The Condition of our Heart

When other people attack us, malign us, abuse us, gossip about us, slander us, or hurt us, the natural human response is to protect ourselves.

We each will rise up and lash back, recoil and put up a wall to shield ourselves from continued attack, or we will run in order to escape.

Whether we rise up, recoil or run, we each have a tendency to hold on to the hurt and play back in our minds the scenes of attack and hear over and over again the hurtful words that were spoken.

By holding onto those images and words, if we do not allow God to bring us healing and help, we can become bitter.

Through unforgiveness and resentment, it is possible to become so hard that our hearts are unresponsive to God’s Word and our lives never change...

Christianity is more then just sitting on the pew Sunday mornings, it’s being rooted and mentored. It’s being stretched, weeded, fertilized.

If you are only fed or expect to be fed only on Sunday mornings, you will starve spiritually. No one can only feed from a 30 minute sermon once a week and expect to grow.

We might feel emotionally uplifted for awhile because God’s Word is good every time it is heard, but no one can live without being deeply rooted...

The person with a good heart, hears the word, applies it to their life and then receives a harvest of spiritual fruit. The heart that is like good soil is fertile ground for God to use.

God wants to see His Word, His Son, produce fruit in our lives. God wants to produce change.

He is the only true Hope and Change, He desires to make our life fruitful, but it all depends on the condition of our hearts.

Every time God’s Word comes to each one of us, either in church, through reading, in prayer or by some other means, as scripture reaches us, the condition of our hearts will dictate how we respond.

Since God wants us to have a heart that is good soil for him to use, how can we cultivate a ready, rich heart of soil? In other words, how can we have a good heart for God to plant His Word in?