Is your heart healthy or unhealthy

1Peter 5:5 states, “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” The word resists is antitassomai: meaning, to oppose oneself, be opposite, to be rewarded in like kind or be addicted.

God has decreed that, those who operate with a spirit of pride in their life are continually opposing themselves, reap the consequences of their decisions and have become addicted to a condition which stops God from communicating His truths into their spiritual ears. There is an old saying that I heard many years ago that states, “The meaning of insanity is doing something the same way continually and hoping to come up with a different results.” Now there are two ways of interpreting 1Peter 5:5. One way is with the law mentality of our old nature that we were delivered from the day we became saved. On the other hand, we can interpret this scripture with our new nature that we received the day we became born again.

If we interpret this with our old nature, we come to the conclusion that, God is not pleased and He will fight and oppose us in some form or fashion. Now the exact opposite of this is the truth. God has laws of life that He put into motion from the beginning of time. Whatever we sow into our thought life and act out in our behavior contrary or agreeable to any one of God’s ordained laws, we will reap the consequences. We need to realize that when God swears by anything it is an absolute because, He is the Author of all things and the final judge and there is no one greater than He.

Scripture tells us that, God does not want us to get even and avenge ourselves. We at times berate ourselves because; we believe we have done something stupid. We need to be reminded that, at times we are our worst enemy. He tells us that, if your enemy is hungry or thirsty give him food or drink. By us doing this we will heap coals of fire on his head. We are not to get even, but to overcome evil with good works. Let us reason a little bit here. Does God tell us to act or do something a different way then He does? This idea of putting coals of fire on a persons head sounds like a good way of torturing and getting even with our enemies.

Let me redefine this statement with the true interpretation of scripture. In the Middle East when a traveler was journeying through the desert at night, they would have a burning candle over their heads to light their way before them. At times the candle would go out and as they would pass some ones tent or abode, it was the custom whether you knew these people or not to relight their candle from their campfire. I had been saved 10 years before I ever became aware of the meaning of this verse. As I said, by us not understanding the meaning of God’s way of dealing with people, we have done some atrocious abusing to people and ourselves in our ignorance of not know the true meaning of scripture.

Now I said all this, to show a simple example of how God deals with us through His mercy and grace and this is how He conforms us to His way of thinking. If our spiritual candle of understanding has become dim or we have never matured in our Christian walk after being saved for years, and are resisting God from pouring His grace into our lives; God stays faithful and true and has always been ready to brighten up our candle of discernment in spite of the fact that, we have been our worst enemy. A person that does not understand his righteous position in Christ will stay his worst enemy all of his life.

Scripture tells us that if our heart condemns us, God is greater and more loving then we are of ourselves and it is His intension to give us His best in spite of ourselves. If we really want to become like Jesus we are going to have to allow the Holy Spirit to influence our hearts. It’s us getting in touch with ourselves and coming to understand what God means in Proverbs 5:20-23 when He says, “My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For, they are life to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Keep yourself alert and above all shield your heart for out of it flows the nourishment we need to make ourselves whole.” When we say heart, we are talking about our thought life, which controls our feelings or emotions and where the center of our character is being formed. I have encountered too many Christians living with unresolved issues and hurts of the past that have kept them cripples most of their lives.

I am totally convinced that if a person is a born again believer, has the Holy Spirit living on the inside of them, and is living with a sick heart condition and is unfulfilled in their Christian experience, it has to be that they have never been discipled and made secure in their position in Jesus Christ. If the body of Christ ever comes to recognize the freedom and power, they possess as God’s children and the desire that God has for them to explore their relationship without judgment by Him; the acts of the Apostles will be revisited as it is described in the New Testament.

I personally have become as a man possessed by the freedom I have to explore and have a running relationship with the Holy Spirit moment by moment. As a born again believer it is obvious that, if there is not a joyful testimony and anticipation with in you for God to show up in your life and you are not sharing with others the rich relationship you have in Christ, I have to say that your heart is sick.

Scripture is very clear when God’s says, “my people are perishing for a lack of vision and knowledge of their purpose and the power with in them to function in what I want for them.” The ignorance and lack of understanding of Gods holding power with in the Christians I have encountered is staggering.

It seems even in most Christian programming on television that, there is more preaching on giving to God to get enough money to live on, preaching on our wrong behavioral habits, Old Testament history lessons, a cavalcade of stars, different singers, preachers and teachers etc.

