Tag Archive | God

Proverbs 4 – Guard your heart

Jun18

Good evening y’all today we are looking at proverbs chapter 4. There are a lot of lessons to glean from this chapter but I want to focus on verses 20 -27

Be blessed 🙂

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“Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover these words live, really live; body and soul, they’re bursting with health.
Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts. Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust”. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭4‬:‭20-27‬ MSG)

“My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body. Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech. Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil”. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭4‬:‭20-27‬ NLT)

These verses speak for themselves and stress the importance of guarding our heart and making sure we fill it with Gods words.

King David in Psalm 119 : 11 said “thy word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against You”. If we have Gods word hidden in us, it will come to mind when we need it and help us not to habitually sin against God. If we have nothing stored up then we are stranded.

Our heart is the seat of decisions and judgements. Jesus said in Luke 6:45 that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks

“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”. (‭Luke‬ ‭6‬:‭45‬ NKJV)

If we fill our hearts with evil thoughts, then we will only produce evil but on the other hand if we fill our hearts with good thoughts, then we will produce good. We need to guard our hearts by carefully selecting the thoughts we allow in.

Philippians 4: 8 says: “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise”. (NLT)

Verse 24!!!!! (***Covering my eyes***). We should be careful what we say with our mouths. Avoid careless banter !!!! (Gosh I’m so guilty of this…I’m still work in progress). No white lies or gossip or blue lies, call it whatever you want, we are told to avoid it.

Let’s examine our heart today. Are we filling it with the word of God or the things of this world?

You are what you feed your heart….

Prayer
Dear Lord thank you for today. Pls help us guard our hearts with all diligence. Give us the grace to feed our hearts with your word and put careless words far from our lips. Thank you dear Lord. In Jesus Name we prayed. Amen

Thanks for joining today. Pls feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter

Have a blessed evening 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Leviticus 10 – taking God for granted?

May1

Good afternoon y’all. Happy New Month 🙂 . I pray we will all experience God in a new dimension this month, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Today we are studying chapter 10. Whoop! Whoop! We made it to chapter 10. All glory to God.

Be blessed 🙂

In the beginning of the chapter, we see two of Aaron’s sons disobey God and got killed instantly by God.

“Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu put coals of fire in their incense burners and sprinkled incense over them. In this way, they disobeyed the lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire, different than he had commanded. So fire blazed forth from the lord ’s presence and burned them up, and they died there before the lord”. (Leviticus 10:1-2 NLT)

The same God who in the previous chapter displayed His glory to all and fire consumed their sacrifice, now same fire appears as one of wrath and consumes the priests. Friends, God takes disobedience seriously. He is a Holy God. Merciful yet at the same time can execute judgement.

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The priest were clearly instructed on how to approach God and how to minister in the temple, but Aaron’s sons chose to ignore it and assume God would be okay with it. They took God’s word casual. Didn’t see it as important to be followed to the letter. One translation says they offered strange fire to God…

“That same day Nadab and Abihu, Aaron’s sons, took their censers, put hot coals and incense in them, and offered “strange” fire to God —something God had not commanded. Fire blazed out from God and consumed them—they died in God’ s presence”. (Leviticus 10:1-2 MSG)

To think God took time to dot the i’s and cross the t’s when he was giving Moses the instructions for the people to follow, so why then would they think God wouldn’t care if they didn’t follow the instructions to the letter? Perhaps they were in a hurry and rushing to carry out the task or were just plain lazy.

Moses response to the event even got me thinking the more…

“Then Moses told Aaron that this was exactly what the Lord had meant when he said: “I demand respect from my priests, and I will be praised by everyone!” Aaron was speechless”.(Leviticus 10:3 CEVUS06)

Disobeying God is a sign of disrespect to Him.

Afterwards God told Aaron and the other sons they must learn the difference between what’s holy and what’s not, and must also teach the Israelites all He has commanded them.

“You must learn the difference between what is holy and what isn’t holy and between the clean and the unclean. You must also teach the people of Israel everything that I commanded Moses to say to them”. (Leviticus 10:10-11 CEVUS06)

This is very crucial. We must learn with the help of the Holy Spirit what is holy and what’s not, what is acceptable by God and what’s not. Not just learn but put it into practice as well.

We need to be careful not to take advantage of God’s grace, that we do not become too familiar with Him and stop seeing Him as a Holy God.

Today let’s examine ourselves for those areas where we are offering a ‘strange’ fire to God.  It’s true we are living in an era of grace but let’s not forget what happened to Ananias and Saphirra (Acts 5: 1-11). They were in an era of grace as well, yet when they lied (disobedience) God killed them instantly. See let’s remember God is a holy God. Yes He is merciful, but can also show wrath. Yes He is loving, but can also show judgement. Let’s pray for reverential fear and the grace to walk in total obedience to God.

Thanks for joining today

Have a blessed weekend 🙂

***With God all things are possible***