Spiritual Heart Attacks

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. – 3 John 1:2

Unhealthy habits can often account for the breakdown of our physical bodies. For example, the most common causes of a physical heart attack are stress, a high-fat diet, smoking, high blood pressure, and lack of exercise. By eliminating these potentially harmful behavior patterns that lead to blockages in our arteries, we can prevent a heart attack from ever happening. The best cure is prevention.

The same is true in our spiritual lives.

We cannot ignore those things that can create a blockage in our spiritual heart muscle, for eventually we will leave our first love and suffer a spiritual heart attack.

Once that happens, we find our hearts no longer beat passionately for God or His purposes. Instead, we substitute formalism for faith and empty ritual for the life of the Spirit. In essence, by just going through the religious motions, we plug ourselves into an artificial life-support system. We mistakenly think we are alive when, in reality, we are only existing.

We were never created to settle for mere religion. Jesus did not die so that we could have a religious belief system – but rather a life-giving relationship with our Father.

I believe that as Christians we all possess a sincere desire to love God with all our hearts, yet we often unknowingly allow subtle deterrents to build up inside us.

Slowly, these small obstructions form larger blockages, which over a period of time clog our spiritual arteries and harden our hearts by depriving them of access to their life source. We must do whatever it takes to ensure that these have no place in our lives as followers of Jesus.

Excerpted with permission from Living Life Undaunted by Christine Caine, copyright Zondervan, 2014.

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Your Turn

Can you identify two thoughts or behaviors in your life that jeopardize your spiritual core? Why should these be given no place in your life? Let’s take a moment to pray and ask the Lord to help us change those bad habits and replace them with once that strengthen and empower us to do His work today. Join the conversation on our blog! We would love to hear from you about preventing spiritual heart attacks. ~ Devotionals Daily