Heart Inclination

So an awesome man of God spoke to us last Thursday.
He has been walking with Jesus for fourty one years.
He has never listened to secular music.
He has encountered the Holy Spirit.

We need to have pure hearts to encounter Jesus.
We were not BOUGHT by the PRECIOUS BLOOD OF JESUS to ENJOY this World.
Our hearts must be like a compass.. they need to always point the same direction.
"David was called a man after God's own heart." We know this, and we also know that David messed up sometimes.. but his heart was immediate to turn back to the lord.

Our hearts need to be like a compass because.. even though sometimes the needle sways back and fourth a little.. (that would be when we sin and mess up) It never turns a different direction than north.

Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
Psalm 15!!! The whole Psalm basically.. it starts out..
"Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart and who does his neighbor no wrong.. ...

He who does these things will never be shaken."

Our heart inclination is so important. Everything comes down to our motives and heart motive.. If our acts are done not for the Lord then it is wrong. It doesn't matter. Our "good deeds" are cancelled out if our hearts are in the wrong place.

"If a ship doesn't have a rudder it doesn't do anything. Or it can't go anywhere important or planned. It is worthless it does not matter how fast or how much power the ship has. If the rudder isn't working the ship is useless."
"The rudder size relative to the ship is a very very small part; yet, the rudder is one of the most important parts." Our hearts are the rudder.

Galatians 6:7-8 "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."

Friends, let us not deceive ourselves. We WILL reap what we sow. God cannot be mocked. That is powerful stuff.

Okay so what are we planting in our hearts? (We don't want to sow poision ivy.. that wouldn't make sense.. but we do it anyway.)
-Music
-Social Media Craze
-Everything that isn't of God.

It sounds radical and harsh but really. If it isn't of God then it is evil. God cannot be mocked. Let us not deceive ourselves.

We must pay attention to the things that we are sowing in our hearts because if it is of the secular world it is a weed and yes weeds grow faster than Godly things.

1 Corinthians 6:19 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."
The way he was describing this was really convicting..
We were bought with the most precious thing ... ever, in the entire universe, and we have the nerve to think that we can enjoy and put all this crap into our bodies. Once we understand that we are children of God and bought with a price we better be honoring that.
Honor God with our hearts and minds and spirit and everything that the body is.

So lets talk in greater depth of the seeds. God made the seeds. The seeds are perfect. Each seed has a different purpose. God will do all of the work if we just plant the seed. God will make the seed grow.. he will made the harvest but we have the choice of which seeds we plant.

1 Corinthians 3:6-9 "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."

We are God's field..
okay lets break this down.
So we are the field.. and a field holds different crops.. it isn't just one thing.
Our job is to grow the things of God. We bear the fruits of the spirit! Make sense!
That is why we are here on earth.. our bodies are supposed to produce God's Spirit and goodness.
(That is kind of a high standard to be held to.. that is why we shouldn't be planting junk in our lives.)

"Clean heart isn't the end, it's the beginning."
This is so true.. we strive to be pure.. and righteous and holy.. but let us not think that is the end of what we need to do. Once we accomplish that .. that is when we begin to receive the Holy Spirit at its fullness.
Having a pure heart is the beginning of our journey of learning who God is.
If we have a pure heart we can start to reach our full potential.

Okay so we have purified our hearts through the blood of Jesus! That is wonderful.
But then we begin to let sin slip in again. We have prepared this crop to grow. So the soil has all of its nutrients.. there is nothing else in the way! It is perfect for planting.
So what happens when we plant weeds in that garden. You better believe they are going to grow even more than they would have if it wasn't prepared and good nutrients. Its like if we are empty.. whatever we fill ourselves with is going to grow quicker. Clean slate and then letting sin in = bad.

The bible talks about the areas of our heart as a field. So some of us must be really good at understanding God's love and his peace and who knows what attributes he has.. but we don't really understand his Wrath and righteousness.

This is a problem. We need to have pure hearts all around. We need to understand every aspect of God, because if we don't then we are limiting God.. or even creating an IDOL of who we "think" God is.
BADD.
"do not deceive yourselves."

So then the day after this was spoken to us by this guy who walks with Jesus daily (I am super convicted at this point) the next day at the MILL which is a college ministry the pastor was talking about.. yes how our body is a temple.

Again what are we letting in our bodies!?
Junk? Crap? Jesus didn't die for us for us to continue to feed ourselves poison.

Isaiah 1:5-20 Get out your bible and read this.. It is too long to type but basically it is the Lord saying.. "I really really do not care one bit about your little times that you come and meet in my name, because all the other times you are messing around and not seeking me.

It says this! "Stop bringing me meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my sould hates."

"When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will HIDE MY EYES from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; was and make yourselves clean."

Wow. The Lord is saying quit being hypocrites. I hate you all. You act like you love me at church and then you are off living in sin the rest of the week?
I won't even listen to your prayers. I will turn away.. we are destestable to God when we do this.

So here we go again.. its this little thing called faith with out actions is dead.

He used an example of verbs and like sentense structure.
You need a verb + a subject to make a complete sentence.

Verb + Subject = Complete.
so...
Beliefe + Action = Complete.

"Out of the abundance of your heart the mouth speaks."

Let us examine our hearts and really see what we want. What our motives are.. and you bet your bottom dollar you better be looking at your actions to see if they are pleasing to the Lord or not because he will NOT TOLERATE this half faith stuff..

WE DO NOT PICK AND CHOOSE THE TIMES THAT WE SERVE JESUS. WE ARE NOT OUR OWN WE WERE BOUGHT AT A PRICE. HONOR YOUR BODY.

We need to wake up and quit thinking we are better than we are. "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourselves with sober judgement."

I pray that our modern day christianity is pleasing to God.. cause it is possible we might be living lives that are destestable to him and that .. he is not even listening to our prayers.

We must strive to be holy.
-Mali