"For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them." (Numbers 32:9)
According to, "The Word of God," and Biblical Theology, everything starts in the heart before it gets to the mind. What most of the Jews in the reconnaissance party saw in, "the land," was a reflection of their hearts, not their minds. Our minds are controlled by our hearts.
If you can say all the "right" things, but be and do wrong, it is a heart matter before it is a "mind" matter. This too was Balaam. He would have been invited to any evangelical/charismatic convention based on his words. But something in his heart was all wrong. "As in water face reflects face, so a man's heart reveals the man." This reality maintains a "healthy" fear of the Lord for me.
Jesus said, "For from within, 0ut of the heart...proceed evil thoughts," and in reality, everything else. Apparently we can say that the heart thinks, the heart reasons, the heart determines my obedience, my service to Jesus, His Church, His Kingdom, my everything. It is a tragedy of life that virtually all education, "Christian" or not, appeals to the mind, not the heart.
Now some ask, "How do you deal with your heart?" I don't know. I pray it is not, though it seems very likely, that you "either have it, or you don't." That is scary. Yet when I look into the, "Words of God," and global history, what else can I come up with? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"------ no one but our Lord Jesus Christ. I can "see" a person's heart only in the Eyes of Jesus, not mine apart from Jesus; therefore, "Create in me a clean heart, O God...."
If you can say all the "right" things, but be and do wrong, it is a heart matter before it is a "mind" matter. This too was Balaam. He would have been invited to any evangelical/charismatic convention based on his words. But something in his heart was all wrong. "As in water face reflects face, so a man's heart reveals the man." This reality maintains a "healthy" fear of the Lord for me.
Jesus said, "For from within, 0ut of the heart...proceed evil thoughts," and in reality, everything else. Apparently we can say that the heart thinks, the heart reasons, the heart determines my obedience, my service to Jesus, His Church, His Kingdom, my everything. It is a tragedy of life that virtually all education, "Christian" or not, appeals to the mind, not the heart.
Now some ask, "How do you deal with your heart?" I don't know. I pray it is not, though it seems very likely, that you "either have it, or you don't." That is scary. Yet when I look into the, "Words of God," and global history, what else can I come up with? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"------ no one but our Lord Jesus Christ. I can "see" a person's heart only in the Eyes of Jesus, not mine apart from Jesus; therefore, "Create in me a clean heart, O God...."
Father, in Jesus' Name, may, as David, I have Your Heart, then I will have no worry about mine. Amen. *********
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
