.  Then the Lord’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and he struck him dead because he had laid his hand on the Ark. So Uzzah died there in the presence of God.  (1 Chronicles 13:9-10 NLT)

 

David had good intentions.   King Saul’s did not honor the Ark of the Lord, and David did not want to do the same. Good intentions are not enough. The work of the Lord must be done not only through good means but right ones. We can follow our hearts without exercising our minds and have disastrous results.

In I Chronicles 15:13 it says, “Because you Levites did not carry the Ark the first time, the anger of the Lord our burst out against us.  We failed to ask God how to move it in the proper way.” David learned a harsh lesson on how to accomplish the purposes of God. He assumed he knew how to do it without first asking God. Self-sufficiency may be the source of a multitude of sins.

It appears to me that people in the Church today fall under two categories. Those who emphasize the truth, exercising their minds, and those who dwell on the spirit and follow their hearts. The is a need for both as Jesus said that we must worship in “spirit and truth,” but not one at the exclusion of the other. If I might paraphrase what I heard someone say; All truth (mind) and no spirt and you dry up. All spirit (heart) and no truth and you blow up. Spirit and truth, and you grow up.

God gave us a mind and a heart, and he expects us to use them both.  We can avoid experiencing problems of our own making by doing good things the right way.

Image used with permission by Microsoft.

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website:Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
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