Open Our Hearts
Opening our heart to receive His love, Word, and guidance is such an important aspect of our Christian walk with Christ. Making a quiet time for you to sit at Jesus’ feet and asking Him to examine our hearts because they are terribly wicked without Him. He knows our hearts and He still loves us with all our faults. When I did this, and asked God to show me, I saw things about myself that frightened me. He loved me anyway and worked with me to clean up my life; not with condemnation, but with His tender love.
As we progress on His road, our hearts grow lighter, we grow closer to Him, and our walls come down so that we can be what He calls for us to be. A lot of hard things happened to me when I first became saved. I was hurting so bad that I had a wall around my heart and would not let anyone in. But, Jesus could not get in either! Not until I asked Him did He open my heart and remove the wall so He could work with me, to start healing me from the inside. It was not an overnight transformation, but a little at a time I was being renewed in Him. His work will continue in us until we go to Heaven; not until then do we reach perfection.
When Jesus wants to help us deal with our flesh, let us humble ourselves and surrender to His calling, so He may cleanse our hearts. Satan wants to remind us of our failures, our faults, and have our hearts be hardened, but he is a liar and a deceiver. Jesus has brought these things to the surface, to refine and purify us as gold. Victory is ours when we surrender to Christ.
I was a single mom of four young children. I worked very hard, long hours. There was no time to waste or relax because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to support them. Jesus is still working with me on having that mindset. I have to unlearn what I had been doing for many years. By not letting myself rest, I hurt myself physically, mentally, and emotionally and now I am paying the price for it. I have been so sick that I have no choice but to stay still. During this time, I am learning to relax both my body and my mind. It has been a great lesson in my life, one that has drawn me so much closer to God. I am learning so much about who God is, and how to truly trust in Him in all things. Even in my hardship, I am finally enjoying life at the age of 77. I realize now that as bad as this illness is, it has also been a great blessing in spiritual growth. I should have trusted Him more when I was younger and thought I had to do everything myself. Instead of working so hard, I should have had more faith that He would have taken care of us. I have learned the hard way, but maybe others can learn from me. That is why I write these blogs.
I thank Him for carrying me through and always renewing me even to this day; when they say “born again,” we truly are.
Psalm 139:1
O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
Psalm 139:23-24
23-Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24-And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 119:18
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
Ezekiel 36:26
[Thus saith the Lord] A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Jeremiah 24:7
[Thus saith the Lord] And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I Am the Lord: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Deuteronomy 30:6
And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.