Extreme Makeover—Heart Edition

 

“May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love.”

—Ephesians 3:17 Amp.

Do you enjoy the house remodeling shows on television? I always enjoy seeing the contrast from the old building to the new. Everything always looks so inviting, as though this would make a wonderful home.

Unfortunately, a beautiful house does not necessarily make a beautiful and inviting home. I agree with the way that King Solomon addressed this issue in Proverbs 25:24:

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

In other words, a beautiful house needs peace in order for the inhabitants to enjoy it—and best of all, Christ’s peace.

In the little book, My Heart—Christ’s Home, author Robert Boyd Munger uses the illustration of a home and its rooms to describe the way Christ would like to inhabit each of His children’s lives.

Munger speaks of Christ’s entrance into his own heart-home:

One evening that I shall never forget, I invited Him into my heart. What an entrance He made! It was not a spectacular emotional thing, but very real. It was at the very center of my life. He came into the darkness of my heart and turned on the light. He built a fire in the cold hearth and banished the chill. He started music where there had been stillness and He filled the emptiness with His own loving, wonderful fellowship. ¹

The rest of the book tells about the rooms of the house, each closed up at first with its own secret and sometimes with embarrassing furnishings. Munger tried as well as he could to clean up each room. But, the minute one room pleased him, dirt would show up in the corner of another. It became a toilsome, burdensome process. He wore himself out throwing stuff away, painting, and moving furniture.

Finally, the man, hungry for fellowship with Christ, but worn out with trying to please the Savior, turned over the title to the house. Here’s how Munger put it:

Running as fast as I could to the strong box, I took out the title deed to the house describing its assets and liabilities, its situation and condition. Then returning to Him, I eagerly signed it over to belong to Him alone for time and eternity. “Here,” I said, “here it is, all that I am and have forever. Now You run the house. I’ll just remain with You as houseboy and friend.” ¹

God wants to fellowship with us, to settle down and live with us in a house He has cleansed and made livable—a house He has made into a home. All he asks is our obedience and submission to Him as Lord of the Manor. Maybe you have been trying to keep house for God, but find You can’t keep up with the work. Even when you get done cleaning, the job isn’t sufficient for such a holy God to inhabit.

Hear Christ say to you today the same words He said to people in Galilee so many years ago, as recorded in Matthew 11:28-30:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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1 Munger, Robert Boyd. My Heart-Christ’s Home. Madison, WI: InterVarsity Press, a Division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, ©1954. (Note: Reprinted from HIS magazine.)