If you’ve ever owned a car or a home, you know that deferred maintenance often leads to much more serious and expensive repairs. Doing ordinary, regular, and required maintenance can extend the life of a car or a house for many years. So it is with keeping our hearts. If in our work of surveillance we find that our hearts are growing cold or calloused, we need to make sure that we are doing the necessary upkeep to maintain the spiritual condition of the castle. Fortunately, the Lord has given us a way to ensure that our hearts are maintained. We call these things the ordinary means of grace, which include attending to the reading and preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and prayer….
