When Truth Resounds in the Heart

Thinking about truth and its effect on my heart, my mind began to think about cymbals. Ever heard a cymbal crash? Most people have, and when the drum stick strikes the cymbal without anything to impede the cymbal's response, it is a resounding sound. If you were to hold your hand on that cymbal, it would be a simple "tink" sound--the sound just stops at the striking of the cymbal.

What kind of Christian are you? It's a fair question, and I think you could find out a lot about yourself in regards to your spiritual health by how much the truth affects you. The truth, of course, is God's word, and any derivative of it (i.e. music of truth, challenges of truth, devotions of truth, etc., all being inspired by the truth which is God's word).

How does your heart respond to the beautiful words of Jesus? Do you sing from the soul when you sing to God, or just from the diaphragm, (maybe just muffled tones)? Do you find yourself just breaking out in praise in the depths of who you are when you realize God's love for you? From my own experience, when I am not walking rightly with God, my heart is like the muted cymbal. Truth strikes boldly and all I do is go, "tink." When I get out of the way and just live as God wants me to, I find that the truth strikes just as boldly but my heart responds vibrantly.

I want to be more and more vibrant as the years pass by, don't you? I want to be able to hear any solid sermon and instead of being critical or falling asleep, I just want to resound with the truth. I want to sing with great understanding of a God who is above all and is worthy of all praise. I want to boldly step out and touch the hurting and lost with this vibrancy. You who are reading this, is this you? Do you want this? Cry out to Jesus from your heart today, just ask Him to help you in becoming someone who vibrantly resounds with His truth. This is where lasting joy is to be found, my friend. Not some happy moment that relies on appeasing circumstances to keep the mood. I'm talking about leaving the sunny days and stepping into life's storms and still having the same upbeat outlook.

Let me give you one challenge, too, that may be something to think about. For about the last three weeks, I've been reading one whole book of the Bible a day (pretty much just the New Testament for now). Most of the epistles would take maybe an hour at best to go through. Consider trying this, you would be amazed at what you would find and how you'd see so many connections and the flow of thought. You'd also start seeing why what was written was written when you know what the audience was going through at the time--you'd be amazed at the timeliness of God's message and the relevancy of it not only to them, but to you, too.

Today, ask God to help you obey, to be found living out life as He'd have you do it, and to resound with truth in ways perhaps you haven't done in years--maybe never. There is nothing more sweet to the soul than when truth resounds in the heart.

(Phi 3:7-14 HCSB)
7 But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be a loss because of Christ.
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness from God based on faith.
10 My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead.
12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead,
14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.