"The Heart--Who Can Know It?"

"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...."

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

An Old, Too Familiar Scene

"Then Balak sent other officials, more numerous and more distinguished than the first.  They came to Balaam and said: 'This is what Balak...says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me, because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say." (Numbers 22:15-17a, NIV)

"....I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say"---- A charlatan's dream.  Peter said of such people, "They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness."   

Why is it that some just keep "pushing the envelope"?  It is easy to say that one really wants to "do the will of God," yet when Jesus makes His will known, the temptation is to tweak it to our own convenience.  This was Balaam.  The deceivers came and made him an offer, and, of course, when Balaam would accept the offer there would be a handsome wage.  The first to come were ordinary folk, and they with a good offer.  Now Balaam seemed very "spiritual," and when God told him not to go with them, viz., it was not His will, Balaam obeyed.  But then, as is the Enemy's want, "Balak sent...more numerous and more distinguished," people.  Balaam is a classic example of Brother Charles' quote, "The only thing worse than God not giving us our way is when God gives us our way."
 
"They have...loved the wages of unrighteousness," has been key to the downfall of Christendom.  I use the term "Christendom" many times, because Christendom is different from the Church or the Kingdom.  "The gates of Hell," cannot withstand the Church.  Through the centuries, the Church of Jesus has stormed those gates and rescued millions from that Satanic grasp.  And Jesus' Kingdom?---- "Thy Kingdom is an everlasting (forever) Kingdom."  But Christendom, that which is a cultural-dominated, religious, and hence, distorted expression of, "the faith of Jesus," that is another matter.  It is Christendom which is the predominate expression of Christianity which the world sees.  Through the centuries, it has been classic "Religion For Hire."  As I have said before, I do not agree with all of the conclusions of the author of The Great Evangelical Recession, but the statistics he relates are something every contemporary Follower of Jesus should read.  It reveals the true, albeit, alarming trend of, "the wages of unrighteousness."

Someone once offered to totally underwrite Derek Prince's ministry.  He refused.  Need I say more?

Father, in Jesus' Name, help me and warn me to always look to You and You alone------------------ and to always refuse, "the wages of unrighteousness."  Amen.
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* Great and powerful time in DC yesterday.  Thanks for any prayers that were offered.

* I now have enough for the David's Tent Mission.  Thanks to all who gave.

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

Have You Given Up?

"His love endures forever." (Psalm 136, NIV)

If I counted right, the psalmist repeats our text 26 times in this Psalm.  Jews have been confessing this Psalm for millennia; and you know their history.  Many confessed this psalm on their way to Treblinka, to Auschwitz.  No matter what his Satanic majesty hurls at you and me, at Followers of Jesus, "HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER."  The Hebrew Interlinear translates it, "His Covenant loyalty endures forever," viz., Father, Son Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit is bound by, "Covenant Loyalty," to you and me.  And The Living Triune God just does not break covenant.  

I will be in Washington, DC, tomorrow, July 29, 2015.  Along with my "routine," I will be in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing.  The topic this week is: "Examining the True Cost of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Native Communities."  I will be a "praying presence" during the hearing.  By the way, contributions to FHMP helps us to regularly support missions to the First Nations People Group.  Now some say, "What's the use of praying for America, for the nations?  Look at the victory of the homosexuals' agenda.  Look at the American Government State-sponsored-terrorism of the unborn, and someone like Donald Trump leading in the Republican polls?"  Then there is ISIS, Iran, etc. 

If you and I are ever tempted with a "give up" attitude, we should think of a Japanese Follower of Jesus who prayed 8 hours a day over 80 years for the Japanese Nation.  Yes, you read correctly.  I heard this in an "All Nations Convocation" in Jerusalem some years ago.  People could have said the same to or about him, "What good did it do?  Look at the Second War, at the fact that less than one percent of Japanese are Christian."  Really?  Do they, especially Americans, want to go there?  Our Japanese Brother just never forgot, "His Covenant Loyalty endures forever."

"Also [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up)."  Jesus' command is powerfully simple, "....always...pray," no matter what the "results" seem to be, no matter if the "answers" we desire never seem to come our way.  Many Jews have been living examples of this.  The Japanese man was an example of this, and we could probably name many others.  We should shout it from the house tops, "His Covenant Loyalty endures forever."  There never has been, never is, nor ever shall be any reason, "to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up)."  Have the attitude of Paul, "I press on," through poverty, sickness, the debauchery of nations, and ceaseless attacks of The Enemy.

At any point, do you and I, "turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up"?  Yet you and I have the exact same reason to continue in what Brother Andrew calls, "The Fight," as did the psalmist, as do the Jews, as did the Japanese Brother, as did my parents, my grandparents, as the Faithful throughout the generations past, and generations future, until the trumpet sounds.  Keep going, my friend.  As one translation puts it, "For His great love is without end."

Father, in Jesus' Name, I have no excuse for anything contrary to You, "Your Covenant Loyalty endures forever."  Amen.
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Please pray for me as I go to DC

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

Words Are Easy To Come By-Life Is Not

"As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart."  (Proverbs 27:19, NIV)

Notice that it is not, "one's words reflect the heart."  Maybe there would be far less disasters in Church History if our text would have been given precedence.   

Don't be wowed with one's words. Words are easy to come by; life is not.  People can fool the world with their words, but not with their life.  Somewhere, given the right circumstance and opportunity, life will overtake words.  Jesus teaches that what is in my mind and comes from my mouth is just reflection, "of the abundance of the heart."   

Darwinian humanists, who took over the American State School system, from grammar schools to graduate schools, make much of, indeed, worship the mind.  This life philosophy dominated the "Renaissance," the "Age of Reason," and "Enlightenment."  Someone described the "Age of Reason" as "an eighteenth-century movement which followed hard after the mysticism, religion, and superstition of the Middle Ages."  In short, it was a rejection of Jesus Christ and His Words.  Thomas Paine wrote in his work, The Age of Reason, "I do not believe in the creed professed by...any church that I know of.  My own mind is my own church."  But make no mistake, my friend.  Such an attitude did not start with Paine; it started in The Garden.

The Bible gives priority to the heart, not the mind.  There is apparently something of life which is a heart matter, not a mind matter.  It is obviously deeper than the mind, and can only be lived out after one surrenders to Jesus and is born of the Spirit.  Romans 10 describes it this way: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved."  Believing is not a matter of the mind; believing is a matter of the heart.  Maybe this is further proof of my theology that "believing" Jesus and His Words is more acceptance than mental grasp.

Father, in Jesus' Name, I pray for whatever "insight" I need to walk in this, Your Truth.  Amen.
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I'm going to DC this coming Wednesday, July 29th.

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