Author: James Bell
Message preached in Sapulpa, OK in September, 2005.
I believe we have no clue where our heart is. We say we love the Lord; but our actions and words show our heart is not with the Lord at all. Where is your heart? Matt 6:21 Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.
To have heart it is like this: when you get a job, your employer wants you to have your whole heart in it. The opposite of this is a mechanical act although you feel it a drudgery. The scripture says, what ever you do, do it heartily (wholeheartedly, energy, zeal, and friendliness) as unto the Lord. Having heart is investing yourself into it by putting your will and your mind in it.
We are living in a heartless age. People just don’t care. People are so amused that they have quit thinking and envisioning important aspects of their life. Jesus came to turn the hearts of the fathers toward their children. Luke 1:17 You may be estranged from someone who should have your heart. Many have lost the love and the energy for their families. Homes and marriages are lacking heart. We are suffering as a society today because of our lack of “heart”. We are in perilous times. Men are without natural affection for their wives and children. People are walking out of their homes, leaving children with “butcher knives” through their little hearts. Children are hardened because of heartless parents.
Where is your heart? What is it like? Are you always thinking about who you are, what can you do to impress, or what do you look like? Prov. 28:26 says, “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool”. Your own ideas and desires are not the best guide. You may not feel there is anything wrong with what you are doing. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” Simply because you don’t feel it is wrong doesn’t mean that it isn’t.
We must ask God to reveal his ways to us. His ways are above our ways. You can deceive yourself. You can lose something true because your heart is desperately wicked. Where is the seed of your thoughts, affections, and emotions? Are you fantasizing beauty that you don’t have? Are you making yourself somebody you’re really not? What we think we are and who we are can be a big gap in difference. Ask the Lord to help you find your heart. Who are you trying to please? Is your heart on “Me, My and Mine”?
A wild and rebellious heart is not turned to serving others. Have you been tamed by the dealings of God? Have you surrendered your restless heart? Have you hid yourself from your own flesh because you don’t care? Don’t hide yourself from your own family. We are sometimes so big in our own eyes and have such an inflated ego, that we don’t know how to turn our hearts toward others.
When God shines his light of truth in us, let us yield to him. Prov 23:26, “My son, give me thine heart and let thine eyes observe my ways” God is crying out, “stop trying to hide your heart from me”. “Stop, look at me, and let me show you what you need to know about yourself”. The only way we’re going to see ourselves, is by giving all our heart to God to allow Him to control and examine it; then we will begin to prosper and understand. He knows everything anyway.
Consistency in our walk will be determined by our honesty. If you are up and down, you have been hiding your whole heart from God. Our success lies in opening up totally to God and surrendering completely to whatever means he uses to teach us. What kind of trials and hardships has he allowed to break up your hardened ground? We must learn to be glad for the “goats” that God sends our way to teach us some things.
Luke 6:19, The rich man faired sumptuously everyday. He was smug and invested a lot in his pomp and show. His heart was wretched and he didn’t even know it.
Mark 7:6, “These people honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me”. He told them their traditions were vain. Where is your energy and your concern? It seems that we can barely get to church, barely sing, barely lead out in prayer. Yet, we are so proud and lifted up thinking, “we have the truth”. What do we really have down in our heart?
A surrendered heart is vivacious, real, healthy, has a life giving force, free flowing, moving, new, fresh, constantly changing getting rid of the old and taking on the form of Christ. Has your soul been awakened? I want to live and fellowship with people that have real life and heart, don’t you?
Psalms 19:7 – 12. “The statues of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes”. We want God to enlightened us personally. People are tired of left over revelations because they don’t want something chewed up and passed down. Sometimes those are a dead testimony with no real joy and peace. We don’t want our lives founded on something old and digested by someone else. We don’t want second hand understanding. Our souls want to be awakened to understand God’s truth for ourselves and have that personal relationship that gives one heart and happiness. Let us be stirred to find our heart.
“Who can understand his errors? Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me” Your heart can trick you with false assumptions that will back you into a pocket of individualism. Come out of your own small world that causes you to look around defensively and run for your life out of those haunts of independent, self gratified religion. Come out with your hands up. They are prisons of isolation. What you think you are doing for God may be a castle of pride that paralyzes you from serving others and seeing the real intentions of God’s heart.
When one is first born again we have life and vitality. No one wants to be stillborn but alive and transformed by his love and alive unto God, however, not just changed to be like somebody else.
“The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” There maybe wickedness in high religious places and sinful but influential leaders standing in the way up stream; but don’t follow man. False doctrine will contaminate your heart. Worrying about what people say will stifle your emotions and heart felt zeal for God. Don’t drink muddy waters presuming that it’s OK. The psalmist said, “Let not error have dominion over me”. We must come straight and clean with him to be able to make good learners or disciples.
Finding your heart will make you true and humble. Brethren, awaken yourselves and find out where your heart is. God will give you what you want. Ask him to reveal your own heart to you. You can ask for self-gratifying things and God will give you the desires of your heart. Psalms 106:15 “God gave them their request but sent leanness to their souls”. We won’t make it to heaven getting our own way. Isaiah 29:8 He promised emptiness to those who fought against mount Zion. Be willing to find your heart and let him transform you. He promised in, Ezek 36:26, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.” Praise the Lord!
