You may have heard about the frog experiment. A frog, if thrown into boiling water, will immediately jump out and incur no harm, but placed inside a kettle with small fire underneath will be cooked to its own death, while feeling no pain. This experiment is a lesson on the slow decline of a person, or a community: If shocked into sharp decline, one saves oneself, but decline done slowly will kill anyone.
How's your heart? Is it aflame with the passion for Christ as it did before? Do you feel the love for people? Is your compassion for the spiritually lost or the poor all over the world growing?
Our hearts easily grow lukewarm. The questions above are good evaluators of our hearts' conditions.
If our hearts grow lukewarm, what causes the decline? One is sin. Sin usually begin small: a little compromise with our hearts in lust, a permitted gaze that stays a little too long, or a little drunkenness or financial compromise. Our mind is powerful, and we can rationalize just about anything. Then, the sin grows, and as sin grows, our hearts decline. Another is distractions. Shopping, entertainments, TV. The space in our heart is limited: once it gets filled with matters of no consequence, we lose the fervor of our hearts, and eventually our life itself becomes of no consequence.
Here are three things we can do to restore our hearts' passion and keep it burning until the Lord's return: 1. Cut off sin. There is no other way. Leave no room for even the smallest sin. Even the smallest can kill us eventually. 2. Fast. Develop a lifestyle of fasting. Fast things that you enjoy, even if they are not bad, if it distracts you and makes you less. 3. Feed. Feast on the things that inflame your heart. Read Christian literature. Listen to messages or watch movies that feed your soul.
Guard you heart, above all, for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov. 4:23) Let us guard, cleanse and seek to burn in our hearts, for eternity.
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