We are so concerned about the outward things. God is more concerned about the inward things like our hearts. When it comes to your health, if your heart is in bad shape, it will limit you to some degree. If we could only understand that our spiritual heart is also just as important. When God looks at you, he does not look at your face, or the size of your body, or the bigness of your IQ. When God looks at you, he looks at your heart.
We like to fix our hair, and make our bodies and faces look just as attractive as we can make them. We do so because we know that man judges us by these things. We need to keep in mind that God does not look at these external things when he sees us. God looks at our heart. The condition of your spiritual heart is the difference between life and death...the difference between light and dark...the difference between faith and doubt. Everything in your life springs up out of your heart.
Our lives can get so messed up because our heart is messed up.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
The good and the bad things in our lives make up the issues of our lives. Those issues in your life, if they are good, or, if they are bad, sprang up out of YOUR heart. How many messes are we in because of the bad choices that we made? Many people spend two or three decades following the desires of our hearts, making one bad choice after another. Then when they finally turn and give our lives to God, they expect him to bring them out of that mess like RIGHT NOW. I counseled a young man once who was complaining that God had not done as much for him as he had expected because he still had a lot of problems though he had served God for a couple of years. As I talked to him, I found out he had spent 20 years getting himself into a deeper and deeper mess, had half way followed God for two years, and wanted to know why God hadn't fixed all his mess yet. If you are ready to 'give up' on God because he hasn't met your expectations, you were never serving him as God in the first place. Some people treat their relationship with God like a poker game. If God is going to help stack their deck, they want all he's got, but, if they get a flat hand they are ready to fold. God requires a greater faith, and commitment level than this.
Those issues in your life, they came up out of your heart. We always want to think that our issues are the result of somebody else that needs to change. If only our eyes could be opened to realize that it is MY heart that needs to change. I am reminded of Corry Ten Boom. She was arrested by the Nazi's and put into a death camp. She wasn't not treated well at all, yet, she was able to show the love of Jesus and was a witness for God's love inside the camp. When are we going to learn that, "This JOY that I have, the world didn't give it to me, and the world can't take it away." That means, no matter what that OTHER person is doing, I can walk in the righteousness, peace, and joy of the HOLY GHOST in spite of their persecution and hurt. By doing what is good, you can OVER COME evil.
I am reminded of Paul and Silas, they were thrown into jail at midnight, and not because they had sinned, but because they preached the gospel. Did it become an issue for them? NO. They were in there singing and having a good time, praying, singing, rejoicing in God. Why wasn't it an issue for them. Because ISSUES spring up out of your heart, they don't come from your circumstances. The jails back then were nasty, dirty, infested places. They didn't have an issue with it, wasn't nobody singing no jail house blues. Most of us would have had an issue with that, but they didn't, because there was NO ISSUES in their hearts. When you ain't got no issues in your heart, it don't matter what this old world throws at you. You are going to be like Paul and Silas, ready to go on serving God in righteousness, peace, and joy of the Holy Ghost. Why? Because issues don't spring up out of your circumstances, issues spring up out of your heart. Somebody needs to catch that, and I think someone just did.
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