Scripture tells us that where we have religious law doctrines being preached or taught in Christians circles, it contaminates our soul to keep our hearts sick because, it fills our minds and emotions with the spirit of pride.

Jesus as He walked and taught with His disciples had to reprove them on occasions for their attitudes of pride when they wanted to inflict God’s judgment in their own strength, when the people did not respond correctly in their own eyes. Jesus said. “Don’t you realize what spirit is motivating you? It is the spirit of the Devil. I came to heal and save mankind not to condemn and bring judgment on them.”

Our heart is like a reservoir that stores water. There are many references in the bible where Jesus is referred to as the water of life. Scripture tells us that out of a man’s heart comes bitter and sweet water. He says that this should not be so. We see many examples in scripture where born again people and those not born again were being influenced by the Holy Spirit and the Devil to act upon thoughts coming from opposing persuasions.

Our minds are being bombarded daily with thoughts for good or evil on an intense pace as never before in history. It is only us being focused and hungry for a relationship with the Holy Spirit, which will make us able to counter this demonic influence in these last days. This idea of our hearts being a reservoir means that, there has to be a continues flow of clean clear water that does not become stagnant. Scripture tells us that we must be going through a cleansing process of us having our minds being renewed and being constantly cleansed by the washing of God’s word in our thought life. Having said all that, do we realize that pride in all of its many forms is the sin of idolatry and the worship of self. It is a deep implanted root in that area of our heart where only God wants to have the seat of final and total authority.

When we in any form in our own strength try to clean up our acts through religious activities or are never discipled and shown through example what it means to have a reverential fear of the Lord, there can be no maturity in our Christian lives. The basic drive and foundation of the Devil’s make up is pride. His whole personality and strength is having a prideful spirit.

The definition of pride in a negative sense is, being boastful, or having an excessive vanity and a higher opinion of your own abilities and having a feeling of being superior over others. In a positive sense, it is having a proper feeling of personal dignity and self worth.

The definition of humility is the state of being modest and meek, meaning long suffering and gentle, being real and not showy, teachable and easily approachable. If you have ever really taken a good look at human nature and studied your own behavior at any time, with a soul-searching attitude of attaining perfection of any kind. You have to come to the conclusion that pride in its negative sense is not only a stench in God’s nostrils, but as well to us the people who have to deal with it in its many forms, in others and ourselves.

The spirit of pride in all its ugly forms comes from a spirit of jealousy. When we express jealousy, we become resentful and suspicious of a rival or become hostile and envious over the advantages and good fortune of others. Us participating and co-operating with this spirit makes us live in a continual environment of strife or (strong opposition) in our relationships with God and others in everything we do.

Isaiah 14:12-14, tells us that, “Lucifer who is defined as the light bringer, son of the morning meaning, (with great diligence and total purpose to do evil to humanity) fell from heaven to earth and became the ruler over this world system and now he has the capability to weaken and destroy human natures intense purpose to seek the Lord.” He became jealous of all God had because of the adoration God received from all the other heavenly beings. Because of this, he was thrown out of heaven with all of the other angels who sided with him.

Therefore, we see here that the original author of pride comes from the nature of Satan himself and if we submit to this spirit, rather to the Spirit of God, it puts us cross wise from God’s nature and within our soul, it brings an addiction that controls our thought life and actions.

We were born with a fallen nature that had been contaminated by Satan in the Garden of Eden when our first Grandfather who ate from the Tree of Good and Evil. When we became born again and received Jesus into our heart, we received a new life and our now capable through the workings of the Holy Spirit in us, to be delivered from the infection of the pride nature we inherited at birth.

Prior to being saved our spiritual father was the Devil because we were born with his fallen nature. Remember he was thrown out of heaven because he wanted to be like God, he had his own ideas how to mature himself, and he became a god unto himself.

When scripture says, we have to dye to self to become more Christ like; it means that, we are constantly being weaned off the pride nature we inherited at birth. Our spirit came alive when we accepted Christ however, our soul has to mature and be influenced by our spirit, which needs to be governed by the mind of Christ we received on our second birth from above. 11Cor. 5:17 states, “Therefore for us who have been born again and are in Jesus Christ, we have become a new creature and our old nature that we were born with has passed away and all things have become new.”

