Sunday October 02, 2022
Proverbs 4:23- “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”
Psalm 37:4- Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
Hebrew- leb- Intellect, awareness, mind, inner person, inner feelings, deepest thoughts, inner self.
The noblest occurrence of this Hebrew word is in the following scripture.
Deuteronomy 6:5- “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Jesus again communicates this in the New Testament.
Mark 12:29-30- “Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.”
The truth about a person is in the heart!
Did you know you believe what’s in the heart!
The thoughts and inclinations of your heart shape the reality of you really are!
They shape your thinking which will ultimately shape your actions!
Proverbs 23:6-7- “Do not eat the bread of a miser, Nor desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.”
miser- someone who is extremely stingy with money. They’re greedy!
What matters is not what he says to you but what he really thinks in his heart!
There’s something that cannot be overlooked in these verses.
Who you are on the inside and what you say on the outside, don’t always line up!
Matthew 15:7-9- “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”
hypocrites- In Bible days, actors wore masks that included mechanisms for amplifying the voice. a hypocrite is one who is playacting, reading a script, or one who puts on an act. The hypocrite conceals his or her true motives under a cloak of make-believe!
You say one thing but you really don’t mean it!
(Share story of what God spoke to me while on sabbatical)
A person’s actions are not always indicative of his or her true heart!
The truth about a person is in the heart!
Did you know you believe what’s in the heart!
The thoughts and inclinations of your heart shape the reality of you really are!
They shape your thinking which will ultimately shape your actions!
“….as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”
You get what you get because you choose what you choose. You choose what you choose because you think what you think. You think what you think because you believe what you believe!
AND WHAT YOU BELIEVE COMES FROM YOUR HEART!!!! SO TO CHANGE WHAT YOU BELIEVE THERE MUST BE A CHANGE OF HEART!
Romans 10:9-11- “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”
HERE IS THE ONE POINT I WANT TO COMMUNICATE IN THIS MESSAGE!
- If Satan can’t get you to change what you believe about God he’ll try to get you to change what you believe about you!
In fact Satan is working overtime trying to get you and me to change what we believe about ourselves.
WHY? WHY? WHY?
BECAUSE YOU AND I WILL ALWAYS BEHAVE IN A WAY THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE WAY WE SEE OURSELVES!
How far we go and how far we grow is not only impacted by what we believe about God but also impacted by what I believe about myself!
Numbers 13:37- “This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces.”
IT’S JUST LIKE GOD SAID!
Numbers 13:33- “We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
I WANT TO BE LIKE CALEB!
Numbers 13:30- “But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
CONCLUSION: Let’s take the mask off today! let’s be honest about what might be going on in our heart.
I’m a failure! I can do nothing right! I’m inadequate! I’m inferior! I’ve got this weakness!
GOD’S PURPOSE IS PURSUING YOU!
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?