Seal it for Thy Courts Above

In church last Sunday to close the sermon, we sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which is one of my favorite songs. At the part where we sang, "here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above," I had a cool idea. What if, once we had committed our hearts and lives to Jesus, we never sinned again? How cool would that be? It would be like when you're canning jam and you seal the jar, only our hearts would be sealed. When a canning jar is sealed, nothing can get in or out of it until the seal is broken. We could stay on earth with our hearts sealed, like unperishables, so we wouldn't sin anymore, but we could still further God's kingdom somehow. And then when we got to Heaven, He could break the seals and open us up and then everything would just be perfect and we would worship Him always and forevermore. 

But that's not how life works. Once we commit our lives to Jesus, we still sin just as much as we did before. It's constantly inevitable that I am going to sin all the time and that makes me so frustrated. 

If that was how it worked - that once we gave up our lives for Jesus, we stopped being sinners - there wouldn't be a point. We wouldn't need God to uphold us and we wouldn't have to learn to have faith and trust (and a little bit of pixie dust! Just kidding) in Him, because we would be sinless. 

It would be really nice if we could all be unperishables. Like cans of corn or green beans that don't expire for years and years and are more healthy for you than Swiss Cake rolls. Like the cans that you're supposed to collect for a can drive to benefit people with no food. It's not bad, it's just that there are better things out there. Real vegetables that actually expire and aren't stewing in salt are better for you. 

Perishables are better than unperishables, both in a vegetable aspect and in an eternal aspect. We are perishable because we have to die to self every day, to daily take up our crosses to submit to God's obviously better plan for our lives and days. 

So - "here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above" I think means something more like God has a claim on us. We're still sinners and terribly selfish people, but we're God's sinners and terribly selfish people, and He loves us, and when we die, we go to Heaven because we are His. If we stopped sinning once we gave our lives to God, we wouldn't really "need" Heaven, because we would already know what it's like to be in a sinless place. 

This is just another time that it is shown to me that God's plan is greater than mine. His ideas are better than mine and He knows what He's doing and I don't. 

As I learned from Veggietales, "the Lord has given this land to us, no need to fuss, He knows what He's doing, we know that He will take care of us, and we will follow Him." Let God be God. 

Love,
Lauralicious