In the sixth chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us that, the focus of our thought life and what we consider to be the goals and purposes for our lives will tell us what condition are our heart is in. Now we can talk about all the things that we have to do or not do to mature and stay healthy. However as I am writing this letter, I am empressed to say that, if your heart is sick, you will not be able to change a thing. Only us having a hungry heart gives us the capacity to change. God tells us in scripture that we have to have a blessed heart to mature and stay healthy.

Blessed means, you have come to the realization that without a vital nourishing life in Christ, nothing else will ever satisfy your longing for satisfaction and give you the power to cope with life’s issues. Without this vision and purpose, you will not have a desire and without a desire, you aren’t able to go forward and have a closer relationship with Him. This is why the first act of obedience after accepting Christ is found in Mathew 6:33 where Jesus says. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things will be added to you.”

Having this blessed attitude in our hearts is defined in James 3:17. It says, “Our way of reasoning will be like God’s wisdom and reasoning. First, it will be pure or not religious. It will be loving, searching for peace, considerate and gentle. It will listen to reason (meaning hungry for truth) rather than trying to always prove your own point. You will be a ready listener and able to identify yourself with other peoples searching for God. It also says that you will have a very giving spirit of support with incites of wisdom or finances, depending on the need. You will be straightforward (no lies), non-judgmental, but patient and unafraid. The outcome of this attitude produces freedom from doubt, being double minded (always not sure, having many opinions) and not being real.” Now all this definition of blessed represents only us being a hearer of the word of God. We now have to become doers of the word to maintain this attitude or heart condition.

The beginning of doing does not start with witnessing, going to church, giving or preaching and so on because we think we have to help God out to stay saved. Now although these may be the end results through the Holy Spirit leading, we first have to spend time and learn to interact with the Holy Spirit. This healthy attitude is us daily having a running conversation with Him is the only kind of heart preparation in which we can receive and participate with God’s nature. The Holy Spirits working power with in us keeps us hungry in our seeking after Him. This will then cause us to want to have real fellowship, gather and visit each other in our homes, share our everyday experiences in the market places with people, and pray one for another.

Well we now know the type of heart and how we need to prepare it for us to receive God’s revelation of His thoughts and attitudes, so we can walk in His Spiritual Kingdom. This creates in us a humble heart. Scripture tells us that having a humble heart, we can now have our senses exposed by God and participate in a deeper understanding of God because, we are better coming to understand God’s total acceptance of us. In reality, we are becoming His children who can now begin to eat meat rather than staying milk babies.

We said earlier that, the definition of humility is the state of being modest and meek, meaning long suffering and gentle, being real and not showy, and teachable and easily approached. I really think that most born again believers do not realize that, there are areas in their lives, where they are addicted to behavior that is based solely on self-centered passions.

It is like having inner secrets from ourselves that we do not want God to bring to the surface so He can heal them. It is so critical that we have the gift of discernment operating in the church today. There are painful areas where people have suffered physical or psychological abuse in some form in their past and they end up closing off those feelings because of the pain of opening old wounds. Scripture tells us that God is the healer of all things and He is the one that can restore what the cankor worm has eaten.

If we want God to heal these types of wounds in us, we are going to have to first make a small commitment, come out from our hidden denials, and allow God to at least put a finger on these hurtful areas of our hearts. This is where we have mature Christians in the body of Christ who have the sensibilities and the gifts to operate in this arena of God’s Kingdom.

This type of ministry is badly needed if things are ever going to change in the family of God. Those of us, who see this, must explore this gift and look for every possibility to share a word of wisdom to the people God brings into our path to be ministered to.

Jesus in Matthew 18:3-6 defines the attitude of humility when He says, “Unless you change your mind on things going on in your life and become as a little child by (trusting, loving and forgiving) it will be impossible for you to actively participate in my kingdom. When you allow me to conform you to this position, you will be the greatest in my kingdom. In turn this will make you recognize that you are not alone in your walk with me because, you will recognize all of my other children and when you accept them you will be receiving Me.”

Trusting, loving and forgiving to me is a monumental task. I believe that it is us focusing on these three words that keep us with a humble heart as we bow our hearts and bend our knee to a God, who sent His best love gift to us in Jesus. He did this without really knowing if, any one would accept what He did for them at the cross. You cannot fathom what I said here if, you have not been enlightened, consciously tasted, fellowshipped with the Holy Spirit, felt how good the word of God is and got a glimpse of God’s power and the world He has planned for us. If you haven’t been participating in your righteous position in Christ, it is very easy. Just a simple call to Him and a heart felt cry that you need Him.