Guard Your Heart

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Proverbs 4:23 (New Living Translation)

*****
How many times have I seen this passage.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." is the NIV translation, so determining the course of your life, your heart guides the way. It should be noted that in Old Testament times, the heart was considered to be in the abdomen. It was thought that when you got nervous, it would have an affect upon your heart, thus you would get 'butterflies' in your stomach, your heart was uneasy.

Just knowing where the heart was considered to be in that day and age, it really changes how being nervous affects a relationship with God. It also shows that if you are doing something wrong and don't feel nervous, how far gone you've delved into a sin. One other thing, if you 

Love

"Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading to its hope. It can really outlast anything." 1 Corinthians 13:7 (Phillips)

(The Entire Chapter - The Message)
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

*****

I don't know, but I think Jesus was the first hippie. Seriously, God is love and if love is the best thing, it is saying God is the best thing, and you can't argue with that. Well, I guess you could, but it wouldn't change my opinion. I guess I should point out that right now, I am not a Christian or a disciple of Christ, but I still believe that Jesus is the son of God. I struggle right now in following him, though. Mainly, I struggle with attitudes... why this and why that. Love doesn't die. That is a POWERFUL statement. Think about that. Maybe I have the attitudes because I care... because if I didn't care, then I wouldn't bother having an attitude in the first place.

Metanoia

Metanoia

• Part of Speech: noun
• Definition: spiritual conversion or awakening; fundamental change of character
• Etymology: Greek 'change one's mind, repent'

Metanoia (noun)

• a profound, usually spiritual, transformation; conversion.

Metanoia

• 1873, "penitence, spiritual conversion," from Gk. metanoia "afterthought, repentance," from metanoein "to change one's mind or purpose."

Paranoia

• 
  
  "mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions," 1891 (earlier paranoea 1811), from Gk. paranoia "mental derangement, madness," from paranoos "mentally ill, insane," from para- "beside, beyond" + noos "mind."

Metabolic

• 
  
  1845, from Ger. metabolisch (1839), from Gk. metabolikos "changeable," from metabole "a change, changing," related to metaballein "to change" (see metabolism).

Conversion

• A converting or being converted; specif., such as a change from lack of faith to religious belief; adoption of a religion or a change from one belief, religion, doctrine, opinion, etc. to another
• To change from one form or use to another; transform.

Self-Discipline

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7 (New Living Translation)

2 Timothy 1:3-12

I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

*****
Self-discipline is a trust issue. It is trusting in God's plan and not my plan. That's really all I have right now, as my brain is fuzzy.

Truth

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."

John 14:6 (New Living Translation)

John 14:1-14

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”

“No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!

*****

OK, here's the scoop. You can ask for anything and Jesus will do it. Does that make Jesus my puppet? No. If I ask with love in my heart, overflowing love and all that and it is a righteous request, then sure, I can't see Jesus saying no to that, but if you are praying for someone to die in a bloody heap, don't count on it being a request granted. If you are praying to win the lottery, don't hold your breath. If you are praying for a particular person to come to God, well, there is free will, and God will not step in the way of what he has already given, however, if you pray for someone to enter a person's life to teach the person what a Christian is all about, God will totally grant that request.