What's In Your Heart?

A few months ago, I started visiting a church down the street called Parkway Fellowship. It is completely different from what I grew up going to, which is exactly what I was looking for. A nontraditional, contemporary church with meaningul sermons that I can relate to real life. Today, the Pastor started a new series "What Lies Within." I was very moved by this sermon and am looking forward to the rest of the series. I am writing this post as a reminder/summary of the sermon today but also has an inspirational piece for those reading this who may be interested in reading it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9/19/10 "It All Starts in the Heart"

Matthew 12:18-19 (NIV)
But the things that come out of the mouth come from the hart, and these make a man 'unclean.' [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony,s lander.

The pastor had a huge red foam heart on a stand. He then opened a box of things that people may have in their heart written on swords.... anger, jealousy, lust, greed, fear and unforgiveness. One by one he gave examples of things you may have in your heart.. something happened to you when you were helpless, someone hurt you, you are afraid and can't open up which causes insecurities, unforgiveness from someone walking out on you, you wish you had things that your friends have, you always buy things for yourself and do not think about others, married but still finding your eyes wandering?, etc. With each example, he jabbed the sword into the heart. This is what our hearts look like. We have all of these negative feelings stuck deep into our hearts. He said that all of these things can have an affect on you for the rest of your life. These feelings don't just affect you. They poison every relationship around you.

He said that when we are little, we learn to filter the things that we say. We say things and then later said "I didn't mean that" or "I don't know where that came from." The truth is... we do mean it.. and it came from our heart. When our filters start to wear thin, what comes out is a reflection of what is in our hearts. Have you ever heard someone say "He is not the person I married" or "What has gotten into you." They are the same people. The difference is you are getting a glimpse into what's really in their heart.

Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

"Guard" means to "watch over" as one watches over a vineyard or garden. If you do not attend to your garden, it would grow over with weeds. These negative things in your heart will do the same. They will take over your life and spread. We know how to filter what comes out of our hearts but we need to know how to guard out hearts from what comes INTO it. Then we don't have to worry about filtering!

How do guard your heart?
1. Get drastic about protecting what goes in.
- Keep out what's bad.
- Plant what's good.

Challenge #1: Listen to only Christian music until October 31st. (This is when the series ends.) Listening to only Christians music will probably put you in a better mood. Try it.

Challenge #2: Throw out all of your R-Rated movies. If the content of these movies are not appropriate for impressionable people because the content can get into their hearts, then what are you doing with them?

Challenge #3: Come to church every week for the remainder of the series. Simply being in church will change you.

Challenge #4: Commit to study the Bible. (on your own, in a Bible study, etc.)

2. Deal with personal hurt right away.
Many undesirable things in our heart come from personal hurt. Pull it out while it's small before it gets out of control.

Jeremiah 17:9a (NIV)
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

2 Cor. 5:17 (Living)
When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!

If you want His help, you have to ask Jesus to come into your life and forgive you of all of your sins. You have to pledge your life to Him.

If you have a weed in your garden and you don't do anything about it, the root will grow deep and will grow over your plants, mulch, flowers, etc. If you don't guard your heart, these negative things in life will take over your heart. Each week, the pastor will go into detail about each aspect (anger, jealousy, lust, greed, fear and unforgiveness.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are interested in attending Parkway Fellowship, their website is http://www.parkwayfellowship.com/ It is a very casual church (jeans, flip flops, etc.) It is also nontraditional with contemporary music and a live band. Service times are 9:15am and 10:45am. Below is a schedule of the sermons in this series.

Sept. 26th - Getting to the bottom of anger.

Oct. 3rd - How to stop jealousy in its tracks.

Oct. 10th - Finally finding freedom from lust.

Oct. 17th - How to overcome the need for greed.

Oct. 24th - Putting away fear.

Oct 31st - Unforgiveness - The biggest of them all.

Wishing you a wonderful day!

Tammy