Tag: soft hearts

Categories
Luke Devotionals

Open mouths

Mary of Bethany

She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. (Luke 10:39)

Reading about Mary’s heart always touches me. But by chance, I was praying through Psalm 81 today, and came upon these words.

I am the Lord your God…Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. (Psalm 81:10)

Martha was too busy to receive Jesus’ words. (40-41)

The expert in the law tried to find ways to escape them. (29)

But Mary had a mouth open wide to Jesus’ words. And Jesus filled it.

I don’t know about you, but I want what Mary had. A mouth wide open to the words of Jesus. And more importantly, a heart that’s receptive to them.

How sweet your word is to my taste—
sweeter than honey in my mouth. (Psalm 119:103)

Categories
Hebrews Devotionals

Encouraging and exhorting one another

Hebrews

Watch out, brothers and sisters, so that there won’t be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

But encourage each other daily, while it is still called today, so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception. (Hebrews 3:12-13)

I was just thinking today how important it is, especially in these times, to encourage and exhort each other as Christians.

We live in times when moral decay is spreading like gangrene throughout society, and it is easy for we ourselves to start hardening our hearts to what God says about sin.

All you have to do is look at TV programs nowadays and see what is being pushed into our faces as “normal sexual behavior,” whether it is heterosexual or homosexual.

The same can be said for the things the media and society around us call “being on the right side of history.”

But just as dangerous, Christians can look at society and start to lose hope that God is truly in control.

Either way, our faith in God begins to dissipate.

And so the writer of Hebrews tells us to “encourage each other daily…so that none of you is hardened by sin’s deception.”

One of the most important exhortations we can give each other is found in verse 15.

Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

The problem with a lot of us, is not that we don’t hear his voice. It’s that we harden our hearts to it. And the more we harden our hearts to his voice, the more difficult it becomes to hear it.

So one of the things we need to encourage each other to do the most is to soak ourselves in God’s truth.

And when God speaks to our hearts, we must encourage each other to not make excuses or to whine or moan as the Israelites did in the desert, but to soften our hearts to him and listen.

As brothers and sisters in Christ, let us make it a point each day to exhort and encourage each other in this way.

Who can you encourage and exhort today?

Categories
Psalms

Lead me not into temptation…

Psalms

As Psalm 140 was a prayer similar to our Lord’s in asking for deliverance from evil, Psalm 141 continues that theme and adds the other part of that verse in the Lord’s prayer.

Lead us not into temptation.  (Matthew 6:13)

David prays,

Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD;
keep watch over the door of my lips.

Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil,
to take part in wicked deeds
with men who are evildoers;
let me not eat of their delicacies.  (Psalm 141:3-4)

It strikes me here that he focuses on two things:  the words of his mouth, and the meditations of his heart.

He prays, “Lord, don’t let anything evil come out of my mouth.”

So often, Christians struggle with just that.  Whether it’s grumbling or complaining, gossip, slander, hurtful words, or whatever it may be.

Just a couple of days ago, I caught some sarcastic complaints coming out of my mouth.  And God rebuked me for it.

David also worried about his thought life, and he said, “Don’t let my heart be drawn to what is evil.  Don’t let my heart see the evil people around me, and be attracted to it.  To envy who they are and what they have.”

For when we allow our hearts to meditate on evil, it’s only a short step to acting on it.

Jesus also pointed out the importance of our thought lives in other areas.

He said that if we harbor anger in our hearts toward our brother, we have murdered him in our heart (Matthew 5:21-22).

He also said that if we lust after a woman, we’ve committed adultery with them in our hearts. (Matthew 5:27-28)

God is not only concerned about our deeds, but our thought life as well.  David knew this, and so he prayed that God would guard his heart as well as his lips.

He also determined to keep a humble, teachable heart that was willing to accept rebuke.  He told God,

Let a righteous man strike me–it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me –it is oil on my head.

My head will not refuse it.  (5)

So many of us take rebuke as burning coals.  But David took it as soothing oil.

This is not to say that the words were soothing at the time.  When Nathan confronted David for his sin with Bathsheba, and his murder of her husband, it must have felt like heaps of burning coals on his head.

Yet he repented, and God forgave and restored him.

That’s one of the keys to fighting temptation.  A humble heart that will accept correction.  A heart that doesn’t harden itself to God’s rebuke.

David then closes by again asking for deliverance from evil, from the people that would destroy him.

Every day, may we pray the same.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  (Matthew 6:13 — NASB).

Categories
2 Chronicles 2 Kings Jeremiah

Reasons for the fall

Kings,Chronicles, and Jeremiah

This is one of the few times in scripture that the same event is talked about in four different places. 

Jeremiah 52 appears to be a historical appendix, however, and seems to have been added by someone other than Jeremiah.  It’s an almost word for word repetition of the Kings’ account.

Basically Zedekiah had rebelled against Babylon, despite taking an oath in God’s name to be a vassal under him, so Nebuchadnezzar put Jerusalem under siege for 2 years. 

As a result, there was famine in the city, and at last, the walls were broken through. 

Though Zedekiah fled, he was eventually captured.  His sons were put to death, after which he was blinded and taken into captivity until he died. 

Nebuchadnezzar killed the officials of Judah, and also the chief priest and the next in rank. 

Everything of value in the temple was taken away, and then the temple itself, the palace, and the houses of the land were all burned down.

Why?  2 Chronicles makes the reasons crystal clear.

[Zedekiah] did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord…He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel.

Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people became more and more unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. 

But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.  (2 Chronicles 36:12-16)

What can we learn from this?  Why did Jerusalem fall?

First, they did what was evil in God’s sight.  It goes without saying that when we do evil, we bring evil upon ourselves.

Second, when they heard God’s words of rebuke, they didn’t humble themselves and repent.  Rather, they hardened their hearts, not only continuing their evil deeds, but becoming even more unfaithful to God.

Third, they followed the religious practices of the nations around them, and in doing so defiled the temple of God.

Finally, they continually mocked the words of God and scoffed at his messengers until finally there was no remedy for the evil in their hearts.  It is possible to so harden ourselves that we make it impossible for ourselves to return.

How about you?  What path are you going down? 

Are you unrepentedly doing what God has called evil?  When you hear God’s words of rebuke in his Word or through messages at church, do you just close your eyes and ears?

Are you following the religious practices and beliefs of the people around you, and in so doing defiling the temple of the Holy Spirit within you? 

I’m not just talking about following other religions.  I’m talking about following the gods of money, sex, and materialism as well.  These things will defile your lives.

Worst of all, have you become so hardened to God’s word, that you actually scoff at it and anyone who would preach it?

These are what caused Israel to fall into destruction.  And it will cause you to fall to destruction too. 

I’m not saying that you’ll lose your salvation.  But you will eventually destroy all the good things in your life.  And you’ll wreck all the good plans God intended for your life. 

Instead of having a life worth living, you’ll be left with a wasted life full of regret.

Let us not be like the Israelites who lost everything.  Let us keep hearts that are soft and humble before God.  For only in doing that can we find the way of life.