Tag Archives: scripture

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To The Pure in Heart

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Matthew 5:8 NIV “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

What does it mean to be “pure in heart”? “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.” Titus 1:15. What is in your mind, what is on your conscience? Do your thoughts run to things that lead to temptation, or to see the bad in others? That is an unclean heart, and (dare I say it!), unbelieving heart. If we truly believed that God is who He says He is and that we are who He says we are, as His children, we wouldn’t harbor those thoughts. If our own conscience is clear, we don’t tend to search for sin in other’s lives. We weren’t put here to be the “sin police”. We were put here to love others and to show them the Father, just like Jesus did. Now that doesn’t mean that we “wink” at sin, or deny it. But our purpose is to help deliver them from their sin, to show them the way to Jesus so that they can be cleansed from their sin.

There are so many benefits to maintaining a pure heart. Job 17:9 (AMP) “Yes shall the righteous-those upright and in right standing with God- hold to His way, and he who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.” In Job 24:3 God’s word continues with, “Who shall go up into the mountains of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up in falsehood, or to what is false, not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing rom the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” Do you want to hold to God’s way? To receive a blessing from the Lord? To be able to stand in God’s holy place? Then keep your heart pure.

Jesus said that is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out. The Pharisees where complaining that Jesus’ disciples hadn’t washed their hands before eating. In todays society where everything is antibiotic from soap, lotions, detergents, and baby wipes, where we are so concerned about germs that we are killing off good bacteria and the bad stuff is becoming immune to the antibodies, shouldn’t we be concerned about what is already inside of us and trying to spew forth? “For our of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Matthew 12:34).

We can sometimes be more concerned about what we shouldn’t eat, watch, listen to, etc., and I am not saying that isn’t important. But more important is that our hearts are right. Search your heart and see if there is something in there that needs to be removed. Surrender your heart to God. Allow His Spirit to look in those places that even you have been afraid to look at! He’s a gentleman. He will not only reveal it to you in a gentle way, He’ll help you fill that place up with the goodness of God. Meditate (not by emptying your mind, but by filling it with the word of God) on all His goodness. Remember what He has already brought you out of, how much you have already changed. If you find yourself thinking or speaking negative about anything, be it people, places, or circumstances, STOP. Cast those things down, ask God to forgive you, and anyone who heard you.

We all mess up. All our righteousness is as filthy rags. So take His! His righteousness is given to us at salvation. Then as we keep our hearts pure, we get stronger and stronger. Not is physical muscles, but in spiritual muscle-faith, hope, love, joy, courage, patience, meekness, longsuffering, self control, all those fruit of the Spirit, things we need in this day and age.

“Surely God is good to Israel, Even to such as are pure in heart.” Psalm 73:1
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10,(David wrote this after sinning with Bathsheba, it’s never too late!)
“But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned:” I Timothy 1:5

Now get to work! Search out for yourselves some scriptures on pure and clean hearts. A great recourse is this website http://biblehub.com/

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What’s Stopping You?

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“Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened. God, your plans are incomprehensible to me! Their total number is countless! If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand! If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.”
Psalm 139:16-18 Common English Bible

“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.” Psalm 139:17-18 NKJV

God says the plans and the purposes that he has for you are more than the sand of the earth. There is no way we could ever count every greain of sand. We tend to thing, “God has a plan for me.” Plan-singular. Then we make a wrong choice somewhere along the way and thing, “I missed God’s plan!” But don’t despair, that is another of the enemies lies. God doesn’t have a plan for you, he has plans-plural, and they are limitless! If you have ever stayed at or near a beach you know what sand is like. We went to the Hateras Islands, in North Carolina one summer and I’m telling you-that sand was invasive. Just when you thought you had gotten rid of it all, it was between your teeth, sheets, in your shoes, and even clogging up the sinks. That sand was everywhere and it just kept coming. Sometimes in handfuls, and sometimes just one more grain. Stop and think about that for a minute. Those are like God’s plans for us.

“If God has so many plans for us, why aren’t I seeing them come to pass,” you ask.

