Maintaining a Pure and Tender Heart

Proverb 4:23

²³   Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life

Keep – keep watch over, protect, preserve, observe, comply with.

The word is also used to denote a fortified city, stronghold, guard or overseer, a stronghold, secret caverns you want to stay secret.

INTRO

God chooses and uses people based on heart

·        Prophet Samuel and Eliab. 1 Samuel 16:7

·        David

Matthew 15:8

⁸ ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips,

But their heart is far from Me.

I.                   WHY A PURE HEART

1.       Necessary to Ascend-

Psalm 24:3-4

³ Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? ⁴        He who has clean hands and a pure heart.

2.       We See _____________

Matthew 5:8

⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

3.       Love from a pure heart is the gospel  

1 Peter 1:22

²² Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.

1 Timothy 1:3-5

³ As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, ⁴ nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. ⁵ Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.

4.       As your heart is so are you-

Proverbs 23:7

⁷ For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

5.       Heart ______________speech

Luke 6:45

⁴⁵ A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

6.       The heart produces action-

Acts 5:3

³ But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?

7.       Heart Controls Your Faith

Roman 10:10

¹⁰ For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

Mark 11:23

²³ For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

II.                WHY A TENDER HEART

The opposite of a tender heart is a hard heart. Hard hearts are very dangerous. Biblically they have been disastrous.

1.     A Hard Heart Affects ________________________

Matthew 19:8-10

⁸ He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.” ¹⁰ His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.

2.     A Hard Heart Grieves God

Mark 3:1-5

And he entered again into the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. ² And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. ³ And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. ⁴ And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save a life, or to kill? But they held their peace. ⁵ And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said unto the man, Stretch forth your hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

3.     A ______________Blocks Revelation

Mark 16:14

¹⁴ Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen.

Mark 8:17

¹⁷ But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened?

4.     A Hard Heart is a Path to Destruction

Exodus 4:21

²¹ And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

5.     Shuts Down the Promised Land

Psalm 95:7-11

⁷ He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you will hear His voice: ⁸ “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, ⁹        When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work. ¹⁰ For forty years I was grieved with that generation, And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, And they do not know My ways.’ ¹¹ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ “

III.             PORTRAIT OF A PURE TENDER HEART

1.     Sincere pure devotion to a person

2 Corinthian 11:1-3

Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. ² For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. ³ But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

2.     Pure Love for the Brethren

1 Peter 1:22

²² Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart

3.     A Heart Free from any pollutants

a.      No Bitterness

Ephesian 4:31-32

³¹ Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. ³² And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Hebrews 12:14-15

¹⁴ Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:^[1]15 Looking diligently lest any man fails of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up troubles you, and thereby many be defiled.

v Looking Diligently – Being Overseers, Looking over your own soul. The same word is used as Elders and Overseers in (1 Peter 5:2; and Acts 20:28)

v Fail – hustereo to be late so you don’t finish the goal.

v Root of Bitterness. Roots are foundations. All nourishment goes through the root of every aspect of the plant. If the root is corrupt it corrupts everything.  Bitterness is a root to the soul that affects every thought, decision, etc. It produces a filter through which every action and thought passes through. It literally changes your disposition.

v Springing up – quick progression, Progress that unfolds and develops over time.

v Many – It affects everything it touches…It’s viral

v Defiled – stained, polluted and corrupted  

4.     No Wrath

Wrath (Inner Calm) – thumos – a violent aggressive motion like air or wind. Hurricane force wind.

Wrath gives place to the Devil…

Neither gives place to the devil No Anger (Contentment)– desire with grief. Fretting. A

Reaction to disappointments and unmet expectations..

Ephesian 4:26

²⁶ Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: ²⁷ neither give place to the devil.

           

Ecclesiastes 7:9

Be not hasty in your spirit to be angry: for anger rests in the bosom of fools           

Proverbs 16:32

³² He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Proverbs 19:11

            The discretion of a man deferreth his anger, And it is his glory to pass over a transgression.

Resolve the issue when/if you can

Forget it when you can't resolve it

Use scripture when you are weak

5.     No Going Off (No Clamour)– krague – an outcry, a public display (going off on somebody)

6.     Affirming Speech (No evil speaking) – blasphemia – verbal abuse, slandering someone behind their back or to their face

7.     No Malice (Sincere Motives) (Kakia) Malintent. Doing this from the negative intent

How

1.       Seek God-

Psalm 51:10

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

2.       Keep it-

Proverb 4:23

²³ Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.

3.       Purify it-

James 4:8-10

⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Answer Key: God, controls, Relationships, Hard Heart,

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`The Light That Shines Dark?

