Tag: Heart

Harden Not Your Heart

Do you ever get a feeling in your heart that things are heading the wrong way?

Having that feeling is a built-in guidance system that if followed will lead you away from harm and allow you to have and follow God’s witness.

And being a follower of God, or someone that God is drawing to Himself, you don’t want to push that feeling aside; it is our spiritual warning system alerting us of present or future danger.

The danger is that if we push these inner alerts or knowing’s aside continually we become calloused to them, and callouses become hard and lose their feeling.

We need these inner feelings to have the ability to follow God; if we harden our hearts and become calloused we lose our sensitivity to the leadings of the Holy Spirit.

When we have hardened ourselves against our inner man (our conscience) we have cut ourselves off from God’s help.

There is no grace available to a hard-hearted, rebellious person, and hard-hearted leads to hard-headed or stubborn. In this condition, a person cannot find God’s grace or help and they would not be open to the inner gracious leading.

God’s grace is our help and it comes in the form of an inner leading, a guidance system that leads away from evil and toward good.

As we open ourselves up to the inner witness, our heart becomes pliable and God can work with them as with clay. Molding us into the witness He created us to be, reaching out to the people around us with a message that is vastly different from the message that the world is sending.

Worldly, selfish people have become so hardened against everything and everybody around them that it is very difficult to decipher what they are for or what they are against.

God loses His ability to mold and shape those that are continuing to harden themselves against the truth and if we follow in that direction we will end up broken because God intended us to stay moldable, softened, with the ability to deliver His message, lovingly and full of grace! Amen!

Peter the Apostle of Jesus spoke about this in Acts 15:7-9, “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. (I will pause here for effect— so we could hear the Good News and believe, ponder that for a minute.) Now continuing with the scripture, “God who knows people’s hearts confirmed that He accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He gave Him to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for He also cleansed their hearts through faith! Amen!

God knows the condition of our hearts and so do we.  I repeat so do we!

If we continue to harden our hearts against our inner knowing of right (our conscience), we remove ourselves from God’s help and start down a path that leads to a heart condition that might not be curable.

If God turns His grace from you and He hardens your heart, then you will follow evil, right into the Red Sea, and perish as the Egyptians did.

If God blinds your eyes and hardens your heart you can’t see or understand and have no way back to grace – John 12:40. So it is imperative that we follow God’s Word and God’s Witness very closely, staying in tune with our spirit; not allowing ourselves the pleasure of picking and choosing our stance if it goes against God-given directions.

If it bothers the inner man and goes against our conscience, we must cut it off immediately, never pushing down the inner witness, but always pushing away the evil that is trying to get us to compromise what we know to be right.

God placed this Witness inside of us for our good and His glory, so I will go back to the earlier statement I made, “God knows our hearts and so do we.”

Let’s let our hearts be our guide, casting down imaginations, arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” Amen! 2 Corinthians 10:5 NKJV.

What are we thinking on today and where did the thoughts come from?

Let your heart overrule your head because in your heart is where true life is found. Proverbs 4:23.

If you need a faith boost today, please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content; Jeremiah 16:12,

1 Timothy 4:2, Acts 15:7-9, Jeremiah 18:1-8, Exodus 14:17, Joshua 11:20, and Proverbs 4:20-23 NKJV, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Amen!

Be it unto us Lord, just as you have said!

“What I Said to You, I Say to Everyone, Watch”

What you are watching for has everything to do with your spiritual wellbeing. 

Your expectations will fuel your desire to look closely at your surroundings and situations. If the burglar is already in your bedroom in the middle of the night, it is too late to lock the door.

Although just locking a door or even adding a deadbolt for greater security and holding power will not keep the strongman out, you must also set a watch around your heart. Amen!

We as people must advance in the ability to look inside ourselves, get in tune with the candle of the Lord, which is the spirit of man. That light or fire that God is, and is burning in man controls the very fulfillment of our lives.

We must set a watch or watchman at the entrance to our conscience, guarding against the enemy of our soul (the wicked one). Our conscience can only lead us if we keep it clear, clear from the cares that try to overcome us, clear from the thoughts that lead to bad choices, and clear from all uncertainty.

If we are not awake when the thief breaks in, we will not be able to respond quickly enough to avenge ourselves. It is too late to train in self-defense; we are emerged in a fight we are unprepared to fight.

While in this position, who else in the house will be overtaken because we chose to leave our door unlocked. We chose to be lead astray by the luring of, the lustful eye, and the pride of being who we want to be instead of being who we were created to be.

The subtlety of our wrong choices leads us to believe the lies of the world like; you can have the American dream, you can be whatever you want to be, or you can live your life the way you please. These are all untrue and lead to a wide-open house, you don’t have to worry about locking the door, your whole house is vulnerable.

If you knew the day and hour of the break-in, I am sure you would have been awake, guarding the door, walking the perimeter, armed, and ready.

We as people would never purposely allow this total burglarizing, allowing ourselves and others in our family to be put into a penetrable position, asleep, unarmed, and spiritually dulled down.

We must remain watchful at all times, we must keep our spiritual ears open at all times, and we must guard our heart at all times, because you see, not only does the thief come unexpectedly, but Jesus said He is coming back the same way, “as a thief in the night”, at an unexpected hour.

What hour are we living in, are we keeping track of time, what time is it? At 2 am we have a different level of fear than we do at 2 pm, when we hear a loud noise. Why? The difference is the “Light”, we must walk in the Light and remain in the Light. Amen!

Guard your heart against all darkness, set a guard around the light you have inside, by trusting in The Word of God and locking out fear and unbelief. Keep a watch on your mouth, take all negative thoughts captive, and renew your mind with The Word of God. Amen!

The Bible is God’s prophesies about life leading up to Jesus Christ, the life of Jesus Christ, and our life by choosing Jesus Christ. Do you know Him? He knows and loves you!

God said in Matthew 17:5, “this is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him”. Jesus said in Mark 13:37, “I say to you what I say to everyone; watch for Him”. Listen and watch, expect and exhort, hear and receive, believe, and love.

You see, it is too late to stop the thief or the strongman when he is already in your bedroom; you need to stop him at the door, the door of your heart. So guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus, be alert through Christ’s power and protection, place a watchman to control what enters in, and especially what dwells in you.

What we say and do, and who we become is the result of how much darkness or light we have allowed in our heart, we need to put on the whole armor of God to have a withstanding heart.

So put on God’s full armor and be watchful, to keep ourselves in a constant state of readiness.

I was at a church service one time when a little lady stood up and belted out, “you don’t have time to get ready, you have to be ready”. Amen!

Let’s all live with enthusiasm and eagerness to stay alert and spiritually active, always on the watch and ready.

“Don’t be taken by surprise, or be surprised to be taken”. We need to live a humble, open, forgiving life, doing what God said “listening to Jesus”, and doing what Jesus said “Watching”.

As we put on the full armor of God, we will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against, principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand therefore! Ephesians 6:11-14.

Jesus said, “behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him”.

Do you know who is at the door? Open up the door to Jesus and lockout the wicked one!

Our best days are ahead of us!

If you need a faith boost today please leave a comment and I will prayerfully respond.

If you liked this content, please consider signing up for my newsletter to receive emails directly.

Scriptures of encouragement and content.

Mark 13:37, Proverbs 20:27, Ephesians 5:14, 1 Thessalonians 5:2, Philippians 4:7, Ephesians 6:11-18, Revelation 3:20, and 1 John 1:5-7, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin”.