Recently I had a brief tour of a factory in our area that is a “full-service electronics manufacturing service provider, serving a diverse group of customers in various electronics end-markets including: commercial, military, medical, RF, flexible circuits, and backplanes.” As I entered the front of the building, I noticed that the exterior grounds were sharp and well-kept with a homey feel of white rockers lined across the front porch. The offices were neat and attractive and the factory floor negated the “five-second rule” of dropped food (otherwise translated, “You could eat off the floor.”). My first impression was, “This is a quality place to work.”
But what really caught my attention was the careful, meticulous work that keeps this company afloat. There before me as the factory door opened were rows of workers, many of them peering through a microscope soldering very tiny, intricate pieces to a circuit board. As we walked over to get a closer look at an employee’s work station, he did not even look up or move to see who was around him. He was transfixed on his work lest he lose his place. These “hand soldiers,” as they are called, “average over fifteen years of experience in a wide variety of circuit board configurations.”
As I looked at this employee’s circuit board as well as another circuit configuration nearby, I realized that these small boards with minuscule pieces keep commercial and military vehicles running in maximum measure. For instance, when our military troops are using Humvees in a conflict, these boards that cannot be seen are extremely vital to those vehicles’ operation in the most crucial times.
You, too, have a circuit board that needs daily meticulous work because it controls all you do. It is your spiritual heart. Unlike the boards made at this factory and shipped away, your heart is there to stay, but it needs careful attention. Your “circuit board” needs to come under the microscope of God’s Word. If not, one little drop of offense, corrupt speech, misunderstanding, assumption, deception, distraction, or hurt can short-circuit your heart and cause you to malfunction as a believer.
Therefore, let’s make application of this:
- What does the microscope of God’s Word reveal about you?
- Do you as a follower of Christ come under the microscope of God’s Word every day?
- Do you take time to let the Word meticulously look into the “circuit board” of your heart?
- Do you sit at Jesus’ feet with His Word in front of you without distraction?
You may look good on the outside, but the most important issue is what’s happening on the inside of the factory that matters. Since . . .
- we are in a daily battle with the flesh (Galatians 5:16-17), the world (Romans 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17), and Satan (1 Peter 5:8-9)
- we are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. ’This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself, (Matthew 22:37-39)
- the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
- where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21),
just to name a few, doesn’t it make sense to make sure you pay close attention to your circuit board, the heart?
My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. (Proverbs 4:21-23)
From A Pastor's Heart 