I.                   The complexity of scripture

A.    Matthew 22:15-21

  ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. ¹⁶ And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. ¹⁷ Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. ²⁰ And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” ²¹ They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

B.    Matthew 22:34-40

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. ³⁵ Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

II.                The expectation of Jesus

A.    Matthew 22: 36-40

B.    Matthew 6:19-24

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ²² “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.²³ But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!  ²⁴ “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

1.     If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

2.     If your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness.

3.     Jesus warned his disciples to take heed to His words so they would not be filled with darkness. (Luke 11:35)

III.             The Evil Eye

A.    An evil eye comes from the heart. (Mark 7:21)

B.    One who hastens to be rich has an evil eye. (Proverbs 28:22)

C.     Desiring or supposing one should receive more than what God’s kindness gives. (Matthew 20:15)

IV.             Proper Application

A.    Desiring to have your needs met is not covetousness. (Matthew 6:11)

B.    Being rich in goods does not imply covetousness. (Proverbs 10:4,22)

C.     Desiring to be rich is what God warns against (1 Timothy 6:6-9)

D.    Not only riches

1.     Where your treasure is, your heart is in the exact same place. (Matthew 6:21)

2.     If your eye is covetous of earthly treasure, you are filled with darkness. (Matthew 6:23)

3.      You cannot be a slave of God and avarice. (Matthew 6:24)

                                                                      

THE LINE

Breaking Through by Praying Through

Why is it important to pray

1.)  Man is God’s prize ____________

 Genesis 1:24-26

²⁴ Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over ^[g]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that ^[h]moves on the earth.

2.)  Being ____________ to the way that he will have you to go.

James 4:7

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Genesis 2:18

⁵ And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

¹⁷ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Breaking Through by Praying Through

OCTOBER THE MONTH OF BREAKTHROUGH

OCTOBER THE TENTH MONTH

THE BIBLCAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NUMBER TEN

 The biblical meaning of number 10 is completed course of time or completeness in divine order.  Number 10 is the symbol of matter in harmony.

The 10 Commandments

God gave us the 10 Commandments that were a reflection of His expectations of mankind and as a way to represent His holiness.    Why not 15 or 20?   The number 10 reflects God’s authority or God’s governmental rule over the affairs of mankind.  This is seen elsewhere as in the 10 elders that were placed in most of the city gates of Israel (Ruth 4:2) so the number 10 also seems to represent man’s responsibility of obedience to God

The 10 Toes and Horns of Daniel and Revelation

As 10 represented God’s governmental rule, so does the number 10 represent the rule of mankind but also the Evil One behind man’s government as we see in the 10 toes of Daniel 2 and in Revelation chapter’s 13 and 17 of the beast with the 10 horns.    The beast has 10 toes and 10 diadems (Rev 13:1) and the beast’s 10 horns represented 10 kings (Rev 17:12).

The 10 of Genesis

The phrase “God said” appears 10 times in the creation week of Genesis 1.  I don’t believe in coincidences so the fact that “God said” is mentioned 10 times may be His way of saying that there is completeness in all of God’s creation and in all that God says.   I find it interesting that humans, who were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), have 10 fingers and ten toes.

The 10 Plagues

When God punished Egypt for not letting Israel Go, there were 10 plagues which are reflective of the completeness of God’s judgment. 

The Passover Lamb

The Passover lamb was to be sacrificed on the 10^th day of the first month (Ex 12:3) which was symbolic of the true Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ which John the Baptist noticed when He saw Christ and said “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29b).  Since Jesus was the atonement provided for sinners, the Day of Atonement was on the 10^th day of the 7^th month.

Ten Generations

There were exactly 10 generations that lived up to the flood of Noah’s day when the flood of God’s judgment on sinful mankind overwhelmed all those who refused to repent.   Noah was the 10^th patriarch and after this generation, God’s judgment fell on mankind because “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And the Lord regretted that he had made a man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6:5-8).  Abraham, the father of the faithful, was the 10^th generation from Shem, the son of Noah (Gen 11:10-26).

The Tithe

The tithe which is 10% of what Israel gained was holy unto the Lord.  This tithe was compulsory and was said to belong to the Lord, therefore it was holy.  Today, we are not under the Old Covenant, but many still believe in tithing while some are not able to give that much but those who have been blessed are able to give more than a 10^th.

• Jesus’ Use of 10
• Jesus loved to use the number 10 in many of His sayings, particularly His parable:
• There were 10 virgins (Matt 25:1-13).
• There were 10 lepers (Luke 17:11-19).
• There were 10 talents (Matt 25:14-30).
• There were 10 minas (Luke 19:12-27).
• There were exactly 10 “I AM’s” spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Breaking Through by Praying Through

1 Thessalonians 5:17

                                           
¹⁴Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. ¹⁵See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. ¹⁶Rejoice evermore. ¹⁷Pray without ceasing. ¹⁸In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. ¹⁹Quench, not the Spirit. ²⁰Despise, not prophesyings.

James 5:16 

¹⁶ Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

TAKING YOUR BREAKTHROUGH TO ANOTHER LEVEL

¹⁴ And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,

¹⁵ Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

¹⁶ And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.

¹⁷ Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

¹⁸ And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

¹⁹ Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?

²⁰ And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

²¹ Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.