set your heart

On Thursday a.m. I was reading in Malachi 2:

And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name, says the Lord Almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.

Some people might focus on the curse, the punishment, but what really stood out to me was the term 'set your heart!'

Immediately I was struck by the question, "On what have I set my heart today?" On work? On a list of tasks? On Facebook? On what's going on at church? On the latest at school? On a problem? On a TV show?

We are all capable of this idea, we do it all the time without thinking about it. Last night I set my alarm and the coffee to go off at 6am. We already set the DVR to record America's Got Talent...about six months ago I set a dentist appointment for 9am this morning -- now that's intentional!

I was reminded that in this walk with Jesus, there are things I must do to keep Him at the center of my life, and one of them is to be intentional about setting my heart to honor Him.

Some might think it presumptuous of me to consider myself a priest. Well, I'm more looking at this whole 'setting your heart' concept of this verse as something that applies to all who call themselves Christ-followers. 1 Peter 2:9 says,

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

That's you and me, baby!