Contemplatio:Exercise Your Heart

The post below is the second in a series of five posts on the topic, ‘How to Keep Your Heart Healthy.’ By Jeff Slaughter

The Worship Leader’s Heart: How To Keep It Healthy
Proverbs 4:23 says, ”Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it comes the issues of life.”
Everything starts with the heart: our words, our attitudes, and our actions. If our heart is hurt, unrepentant or sinful, then it will negatively affect what we say, what we think and what we do. So how do we keep our hearts healthy so that our words, attitudes and actions are life-giving, affirming and productive?

Healthy Heart Tip #2: Exercise your heart
Practical: We know that physical exercise, especially cardiovascular or aerobic exercise, strengthens our hearts. Over time, it helps our bodies and hearts to lower blood pressure and improve our breathing which lessens the strain on our hearts.

Spiritual: In the same way, if we exercise spiritual things, such as our faith, it will strengthen our spiritual hearts.

Ephesians 6:16
In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

2 Corinthians 5:7
For we live by faith not sight.

I think we can agree that the more we trust God in areas of our lives, the more He proves Himself. And so it’s easier to trust Him with more and more, thus ‘strengthening our faith.’ What are some ways we can exercise our faith? Witnessing, giving, serving, teaching. Others?

It’s true: To keep our heart healthy we must exercise our faith.

‘Contemplatio’ is our weekly worship devotional column. Inspired by the Latin word ‘Contemplatio’, which means means to ‘look at, gaze at or be aware of’; each week, we post a ‘Contemplatio’ designed to teach, inform or draw attention to a topic. Most posts are written by Jeff Slaughter, founder and director of the European Worship Institute, and members of the EWI teaching team. Ideas for guest posts are welcome and may be submitted to Jeff at: [email protected]