There are many things that can hinder, or even stop His plans and purposed in our lives. He’s planned it all out, equipped you with gifts, talents, and His word to fulfill them, so we are clearly the issue. First of all you have to accept Him as your Lord. We call it “getting saved” or “being born again.” We have admitted our sin, have conceded our need for someone else to come in and clean us up, and then surrendered our lives to His perfect will, and those wonderful plans. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11). In salvation we become His children, dearly loved. God says if we are His children, we will do what He says. Which leads us into the second reason that those plans may be hindered. We have to be living in His will, or at least attempting to do that. Salvation is not just a prayer, one that you say once, or even over and over, without a life change. We can’t be “like dogs who return to their own vomit.” (Proverbs 26:11) Salvation is constant choice to surrender to Him, to not give into temptation, and to build a relationship with Him.

Proverbs 26:11 leads us to another reason-sin. We all mess up, but all followers of Christ, we should be quick to ask God to forgive us, and then move on. “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again : but the wicked shall fall into mischief,” Proverbs 24:16 KJV. If a married couple or a family has strife in their home, their prayers can be hindered. It goes to say the same thing can happen in our churches. We need to try and live peaceable amount each other so we don’t hinder God’s plan for our family or the Body of Christ. Matthew 18:19-20, “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” We need unity.

Fear keeps us from seeing God’s plans come to pass. I dealt with fear for more years than I would like to remember until I was delivered. Fear paralyzes you. It keep you in confusion and constantly worrying. It drowns out the voice of God. God says that “perfect love casts out fear.” I used to struggle with that, because I bought into the lie that my love wasn’t perfect enough. Then I got the revelation that He was never talking about my love, but His. When we realize how much He loves us, we can have confidence in Him and what He says, that gets rid of fear! We hear Him loud and clear when we begin by hearing Him say how much He loves us!

There are so many things that seemingly creep in that can hinder God’s perfect will in our lives.
So we need to be able to hear His voice clearly, then do what He says. Our world is noisy! TV’s, radios, ipods, ipads, computers, and the list goes on! Sometimes it is hard to hear that “still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:11-13). The last week of January our church is “fasting” noise so that we can purposely listen for that voice. Corporately, we always fast and pray together in January for the new year. This year God has laid in on the heart of our Senior Pastor, William Hohman, to lesson the distractions. For some of us that might not be too hard, I love my quiet and the TV, or the radio are hardly ever on. But for some, who have either or both running 24/7 as “background noise” this will be hard. Unfortunately we can’t control our work or our school environment, but we can control our home, or our own rooms. I encourage you to fast with us the last week of January. Shut off and shut out as much noise as you can. Then talk to God. Now here is the clincher, then shut up and listen!

God in His wisdom and perfect love, seeing the end from the beginning, seeing you righteous and accepted, has many plans for you! Not plans to harm, but to bless! So what is stopping you?

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Book Review for “A Warrior’s Return”

The prodigal returns. I was given the first three books in “The Warrior Kind” series and liked them so much I purchased the fourth. Again I loved it. The books have not dwindled or repeated the same stories over and over with different scenery. The story continues with most of the same characters. Plenty of action, suspense and romance. Clean sci fi/fantasy written from a Christian perspective. Looking forward to the next book that I hear should be out soon. Still some editing issues, but worth the small amount of trouble. I enjoyed the story line so much that I am still giving it 5 stars despite the issues. Good for teens and up.

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Book Review for “Through the Psalms with Derek Prince”- Devotional

I so loved this book. Derek Prince is one of my favorite authors. I have read many of his books. Not one of them deserved less than 5 stars, including “Through the Psalms with Derek Prince”. This one was a devotional. I usually have trouble with those as I want to read them through like a novel. But I did so much better with this one reading only one or two entries at a time. Each one is only two pages and the book is small, so not a ton of reading, but each one is packed with spiritual truth! He takes us through several Psalms to encourage and challenge us in our walk with God. Recommended for any age. It also makes a great gift!