Now this may date some of us, but how many of us can you remember the time when we were in school and the girl, or boy, we liked so very much asked if we loved them with ‘all your heart?’  When I began the dating game in my younger days, the words I love you with all my heart  would easily roll off my tongue; (of course it largely depended on whom I was saying it to) Back in what now seems like eons ago, getting a chance to kiss a girl was huge to boys; especially if it was the one you really liked. I would just about say anything to a girl back then if it meant I had a chance to kiss her; even saying I loved them with ‘all’ my heart. Those words, ‘with all my heart’ today has a greater significance to me than they ever did back in my much younger days.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with ‘all your heart’ and lean not on your own understanding; in ‘all your ways’ acknowledge Him. and He will make your paths straight.”  Let’s say you went climbing with a friend (not my idea of fun let me say) and you came to a place that your next step was crucial for you to not fall off whatever it was your were climbing. Your friend would say, “It’s alright, you can do it. Just take my hand and trust me to keep you from falling.” Since I am not a lover of heights, it would had to been a pretty darn good, long-lasting, proven friend for me to suddenly trust my life with so I would not be sure to fall. In fact, even if they were what I would call my best friend, I would still struggle trusting my life to them. How many times have those so-called ‘best friends’ in our lives let us down or were not there for us when we really needed them.

As a Pastor, I can’t tell you how many times I have had people come up to me and say, ‘This is the greatest church I have ever been to, you are the best pastor I have ever known; I have found my home and I am here to stay’ only to sadly see them leave down the road because of some silly thing. As a people, we are fickle, ever-changing. In sports today it is hard to find those who stay loyal to a certain team, even if they continually lose year after year. We all want to be a part of a winning team don’t we. Yet with every championship game, the final winner always had a few, if not more than a few, losses during the year.

It has sadly been said that the divorce rate in the church is almost the same as it is in the world and that should be a huge wake up call for us. People today flock to the church that is seen as the happening church of the day; because they want to be a part of what they consider a successful church. People move to cities where they think they can protect their children from the junk of the world. People leave marriages, destroying families in the process, simply because they want what they want and they don’t care to stick it out and work through the problems. With all our heart is a phrase, better yet a truth, that has lost its power and we wonder why??

I believe a big reason the phrase with all our heart is not holding the deep meaning it once had is because far too many in the church have sadly lost or worse than that, even desire to trust in the Lord with all their heart. Church people today want to hear a quick sermon with funny stories, surely not the truth of the Word. They want a church which requires no commitment from them. They want to judge everything they see, yet they fail to look in their spiritual mirrors, afraid of what they might see.

The church I fear has begun to depend on their own abilities; their own wisdom because of the success they have found in man-made formulas, which leads away from trusting the Lord and depending on the Holy Spirit to guide them. To trust in the Lord means to: believe the Lord is able to do what He will; wise to do what is best and good, according to His promise to do what is best for us if we love Him and serve Him. In other words, when we say we trust the Lord with all our heart we are declaring the Lord is all-sufficient for us; there is nothing else we need.

Notice Solomon wrote we were not to lean on our own understanding. To lean on something means to put our faith in it, to rely upon it, to be supported by it. When you and I look to our own understanding; to our own feelings about anything, it will always get us into trouble. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not about our personal wants nor about what the masses want, It is dying to ourselves, living for Jesus, accomplishing His will for our lives an in the end being sure the Lord gets all the glory, not you or me nor any church or pastor.

Have you been trusting the Lord with all of our heart, and I do mean ALL of your heart? As I examined my own life I saw areas in my heart where trusting in the Lord was not even existent; I repented and got back on track. What say you my dear friend? What are you trusting in with all your heart?