Proverbs 21:25 The desire of the slothful kills him; for his hands refuse to labour.
Slothful in heart. In the last blog post, I was exposing the precarious effects of being slothful in mind which led to slothfulness in work. The eventual result will be a slothfulness in heart. Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
If we are going to speak out of what is in our hearts, then beware that there is no slothfulness lingering there. A slothful heart will make up excuses for the insipid spiritual growth going on in our lives and the blame game will begin in earnest. We begin to believe the lies we tell ourselves for the lack of maturity taking place within our hearts.
Napoleon Bonaparte said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” In the same way, we start to agree with the enemy of our soul as to the lack of victory we are experiencing in our daily Christian walk. This slothful virus or infectious lazy spirit corrupts our soul to the point of everything in the church and our lives becoming nonchalant. Col. 3:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
A slothful heart can only be cured by the voluntary giving over of our hearts to the Holy Spirit. We have to make the conscious choice to want to be healed of slothfulness of heart. 2 Tim. 1:6 Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Jesus was always trying to bring the spiritual leaders and people back to a heart relationship with God, but was constantly coming up against slothfulness that had permeated the nation’s hearts to the point of following rote instruction to get God to love and accept them.
Christ was teaching that by putting one’s heart into the relationship with their Heavenly Father, there would be a result of life emanating from their hearts. Matt. 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashed hands defile not a man.
How had the important things in life changed so much that the spiritual leaders were so focused on a ritual of washing hands rather than a sacrament of worshiping with lifted hands that came from the heart?
I asked him what the Holy Spirit thought of their long drawn out singing ritual if there was no heart in it? I am not against long or short praise time during church. However, if the singing of praise and worship songs are being long-drawn-out for the sake of a time-filler, then we have become slothful in heart. Matt. 15:8 This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
One of the things that often will accrue in the Christian walk, when slothfulness in heart becomes prevalent, is the slowing down of momentous joy. These saints end up needing milk all over again. Heb. 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
It is written right there. The strong meat of the word belongs to those who are committed to Christ in heart. We all know this to be true, so let us go on to perfection as the scripture says. Amen. Rev. 3:6 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
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