What governs your life?  What causes you to act the way you do?  For those who consider themselves to be Christians the answer is generally God, or Christ, but is He really what sits on the throne of your heart? 

The throne of our heart is a special place that should be set aside for Christ, as what sits on that throne governs our life.  Too many times we allow the things of the world, the things that God created and the things that He gave us to take that place instead.  We tend to allow the throne of our hearts to be occupied by the things that God made, instead of God Himself.  We start out with intentions to only allow God to govern our lives and our motives, but slowly we allow the things of this world to creep in and occupy our time, our mind, and our heart.  Slowly our motives are not about pleasing God, and shift to pleasing the worldly desires we have inside.

Abraham suffered from this.  He allowed the thing that meant the most to him to sit upon the throne of his heart instead of God.  When God saw this he tested Abraham to give up and sacrifice that which was sitting in the place of God.  Unfortunately that thing happened to be Isaac, Abraham’s son and the one that God promised Abraham that he would become the father of many nations through.  That had to be a tough situation for Abraham, the one thing that meant the most to him he was told to sacrifice.  Luckily for Isaac God was just testing Abraham to see if he wass really willing to have God take His place on the throne of his heart instead of Isaac.  Luckily for Abraham he passed the test.

We too can fall into this.  We can allow even our loved ones to take the place of God on the throne of our hearts.  We can use the example that Abraham has set to see how we are supposed to respond to this situation.  We must be willing to sacrifice the things that matter most to us if they are taking the place of God on the throne of our heart.  It isn’t easy, but it is what we are called to do.  If God does not come first in our life then our motives are selfish and worldly and will lead to death.  Only when God is the ruler of our lives are we found to truly live.

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