Do you have a bad heart condition? I am not speaking of the organ in your chest which pumps blood throughout your body; I am referring to the spiritual heart. This is the place where our innermost ideas, perceptions, and desires reside in each of us. The spiritual heart actually reflects our true nature and will. This is our secret place where man can never know our true intentions; therefore, it cannot be judged by man, but it will certainly be judged by God.

Is your heart being governed by God or the world? Let’s explore both of these options. Do we truly want Him to come into our hearts and become ruler over our life? Are we genuine and are our intentions good? The only way we can be committed to God is to allow the Word of God to govern our ideas, perceptions, and desires. All aspects of our lives should be based on godly principles. Human nature, the sin within us, is an enemy of God. Because of our sinful nature, our human understanding convinces us to trust in our own knowledge and goodness; therefore, misleading us to think that we are capable of orchestrating our own plan for our lives. God states in His Word that there is nothing good about the flesh and can do nothing of itself (Romans 7:18).

The flesh will always lead us to base our intentions and motives on self gratification. Really, our sinful nature is a barrier between us and God. That is the reason we need an advocate, Jesus Christ to approach a holy God. The Spirit of the Lord is the only way the heart can be purified.

A heart that is governed by worldly concepts is wicked. Our society encourages us to get what we can, all that we can, sat on the can, and do not share the can with anyone. The world and our flesh gives us a false sense of security; that with our own careful planning, the end results will always be in our favor.

Should we hold fast to our own ideas, traditions and religious rituals? Should we continue to plot to take revenge on those who despitefully use us? Do we continue to selfishly use people for our own material and monetary gain? Should we continue to let our human blood ties override the blood sacrifice Jesus Christ gave on the Cross? Do we continue to plan our own lives with worldly motives but expect Godly results? I just wanted to present a few scenarios that we all may have been guilty of at one point in our lives. These are a few things that take place within our hearts that no human may never know about; but God will always no our true intentions. He has stated in His Word that only what we do for Him will last (1 Corinthians 5:10).

So, we need to carefully guard our hearts and make sure that our intentions, ideas, motives, and will is being governed by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. If we detect a bad heart condition, we should pray for healing and cleansing; because the heart will not escape the judgment of Christ.

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-is-the-Condition-of-Your-Heart?&id=4116838] How is the Condition of Your Heart?

]]> http://the316.info/how-is-the-condition-of-your-heart/feed/ 0 http://the316.info/do-you-believe-in-angels/ http://the316.info/do-you-believe-in-angels/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:29:13 +0000 John http://the316.info/?p=80

Well,do you? I don’t really know if I do or don’t. But, If there are such-a-things, then I think maybe I have met one. I don’t know, I’ll tell you this story, then you can tell me what you think. You can just put your comments down in the “Comments” link at the bottom of the page. I’m interested in your theories……

OK. So here’s the deal. Timothy, my 1976 Toyota Corolla, had just once again decided that it was way too hot in the Sun City (El Paso) for him to be carrying the 4 of us on his back. So he decided to break down, right in the parking lot of a Pep Boys, on the West Side of town. After a couple of hours of us trying to get him back on his wheels, we finally gave up. We decided that we were gonna hoof it the 5 miles to my apartment.

It had to be about 150 degrees out that day. I’m talking HOT. So here we were walking down a main street. When the notorious “Thumper“, decided we should hitch a ride. I think he was really joking when he threw his thumb up, but it wasn’t 5 seconds and an old El Camino pulled over to pick us up. What was really weird about that was that we were all thugged-out. We really looked like we had just stepped out of a scene from “American Me” or maybe “Blood in-Blood Out”. And this dude, was WHITE to say the least. I mean the epitomy of goofy whitedness. What was he thinking. He really was putting himself in a potentially dangerous situation. Lucky for him, we weren’t near as criminal as we looked on this particular day.

