(Read Luke 11:21-26)
24When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
26Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.-Luke 11:24-26 (KJV)
We find Jesus in this passage giving a word to those who try to fill their hearts with anything other than God and the things of God. We can build into our lives all sorts of pursuits which are harmless. People have all kinds of hobbies, pastimes and pursuits which can even be of great benefit. These might include fishing, stamp collecting, needlepoint, or woodworking. These pursuits will occupy our time and they will bring us some measure of joy, yet they cannot fill the heart. Only Jesus Christ can accomplish this. Try to fill our hearts with anything else and we will come up empty.
Isn’t it something how in the Old Testament even before the time when the grace of God was given in Jesus Christ the saints of old understood this? The other morning I was reading from Ecclesiastes 11 where the Bible speaks of casting our bread upon the water and in many days it will come back to us. Here is a principle at work; the good we do will come back to us in some way and the evil we do will also come back to us in like manner.
We reap what we sew, what goes around comes around, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us. In essence the principle is the same. Jesus also spoke of how out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). I love the book of Ecclesiastes because of the conclusion Solomon finally reached. You can spend a lifetime trying to fill your heart with worldly possessions, yet the heart can only be truly filled by what the Lord brings to our lives.
Make sure your heart is filled with the good things of God. Otherwise, it will be and will remain empty. We can try to fill it with something other than God, but it’s going to leak right out. It’s like a tire with a hole in it. Eventually the air is going to run out and will create all sorts of problems for us. When the heart is filled with Jesus Christ we are empowered to stand and to remain standing during the trials and hard times of life. Don’t try to fill the heart with what we want, but rather fill our hearts with what God wants for us. Then we know it cannot be wrong, for God is the author of it.
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