25 /05/ 2014
MOW-TS
Improving our Spiritual Understanding
Theme: Your Heart is very Important: Examine it.
Memory Verse:
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh ( Matt 12:34b)
Beloved,
Please, never forget that our hearts are very important when fighting our life battles. A pastor strongly affiliated to MOW recently wrote a message on: The heart of the matter! I would encourage you to read it.
The moment you become truly born again in Christ, God gives you a NEW heart, to enable you relate to Him, totally obey Him, and to enable you handle life issues. Prophet Ezekiel tells us this much:
“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” (Ezekiel 36:26).
Why is the heart so important? According Jesus, this is because there is nothing outside a man, that defile a man, but what comes from inside (Mark 7:15). Again, Jesus says:
“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies( Matt 15:19). ” These are the things which defile a man” ( Verse 20).
It is good to have the understanding that this new heart God is talking about is a spiritual heart. As we already know, man exists at three broad levels: Body, Soul and Spirit (1 Thess 5:23). This enables man to operate and function at physical, mental and spiritual realms. So, in essence, there is: the physical heart, the mental heart and the spiritual heart. Your physical heart is easy to see. Your mental heart is the image, imagination or mental picture that you hold of your heart. Your spiritual heart is the vital link between you and God, who is entirely a Spirit ( John 4:24). God mainly relates to our spiritual hearts. He examines a man through his heart (1 Sam 16:7). Spiritually speaking, it is our heart that thinks and speaks, and we are the sum total of our thoughts: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he( Prov 23:7).
Prophet Jeremiah tells us that
our original heart is inherently wicked: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? ( Jer 17:9).
Following the disobedience and fall of man, God himself saw that the HEART of man was inherently wicked:
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his HEART was only evil continually (Gen 6:5).
Brethren, without a “spiritual heart transplant”( Empowerment), you will really struggle to serve God in a way that will please Him. This empowerment can only come from God by grace, but you have to ask God for it in humility ( John 1:12; James 1:5).
Brother Paul Admonishes us in his epistle to the Philippians to daily fill our hearts with heavenly stuff:
” Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Phil 4:8).
We encourage everyone ready this message, who is not yet affiliated to MOW and AHF to fully join us and to gather with us by putting the thoughts of their hearts into writing, for uploading at the websites so that others may benefit. Jesus says:
He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad (Matt 12:30).
Prayer: May God give us the grace of honesty and sincerity in examining our hearts in Jesus mighty name. Amen.
Have a Spirit-filled week in Jesus name. Amen.