Alignment!!!

I heard a message recently that really pricked my heart. Here is part of the content of that message.

We must strengthen our core. Strengthening our core is like exercising: push ups, sit ups, etc.

We must begin by exercising our heart muscle. We start with our heart because it is the seat of our passion.

Our heart must beat for the same thing God’s heart beats for which is a lost and broken world.

There seems to be such a disparity of what the heart of the church beats for and what God’s heart beats for. We have to bring our heart in alignment and in sync with God’s heart.

God is putting pace makers in our heart because our heart has been beating at a wrong rhythm. We’ve been beating for the wrong things. God says if you will get your heart in sync with what His heart is in sync for it won’t be hard to be a Christian. It won’t be hard to reach a lost and broken world

Some of us need to get a stint put in our heart. We need to open up because some of us are about to have a spiritual heart attack. Our arteries are clogged, full of bitterness, full of unforgiveness, full of offense, full of hurt, full of shame and full of guilt.

When your heart is clear and pure, what happens is you love people not out of an obligation but out of a passion. You do what you want from passion. You do what you have to when it is an obligation.

Is your heart in sync with God’s heart?

A Proud Heart

How can you know that you have a problem with pride? Answer these questions.

Do you have an opinion about everything? Are you judgmental? Do you have a problem being corrected? Do you rebel against authority? Are you constantly telling stories about what you did?

Most of these traits are found in leaders. Most people equipped with leadership come prepackaged with a major spirit of pride. They just believe they are right. They think they can receive correction, but in most cases they don’t.

Psalm 101:5 …he who has a haughty look and a proud and arrogant heart I cannot and I will not tolerate.

As a leader one of the most powerful things we must do is guard against a spirit of self-righteousness, which is rooted in pride.

The enemy is going to use every opportunity to get us into an area where we develop a wrong heart. When that happens, we need to repent to God immediately.

Vision and The Heart

It’s been a busy week.  Those are the times you need to ABOVE ALL ELSE guard your heart.

I spoke with someone about the Jabez prayer and praying for God to expand their borders. I related that to my heart a few minutes later.  I saw a video entitled God of This City that was being prepared for this Sunday’s service.  I thought the borders of my heart were going to burst open. I was overwhelmed with what God wants to do in Greenville and the Upstate.  It was an incredible moment.

But as I think about it…I ask myself…what about your heart?  What is the burden that God has placed in your heart.  Every vision starts with a burden.

What is it that won’t get done if you don’t do what God has called you to do?

I encourage you to take a moment to get before God, find out what that is and then keep it before you every day. God wants to do something bigger than you. I pray that God would expand the borders of your heart so you can see what should be and could be for your life.

Open The Prison Door

Whenever you become angry with someone there is this sense that somebody owes you something.  You have entered a debt to debtor relationship.

While I was on vacation several years ago God dealt with me about some anger I had toward someone.  I had to ask myself what did they owe me…attention, recognition?  I believed I gave this person all I had, but yet never was there recognition.  In fact, it seemed like  everyone else around me received recognition and attention.  Why not me?  They owed me this!

I was reading the parable of the man who was forgiven this big huge debt, but would not forgive a little debt that was owed to him.  He had the man thrown into prison for not being able to pay his debt.

This little debt that I was trying to collect…attention…recognition…was not any different.  God asked me, “Can you release this person from prison?”  Forgiveness…something that seemed so difficult before…all of a sudden this question made forgiveness seem so simple. My answer was “yes, this is something I CAN do.”

The feelings of you owe me didn’t disappear at first, but the more  I kept reminding myself..they owe me nothing…they owe me nothing…something began to happen in my heart.  The anger began to disappear and peace began to flood my heart.

My prayer is whoever you believe owes you…that you would have the courage to open the prison door and set them free.  One thing you will find…is you become free too!

Close To You

Richard and Karen Carpenter sang a song years ago called “Close To You.”

Have you ever just really given it to someone in your family or a friend…someone “Close To You?”  Yes…those are the ones who catch the flak or are on the other end of the explosive stuff that we try so hard to keep hidden in public.

So often times on the “home front” those closest to us see what is really in our heart because we turn off the safety valve and let down our defenses.  We expose our hearts more freely to those closest to us.

We will never change our behavior until we change from the INSIDE/OUT.  Let’s start working on our heart.  Ask yourself everyday…Got any anger in your heart?  Next time we will deal with how to do that.

How’s Your Heart?

How is your heart? Not your marriage, your children,  your checkbook… but your heart!

In Matthew 15:18 Jesus said the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart. He goes on to say that out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.  Wow, that just about covers everything.

Everything comes from the heart.  Every word, every action, EVERY….THING!!!!

So our problem is not our behavior, but what is in our hearts.

If we were to spend an entire year monitoring what is in our hearts…can you imagine how different our life would be by 2011?  I believe we will begin to experience peace like never before.

Three years ago while on vacation God began dealing with me about some things I had allowed in my heart.  It was causing me to be angry at certain people in my life.  Once I started cleaning house I was amazed at how peaceful I became and how the anger began to be minimized in my life.

Over the next year I will be sharing from this blog things concerning our heart.  My hope is this will be as life changing for you as it was for me.

As we enter 2010….may our heartbeat and God’s heartbeat become one.

Let the journey begin!