Protecting Our Hearts and Ourselves

When we think about protecting our hearts and ourselves from things of the world, do we ever think about protecting what God says we are to walk in. Do we ever think about protecting our love for others. I heard this great message today about guarding our hearts, but not just guarding our hearts from evil but guarding the love in our hearts. What a revelation of scripture.

You see God guards His love for us. When we are told to guard our hearts, it is so that the love of God in our hearts is not stolen from us. Each time we give in to sin, we let a little bit of our guard down. We open a little hole in our heart to the point that eventually if we continue in this sin, there will be a hole big enough in our hearts that the love of God will be lost and the love of sin will take over in our hearts. AMEN!

God's love is not just His love for us, but it is with His love that we live and love others with. It is His love that brings us through our trials and tribulations. It is His love that we share kindness with others. It is His love that we receive revelation of His word with. Without His love we have nothing, we are nothing. The peace of God surpasses all understanding is what the scriptures tell us. There are times that we think we could not possibly be kind or forgiving to others, but then the love of God surpasses all understanding and we find that forgiveness and that kindness to give to others. AMEN!

Phil 4 v 7...and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.....

How many of you have watched the movie "Amish Grace". I tell you now that we as Christians could learn a good lesson about forgiveness from that movie. That is a good example of a Christian guarding the love of God in their hearts. In one part of the movie, one of the fathers of one of the girls killed was explaining what hatred and anger does. The little sister said she hated the man who killed her sister, and he asked her, how does that hate feel? How does that hatred make your heart feel? She answered him "not very good". He said hatred and anger was an ugly thing with sharp teeth, that when you let it in your heart, it eats away until there is no room left for love.

That is what the point here is. We must guard our hearts so that the love of God consumes it and not the things of this world. We need to have our hearts so full with the love of God that there is no room for hatred, anger, or sin. AMEN!

1 Cor 13 v 1....Though I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal...

In other words, without love, your words are just alot of hot air that mean nothing. AMEN!

What is love?

1 Cor 13 v 4-8.....Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.....

How many of us can truly say we walk in this type of love? Let me ask you, did you argue with anyone today, did you gossip about anyone today, did you behave rudely with anyone today,? If we answered yes to any of these, then we missed the love boat so to speak. We may have started out sailing on the love boat, but then the minute we had an argument with someone we fell overboard.

The good news is this, there is a life jacket, His name is Jesus. We call on the name of Jesus to help us through the stormy seas. We ask for His forgiveness and trust in Him to put us back in the boat. We will mess up now and again, but the more we feed ourselves on His word and walk in His ways, the better we will keep our balance and stay put on the boat. AMEN!

In other words the more we guard our hearts and the love that He put there, the better off we will be. How can we learn to guard our hearts. Easy! By listening to the Holy Spirit within us. By yeilding to His Spirit, and not to our own flesh. By yeilding to that LOVE in our hearts, and the more we do, the more it grows. AMEN!

STAY IN THE WORD!