| Author | Post |
|---|
Wilderness Voice
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jul 6th, 2007 |
| Location: | Arkansas USA |
| Posts: | 156 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: |    |
|
Posted: Sun Oct 14th, 2007 07:48 pm |
|
Fellow men, if we sin, it is our heart that has a problem. We love the wrong things, like the wrong things, and need to correct ourselves from these wrong loves. It is our heart that needs to change. We should find no pleasure in unrighteousness, but rather delight in doing God’s will. If we have pleasure in being unrighteous, then we have not received a real love for the truth.
Matt. 15:19-20 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man:
Roms. 1:24-26 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections:
II Thess. 2: 10-13 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
Col. 3:1-5 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Matt.6:20-21 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matt. 22:36-40 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
John.15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
Create in me a clean heart O God, renew a right spirit within me!
Continuing to pray for the men crying out in bondage in Egypt,
These things are all matters of the heart.
May the Day Star arise in your hearts. May Christ give you Light.
Wilderness Voice
Pss.40:8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
|
TimM
Member
| Joined: | Thu Jul 5th, 2007 |
| Location: | Rural Midwest, USA |
| Posts: | 180 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Tue Oct 16th, 2007 04:00 pm |
|
I've been sitting on this one waiting for somebody else to start the dialogue because I haven't been quite clear what the right response is, but now that it's aged a few days and nobody else has spoken, let me try.
I think there a couple of things to like about this emphasis on the heart.
We often think as addicts that what we have is a problem of the will. If I just start resolving to do the right things, then I can fix myself. We think of ourselves as rational actors making bad choices. For me, though, resolving that I had acted out for the last time and would never do it again - fighting the problem on the level of reason and will - never worked at all.
If the problem is a deeper problem of the heart, then equally the solution needs to be deeper. I may be able just to decide to act differently; I can't just decide to love differently. I need to go deep inside myself to discern why my heart is defective and how to restore it to wholeness, and I need the help of others to show me that having a new heart is possible, and I need a willingness to surrender my heart to Christ in a new and deeper way. I need the courage and trust to dare to experience my own heart - my own fears and my own pain - and to believe that this process will not kill me, but that through it I can be led to wholeness. All of this makes sense to me, and agrees with my own experience in recovery so far.
The quotation I found particularly apt here was Christ's injunction to love God with all our hearts. When I am trapped in active addiction, my heart and my consciousness are inherently divided. I desperately want my fix; I also desperately want to be free of the need for my fix. I want to love God; I also want to hold on to my own control and to my familiar, safe dysfunction.
In recovery, I'm not looking for the strength to resist temptation. I'm seeking restoration to a promordial wholeness. I'm working to return to a place where I have one heart, in which I am at peace with all the aspects of myself that I have cut off from one another in my addictive fragmentation, in which I have a whole being that can be turned over to Christ.
At least, that's what your analysis said to me. Thanks.
Tim M.
|
Seeking God
Member
| Joined: | Wed Aug 15th, 2007 |
| Location: | Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Posts: | 220 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sun Oct 21st, 2007 06:00 pm |
|
Hi WV,
It's great to hear a heart that Loves the Word like yours.
God bless!
|
guitarist63
Member
| Joined: | Mon Feb 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 973 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sun Mar 23rd, 2008 01:49 pm |
|
This is a good sermon which challenges me to examine my heart and to see what is there. What is my love for God? How deep and is it sincere? Is it selfishly motivated for the preservation of the soul unto eternal life? Why am I not free of sexual sin? How can a heart love God and love the flesh? It can't be. Yet, I desire to love God, obey His commandments, love my neighbour, do all that would please Him.
I am dismayed and wretched.
Last edited on Sun Mar 23rd, 2008 10:22 pm by guitarist63
|
Current time is 05:39 am | |
|
|
|
RSS