Everything Comes From the Heart

We often pray for God to work miracles in others’ lives, to convert and change their hearts, but we don’t persist in asking God to change our own hearts. God says everything comes from the heart – our thoughts, words, and deeds.

But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile ( Mark 7:20-23).

Keep God the Center

You may have heard walk of faith can be summarized in the two greatest commandments:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).

We cannot love God, others, or ourselves without God. We cannot pray without God. We cannot stop sinning without God. We can do nothing without Him.

The way to consistent conversion toward holiness is to deepen your relationship and reliance on God. This means we must choose to spend time with Him in meditative prayer and talk to him throughout the day. The more we move toward God, the more we will see Him act in our lives. The light of God’s grace will be on you and you will be able to love others and yourself like never before.

Love Your Neighbor

Let’s face it, we have people in our lives with whom we are not that fond, therefore we must have God change our hearts. I have a family member who I didn’t like, he has struggled with alcohol since he was a teenager, he is now 53. After my massive reversion, I learned that if I didn’t forgive others, God wouldn’t forgive me. I needed God to change my heart because I could not forgive on my own. It took some time, but I found that when I thought of him I didn’t have disdain anymore, I actually felt sorry for him. Then compassion grew inside me and I realized he just wants to be loved and that he is burying some wound with his drinking.

If I didn’t allow God in, I would still be struggling with this relationship. Today, I genuinely love this person. We have become very close, and I love him exactly the way he is – and yes – he is still drinking. God changed my heart to love him without judgment or any conditions. There is such freedom in this love because I know it is God’s work. I kicked my pride to the curb when I humbly asked for God’s help. This is the walk of surrender and humility. It is a hard road to travel, but it’s the only path to that ‘peace beyond all understanding’ we all desire.

And I will give them another heart and a new spirit I will put within them. From their bodies I will remove the hearts of stone, and give them hearts of flesh, so that they walk according to my statutes, taking care to keep my ordinances. Thus they will be my people, and I will be their God (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

Love Yourself

I do not know about you, but I can be pretty hard on myself. As I walk this journey with God I am much more aware of my sins and sometimes I loathe what I say or do. There was a time when I was confessing the same sin, even though I wasn’t committing it, because I couldn’t believe God forgave me.

We must remember that to love oneself is not to worship oneself or to be filled with pride and vanity. Take a look at the world, how many people out there are so “full of themselves” and that proverbial bag of chips? We must be sure not to fall into conceit, pride and arrogance because that is a sin.

You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy ( 2 Timothy 3:1-2).

Instead, we must remember that self-love is natural love. We naturally love what God made and believe it or not, we naturally love ourselves. That is why God tells us that we must love others as we love ourselves. Unfortunately, it is Satan, the world, and the flesh that tells us otherwise and taunts us with evil thoughts.

This is why discernment of spirits is so crucial on the journey. Those negative thoughts are not from God. We need a childlike wonder to seek God’s wisdom in our lives. The more we spend time with God, the more this wisdom is given to us – that God loves us. We begin to see, feel, and maybe even have some supernatural experiences with God and His love for us. I use the USCCB bible for my verses, but some translations use the word wisdom instead of sense. I like God-given wisdom better when I read the below verse.

Those who gain sense truly love themselves; those who preserve understanding will find success (Proverbs 19:8).

God Loves Us to Life

It’s hard to wrap our heads around the fact that God made us exactly the way we are for such a time as this. The world, the culture, Satan, and my own programmed mind have been my worst enemy for 43 years of my life. I was never good enough. I was not pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, rich enough, successful enough…never, ever, enough.

When God pulled me out of the pits of hell, we began this beautiful and difficult walk of faith. At this time I could not accept myself as God made me. I could not accept that God made me a short, cellulite-riddled bubble butt, Flintstone feet, man-sized hands woman who was so insecure I had to drink and do drugs to numb myself in life.

By the grace of God, who accepted my humble request for detachment from the world, who armed me with deliverance prayers and knowledge on how to fight the daily battle, I began to love myself. I began to love who I was and to appreciate what I used to think of as flaws. I have learned to be kind to myself and forgive my falls…some days are easier than others. I have accepted that all of my life circumstances have been so I can glorify God by sharing the transformation He has done in my life, including the present difficulties.

Everything comes from the heart. Each and every day, we can have our hearts renewed in Christ. We can love, with JOY, the three things Jesus commands us – Jesus, Others, You. All we have to do is surrender our pride and humbly ask God to purify and change our hearts against sin, against un-loving acts and thoughts about Jesus, others, and you.

Last, but most importantly, God created you because He has a purpose for you. If you keep yourself focused on the Two Greatest Commandments or JOY – Jesus, Others, You – God will pour out grace into your heart, which will drive your thoughts, words, and deeds. He loves us right where we are, but He doesn’t want us to stay there. If you allow Him, He will light your path, he will make it straight, although may draw with crooked lines sometimes. So, let’s embrace the unknown, live in the present moment with God, and remember how much He knows and loves us.

You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. Praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know (Psalm 139:14).