And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
(Matthew 22:38-40)

A couple months ago, after having the procedure to remove a blockage in my heart with a stent, Debbie and I met with a cardiologist for the purpose of having all our numerous questions answered. One that I asked is, how would I know if that same artery became blocked again? (In our earlier conversation I had mentioned to the doctor that Debbie and I go out and walk briskly about 3 miles a day four to five times a week. Or I do it on the treadmill.) I thought the doctor’s answer was profound. The doctor said a stress test would be done. But then the doctor said, “Your greatest stress test will be through your walking everyday. If the artery is blocked, you will know it then.”

I have thought about that conversation and thought to myself: God, the Divine Cardiologist, has a stress test for his children. When Jesus declared what the greatest and second greatest commandment were, He was really giving us a divine stress test. You see, it is one thing to proclaim how much we love Jesus and even how much we love His Word. It is easy to proclaim how much we are committed to Jesus and His Word, but how do we really know that our spiritual heart really is healthy, that we truly loves Jesus? After all, words really are cheap!

In the Matthew 22 passage, Jesus gives us the stress test with reference to checking the health of our hearts. Jesus, as well as many of the New Testament writers, made it clear that the way to test whether we love Jesus is to look at our human relationships and how we treat them. The beloved Apostle John said:

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also (1 John 4;20-21)

You see our stress test is our love toward others. It is so easy to “talk the talk” but I find it much more difficult to walk the walk. It is easy to proclaim to all that I love Jesus. I find it much more difficult to love those I find unlovable and insufferable.

Paul Johnson, in his book entitled, Intellectuals, revealed that Karl Marx, the self-proclaimed defender of the working class proletariat, never really knew or had a friendship with a single member of the proletariat. So far as researcher can tell, he never set foot in a mill or a factory or a mine or any other industrial workplace in his whole life.

Living a self-conscious, Bohemian, intellectual lifestyle, he knew poverty well, but he always kept company with the intellectual of the middle class like himself.

When he and French Engels created the Communist League, he made sure that working-class socialists were eliminated from any position of influence. Paul Johnson said that it was clear that for all his efforts to be a social benefactor or mankind, he disliked people and continuously fought with members of his own family. Again, it is easy to “talk the talk” without walking the walk.

Gayle Erwin tells once of engaging in a conversation at a Christian festival with two couples, one of whom was Buddhist. What the Buddhist woman said was profound. She said, “We non-Christians, when one of our ranks become a Christian, don’t watch them to see how well they live up to some self-imposed standard of piety. We watch to see how they start treating people.”

So how is your spiritual stress test? Let me give you a few questions.

Do you find yourself highly critical of other people?
Do you find yourself looking for faults in others far more than looking at your own shortcoming?
Do you find yourself not forgiving others whom you perceive have, in some way, wronged you?
Does your wounded pride take precedent over forgiving others for Christ’s sake?
Do you use others’ shortcomings as an excuse (consciously or unconsciously) to not extend grace to them?
Do you use others’ shortcomings as a valid excuse to write them off as an unworthy member of your inner-circle of friends and fellowship?
Do you find it difficult to love those who have an opposing or different viewpoint?

I could go on but the above questions give us a good start. If you answer yes to one or more of these, indications might be that your spiritual heart may have a blockage that keeps you from experiencing the fullness of His Spirit in your life. If so, fall on the mercy of God confessing this sin and allow His Spirit to put a Holy Spirit “stent” in that place in your heart.

By the way, ever since they put that stent in my heart, I have had greater energy than I had even two years ago...and I had good energy then. Not only that, but my mind seems to be even clearer. Do you think that might be a divine analogy of what God does in our hearts when we clear the blockage in our spiritual hearts? I think so.