I love that picture of a heart, but it's very deceiving.. The image that we have of a heart is one that our culture has told us is very pure. People are always commanding that we follow our hearts, but ask yourself, "What's in my heart?" A theme in this generation is that our hearts are filled with lust, envy, hatred, anger. But is their away we can change that? Last night me and Dennis were having an interesting conversation about the evolution of a believer. We both agreed that the life of a believer should be one full of progress, although it is one full of failure also.
"For a just man falls seven times, and rises up again: but the wicked shall fall by calamity." -Proverbs 24:16
Yes, that's right the Christian falls, and not only do we fall once, we fall multiple times. But I believe that the Christian should never utterly falls. That meaning we should never allow our failures to separate us from our God. As soon as we fall we get back up, we pray harder, we fast harder, we run our spiritual race harder. Use your failure as a way to motivate you to do better. We often think to ourselves, "Woe is me, I can never do any better than this." Uh, I'm letting you know that's a lie. You can. The enemy doesn't want you to believe that you are bound to your sin forever, but as believers we are not bound to sin, we are bound to Christ!
Jesus says that if we look at a woman (or man) with lust we've committed adultery. If we hate our brother or sister we've already committed murder. Sin is not simply the act of doing something wrong in your body, it's something more than that. It's deeper. In order to identify sin in our life we have to look with our spiritual eyes because sin agrees with our flesh but for the believer it disagrees with our spirit. Notice I said for the believer. It is the Holy Spirit's job to come and change our heart's and release us from the bondage of sin, so our hearts can never really be free without Him.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”- Matthew 11:28-30
"Well Jared, I given my heart to Christ, I pray, I read my Word. What's the issue? Why am I still bound to this sin?" This World is a tough World to live in. A lot of the times we have to harden our hearts to survive and in the process of putting a wall up around our hearts, we harden our hearts towards God. God can only come into the hearts of those who are willing to let Him in. Is your heart hard towards God? Do you allow Him into those places in your heart where you don't even allow the people closes to you in? This is why we are continually growing as a Christian... The further we go in our Christian walk, the more we begin to trust God. The process of getting to trust God may take some longer than others. Some people may take months and year while others may take days. The whole idea of being a Christian is not being perfect (although we try and fail), it's to get better. Whatever you do don't be comfortable where you are at with your walk with God. Strive to get to know Him better everyday, don't be bound in stagnant water. Ask God to come into your heart and change your heart.
-Jared
Yes, that's right the Christian falls, and not only do we fall once, we fall multiple times. But I believe that the Christian should never utterly falls. That meaning we should never allow our failures to separate us from our God. As soon as we fall we get back up, we pray harder, we fast harder, we run our spiritual race harder. Use your failure as a way to motivate you to do better. We often think to ourselves, "Woe is me, I can never do any better than this." Uh, I'm letting you know that's a lie. You can. The enemy doesn't want you to believe that you are bound to your sin forever, but as believers we are not bound to sin, we are bound to Christ!
Jesus says that if we look at a woman (or man) with lust we've committed adultery. If we hate our brother or sister we've already committed murder. Sin is not simply the act of doing something wrong in your body, it's something more than that. It's deeper. In order to identify sin in our life we have to look with our spiritual eyes because sin agrees with our flesh but for the believer it disagrees with our spirit. Notice I said for the believer. It is the Holy Spirit's job to come and change our heart's and release us from the bondage of sin, so our hearts can never really be free without Him.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”- Matthew 11:28-30
"Well Jared, I given my heart to Christ, I pray, I read my Word. What's the issue? Why am I still bound to this sin?" This World is a tough World to live in. A lot of the times we have to harden our hearts to survive and in the process of putting a wall up around our hearts, we harden our hearts towards God. God can only come into the hearts of those who are willing to let Him in. Is your heart hard towards God? Do you allow Him into those places in your heart where you don't even allow the people closes to you in? This is why we are continually growing as a Christian... The further we go in our Christian walk, the more we begin to trust God. The process of getting to trust God may take some longer than others. Some people may take months and year while others may take days. The whole idea of being a Christian is not being perfect (although we try and fail), it's to get better. Whatever you do don't be comfortable where you are at with your walk with God. Strive to get to know Him better everyday, don't be bound in stagnant water. Ask God to come into your heart and change your heart.
-Jared