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Vital Signs Session 1
New Year brings new life, along with new expectations and new beginnings. Most of us have at least heard of a New Year’s resolution. Most of these resolutions come in the form of weight management or changing our body image. When was the last time that our resolution, or the place where we are ‘resolved’ to make a change started with our spiritual lives? In our new series called Vital Signs, Erwin McManus presents a challenging resolution of sorts that should help propel not just one area of our lives, but all of them.
 
In session one, McManus uses a term that I want to focus on for a moment. It is the idea of trying to compartmentalize our lives to such a point where we forget we are not just an individual part, but a sum of all our parts. Remember Mark 12:30 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all of your strength.”
 
Notice that setting the bar at the highest mark by placing God as the object of our affection is critical. In order to succeed we MUST find a target to shoot at. Next comes the how in the formula. Now that we know and understand our love is to be directed at the target of an almighty God, next we learn how; with all our heart, soul, and strength. If our love cannot be just an individual pursuit of ONE area of our lives, then we must get out the adding machine – some of you won’t know what that is – and get to working on the sum of all the parts
 
Heart - kardía – heart; "the affective center of our being" and the capacity of moral preference / is mentioned over 800 times in Scripture, but never referring to the literal physical pump that drives the blood.
 
Soul - the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions – not just part of them but ALL of them.
 
Mind - the mind as the faculty of understanding, feeling, desiring:
 
Strength - of one's strength, to the extent of one's ability, the root of the word here is “force”.
 
Let me try to illustrate it another way, if we choose to go to the gym and ONLY work out our calf muscles, then over the course of a few months our calves are going to look out of proportion to the rest of our bodies. It should be no different when we approach our spiritual health...perhaps there is room for improvement in one or more areas listed above. Let’s get to work church and get healthy from the inside out!