Heart Check

How can I know how my heart's doing? Jeremiah said it's "deceitfully wicked...desperately sick, who can know it?" The Bible does provide some barometers that give me some indications. For instance:

• What's been the primary focus of my attention? One term the Bible uses is "affections" -- what are the attractions or the loves that take hold of my heart? What do I keep wanting or wishing to have? The objects of my affection take the front seat in my heart. Are those good and right things or selfish and me-centered stuff?
• How have I been responding to circumstances and people (especially negative ones)? Do my reactions demonstrate a heart of faith -- knowing that God is in charge of what enters my life -- or am I more anxious and angry and centered on "how does this thing or person affect ME?"Where's the money been going? Jesus informed us that our hearts and our money occupy the same real estate. In other words, take a reading on my finances and you get a simultaneous reading on my heart. Are my resources mostly going toward needs, pleasures, comfortss and stuff I want, or am I demonstrating increasing generosity and a greater heart for ministry and people?
• Am I loving God and loving people more and more? Jesus' encounter with the young wealthy man reinforced that Truth: loving God with my whole heart and loving peple around me in ways  just like I love myself are the test of where my heart is. Is God getting more of my heart and mine and attention, or less? Are my relationships more marked by compassion and gentleness than by human responses?
• Am I more know by the fruit of the Spirit, or by the outflow of the fleshly nature? When God's Spirit gets possession of a heart, people nearby will notice! Do they?
• Am I responding well and regularly to God and His Word? Does it speak to me...do I believe it and begin to take steps to obey it? Do I read and hear Scripture and respond well, no only agreeing but expressing a willingness to change?
• Am I an active servant? Jesus said that He Himself did not come to be served, but to serve...do I observe needs and move to meet them, or am I just another who's first in line at the pot lucks and gone long before the clean-up time begins? Do I notice needs in the fellowship and the community...and my own family...ones that touh me in such a way that I am moved to serve?