Now, when I say this dude was WHITE. Let me describe him to ya. He was a pretty big guy. He had kind of long straggly hair. He was wearing a “flap-hat” (I know you remember those) that was like pink and baby-blue. He had on rose colored sun-glasses, goofy teal colored shorts that were much too short, a tie-dyed shirt, and some flip-flops. It was like he did his shopping at the Salvation-Hippie-Army.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, he had just pulled over and said, “Get in.” So we did, one of my friends jumped in the front seat, while the rest of us jumped in the bed. He yelled, ” Where ya headin’?” over his stereo, which was blaring “Petra”(a Christian rock band of the late 80’s and early 90’s) of all things. So, I explained our situation and gave him directions to my apartment. Since we all did go to church, and we all knew who Petra was. I had to bring it to his attention, for some reason, that we knew who he was listening to. And that opened up a whole can of worms that I really didn’t want to open.

So this dude(We’ll call him Terry, for some reason that’s the name that keeps popping in my head) gets all excited. He starts telling us,” Dude, I knew you guys were Christians.” He talked with the inflection of a total surfer, my best reference would be “CRUSH” the sea turtle in “Finding Nemo”. He rambles on about what a coincidence and what-not for the whole 10 minutes to my apartment. We were really tripping out on this guy. You don’t really meet a whole lot of people like him in El Paso, Tx.

So we finally roll up to the crib and we start piling out of the “Ghetto Sled”. Then Terry says,”Hey dudes, I never part paths with other brothers in Christ without praying first. You dudes cool with that.” It was kind of strange, and I really wanted to go ahead and “part paths”, but he was entertaining to say the least so we invited him up. But we sure had an embarrassing surprise in store for us.

Apparently, some of the “Homies” had broken into my house that day to play a practical joke. I opened the door  (with Terry right behind me)to find my whole apartment decorated with about 100 or so pictures from a “porno mag” all strewn about the living room and kitchen. I believe there was even some mayonaisse involved to suggest the worst. I looked behind me to see that it was already too late. Terry had already let himself in. In the words of Popeye, “How embarraskin”. But Terry seemed totally oblivious to the situation, while he was aware of my embarrassment. Before I could even try to explain, he quickly cut me off saying,” Dude, I had friends like that in college. Don’t even worry about it. Hey, let’s get to prayin’ then I’ll be on my way.”

So as rediculous as it might sound, here we were. Four “thugs” and a wannabe surfer-hippie-Christian, all holding hands in a circle, standing on a floor covered in naked women. Then Terry started praying. Basically I was kind of just looking around, checking out this crazy scenario, and not much paying attention to what Terry was saying. That is, until Terry stopped praying in mid-sentence…..

Terry pointed right at me and said,”Whoa, Dude, No Way! Dude, I had no idea I was in the room with such a man of God. Are you excited? Dude, you are gonna lead so many people to Christ. This is AWESOME.” Now, I had been told this kind of stuff all of my life, being a PK and all. To be honest, I was quite “over it” at this period of my life. In fact, the reason for my lifestyle during this period of my life, was to get all of these “so-called prophets” off of my back. So of course, I was cynical. I said, “Really, and when does this all happen?” To which Terry replied, ” Dude, you are gonna be like a pastor of thousands in the Dallas, Tx. area. I don’t know when, but you’ll see. You’ve been called buddy-boy.” Then he left.

I was kind of floored. It took me a minute to get it together. When I finally did, I realized that I had a few more questions for this guy. I ran outside to flag him down, but alas there was no trace of him or the El Camino. Wow, he was quick. I was left with so much unanswered. The funny part about all of this, is that about 3 nights later at a Bible study at my girl-friends house, the Pastor of her church pretty much re-played the whole scene for me.

Now, I am nowhere near being any kind of Messenger of God. I’ve definitely got my issues. But I can say that when I have shared this particular story with others, the general concensus has been that I was visited by some sort of Angel. Hey, who knows where my life is leading. If you told me 10 years ago that my life would be the way it currently is, I wouldn’t have believed you. What I can say, is that I will never forget the day that “Timothy” broke down.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. If you have an opinion (or even some kind of prophecy). I’m all ears, or eyes in this case. Let me know what you think…..CHEERS!

Oh, and if you have a similar story you would like to share….send it on over to john@the316.info and I’ll throw it on up here for ya. Reaching the world one testimony at a time.