The Heart is deceitful?

"The heart is deceitful above ALL things AND beyond cure, who can understand it?" Jer 17:9

I came across this verse several weeks ago when I was reading about righteousness and the imagery of trees in the Bible.  I love how God says things in such a way that they become alive, real and relevant to our hearts right now.  When I read the above verse I agreed with the question, who can understand  it, and this bothered me more.

I heard a recent sermon "For those to Good for Jesus".  I have met people like that and always struggle with how to show them we all need Jesus.  At some point of the sermon Jeremiah 17:9 came to mind along with Luke 10:27 "Jesus said ' Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself."   What does our heart have to do with what we think of ourselves and others?  Should we not trust our heart?  Isn't that where God lives?  If I don't trust my heart than how will I know what is right and what is wrong?  It doesn't help that at this same time one of our teenagers is struggling with this very thing and trying to personalize their faith in the process.  It is horrifying to watch someone else struggle with heart issues, knowing that my help isn't what they seek.

The deceitful heart is only mentioned one other time in the Bible, Hosea 10:3.  After comparing Hosea and Jeremiah I found that in each instance either corporately or individually a human was put on the throne of their hearts.  This was evident in self-confidence, government power, wealth, and/or military power.  The hearts of many people loved the comforts and instant gratification the flesh had awarded them.  These same hearts soon found death, destruction, pain, desolation, anger, hurt on every level of the human experience.  Who can understand our heart?  God and Satan.  They war for our hearts.  Satan has a head start because we are born with sin and deceit in our hearts.  The easy or wide path is to remain on the ride of worldly pleasure that comes easy and with little pain but costs our entire life and is fleeting in its pleasure.

Our heart is also where love pours out.  God is Love.  He too is in our hearts but we have to choose who we will allow our hearts to serve.  God or Satan.  God will not stay where Satan lives.  He despises sin, evil, hate.  We can not understand our hearts. So to have confidence in our ability to balance sin and love is selfishness at its peak!  I have seen ultimate selfishness and it does not bring the confident one joy, peace, or any other fruits of the spirit because God will bow out and let you try and run your heart.  This gives Satan free reign to use your heart to reach others and cause them to love themselves.

How do we cure our heart?  We don't. There is no cure. Healing is possible only if you are willing to look to the Creator of your heart (Psalm 139) and accept His self less mercy and amazing grace.  When you find healing your heart will overflow with the Truth found in unfailing love your Creator gives. You can receive this unfailing love by believing the Truth found in His Word - God Confidence not Self Confidence.

Lord, help me to love you unfailingly with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength and all my mind.  Be King of my heart every moment of my days. In You may my confidence rest. Amen.

Mind Warrior

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:4-9

HOW do we wage war with our minds?  The best defense in any war is a strong offense.  Last entry I spoke of the Helmet of Salvation we are told to our arm ourselves with everyday of life on earth.  The helmet is to guard our minds, the door to our hearts.  How do we guard our minds.  Simply put, garbage in garbage out.  The quickest way for Satan to convince you to succomb to temptation is mentally.  He convinces you that it isn't really a sin.  There are plenty examples in the Bible starting at the very beginning with Eve.  "Thats not what He meant. Just this once.  It isn't bad for me."  All things we use to excuse our bad choice.

We need to guard our minds and hone them to sharp weapons against sin.  We need to be able to identify sin for what it is and flee from it.  When Satan tries to cast doubt we need to have in our arsenal the truth to extinguish the flaming arrows of doubt.  How do we guard our minds?  "In every situation, with PRAYER and petition, with thanksgiving, present our requests to God."  Talk to God, KNOW Him through His word and hide it in your heart.  THINK on true, right, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy things - not the garbage, lies and doubts of this world.  HOW does this guard your mind?  Paul tells us when we look to God in prayer and think on his truth "The peace of GOD will guard our hearts adn minds in CHRIST JESUS!"

So it is simple really Think on things of God and SHILOH will protect your mind AND heart in Christ Jesus.  Fellow Warrior, put on your armour and SHILOH be with you. Amen.

Mind Warrior

3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  
2 Corinthians 10

This last week a prominent topic has been battle, drawing the line, protecting whom God has put in our sphere of influence, standing firm so not to cause others to stumble and suffer!  Rarely is there a person we can identify to battle against.  Often it is against powers unseen; laws, ideas, temptations, music, technology, time, momentary choices (2Cor4).  Our front line of defense is our minds.

When our children were younger we identified there minds as the place we needed to take a stand.  So we home schooled each of them during the middle school years to provide a safe harbor for them to grow and develop mentally, emotionally and ultimately spiritually.  Obviously, the hope was that when they returned for their High School careers they would be fully armed and ready to take a stand for right as far as it concerned them, in their sphere.

The last month we, as parents, have been waging a fierce battle on behalf of our High School children and the ideas of this world.  I have believed and experienced the realm we can not see and long to be there with my Lord.  I have known of the Armour God has given us so that we might take a stand where He has put us for a time such as this.  Yet, just today I have seen all that God intended for me to know in Ephesians 6:10-17, The Armour of God.  First of all He says WHEN the day of evil comes, not if.  He reminds us that our struggle isn't against flesh and blood but this dark world and evil in the heavenly realms. The first three pieces of armour are listed together, Belt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness and Shoes of Peace.  All three are issued to us when we claim Jesus as Savior.  He will speak Truth to us.  We will seem as righteousness to God because of His cleansing blood and we are full of His Peace when we receive assurance of His salvation.  The shield of Faith stands alone and is one you choose to take up.  You choose to have Faith that God stands with you and gives you power to extinguish the lies satan throws at you.  Finally, we are reminded of the Helmet of Salvation and the Sword of God's Word.  They are the offensive weapons freely given when asked for, invaluable to standing firm.  Think of the helmets of armour worn by knights, how they covered the whole head and protected what was within - life.  

I became keenly aware of the purpose of the helmet this morning during our devotions.  The helmet makes me think of Professor Xavier in Xmen.  His mind had such extreme power that needed to be contained to protect himself and others.  Such power as to bring life and take life.  His mind could do wonderful good and horrendous evil.  Ours too.  Paul reminds us of all that Jesus warned us about.  Our mind, our offensive weapon, can not be contained on our own but ONLY with the helmet of God's Salvation.  May we all be humble enough to adorn the helmet of Salvation and wield wisely the power God gives us with it.  How refreshing it is to realize that there comes a point when there is nothing more we are able to do then rely on the Armour He gives willing to those who claim Him as Savior.