me and my heart

Some people.

Some people out there may read my words here, and come to the conclusion that I am angry, or that I am bitter, or that I am unforgiving, or that I am some sort of ogre (like Shrek, perhaps?).

This is far from the truth, as I merely write what is on my heart, whatever that may be, and most of the time the words here are not directed at any one person in particular. They are just what is on my heart.

I am undergoing revival in my heart and in my life. And I have been doing so for over 30 years.

But lately, the holiness of God is weighing heavy on my mind.

God is holy. His Word is holy. God demands that we be holy. Of course, we cannot be, can we? So, He sends us His Son, to be our sacrifice, to make us holy. God sees the holiness of Jesus when He looks at us.

But, that does not give us the right to knowingly sin. Of course, we do though, don’t we? Yes, we all do.

But you, you and I, we have no excuse. When we stand before God to give an account of our life, the life we led, the words we spoke, the actions we partook in…there is no excuses. Not one excuse will be uttered. We will all, each and every one of us, merely say “Guilty.” And then, those of us who have asked Jesus to reside in our hearts as our Saviour and our Lord, we will shed tears of joy as Jesus steps up beside us and says “The debt is paid.”

Nevertheless, we should strive for holiness in our lives. We should strive to conform to God’s will for us, as laid out in His Word. We should fight against temptation to do wrong, to speak wrong, to feel wrong, to act wrong, we should fight against anything which exalts itself against our Lord and Saviour. Anything that goes against what God’s Word says, we should turn our back on.

Easier said than done, isn’t it? It is hard to resist the pull of sin. It is made even harder, if you struggle with something that you have, time and time again, given in to. But there is no excuse for not trying. We have the Overcomer living within us, and His mighty power flows through our veins. We have the victory; His Word has declared that this is so.

But we do not live like it. Instead, we make mistakes, and then compound our mistakes by making them over and over again. We continually turn up our nose at doing what God asks of us, and then turn around and blame Him when things do not go right. We want control of our own lives, even though they no longer belong to us but to God; so, we wrest control of our own destinies away from God, and ask Him to ride along with us and shower us with blessings at every turn in the road.

We are sick. All of us, we are sick. It is no wonder that we need a Saviour!

I’d write more, but I feel like I am going in circles right now.

What it boils down to, is this. God is holy. His Word is holy, and He (and His Word) are to be obeyed. We ruin our lives when we do not obey Him. And, He allows us to suffer when we disobey Him. We may not suffer punishment, but we will suffer the consequences of our sin, as will our descendants after us.

Hebrews 12:5-16, 25, 28, 29

Have you completely forgotten the divine word of encouragement in which you are addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him; For the Lord corrects and disciplines every one whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure correction for discipline. God is dealing with you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not thus train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all of God’s children share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all. Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded to them and respected them for training us. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so truly live? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them, but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness. For the time being no discipline brings joy but seems grievous and painful, but afterwards it yields peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it – a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness [that is, in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God]. So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands, and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees, and cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet – yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction – so that the lame and halting limbs may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured. Strive to live in peace with everybody, and pursue that consecration and holiness without which no one will ever see the Lord. Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look after one another, to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God’s grace (His unmerited favour and spiritual blessing), in order that no root of resentment (rancour, bitterness, or hatred) shoot forth and cause trouble and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it; That no one may become guilty of sexual vice, or become a profane (godless and sacrilegious) person as Esau did, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

So see to it that you do not reject Him or refuse to listen to and heed Him Who is speaking to you now. For if the Israelites did not escape when they refused to listen and heed Him Who warned and divinely instructed them here on earth – revealing with heavenly warnings His will – how much less shall we escape if we reject and turn our backs on Him Who cautions and admonishes us from heaven?

Let us therefore, receiving a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken, offer to God pleasing service and acceptable worship. With modesty and pious care and godly fear and awe; For our God is indeed a consuming fire.