The Heart United

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, from Chapter 12, "Unite My Heart to Fear Your Name")

"Have you heard the old adage, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink'?  Well, here is the real truth of that statement.  You can't even lead a horse to water if he refuses to go!  All you can do for some horses is say, 'There's the water over there.  If you want to drink, you will have to walk yourself there.  I will come along for the journey, if you'd like, but I'm not going to drag you there!' You have nearly completed this book.  It has been full of information about your heart and how it can be, and should be, transformed.  As you read this last chapter, my prayer is that you will look forward, see the 'water', and go take a thirst-quenching drink, over and over.

Throughout this book, you have been given three visual aids to help you grow in your understanding of what your heart truly looks like.  We have examined the Tabernacle of the Old Testament in light of how it represents the journey of our hearts, our very life-path, from the moment that we step into Christ to the moment that we are face to face with Him in eternity.  We have looked at a simple representation of our heart with all of its breaches and cracks, gaining a unique look at the sins, the gods, and the idols that have accumulated there since our birth.  Finally, in the chapters on surrender, we were able to visualize how those layers of sin can trap the Holy Spirit inside of us, unless we break through the sin with our surrender and repentance.  I believe that these visuals will help us all see that the matter of our heart is serious business to God, and the journey through it will be difficult, but necessary, for us to make.  He desires that our hearts be a proper home for Him, one in which He is comfortable.  But for Him to have that proper home, we will go through processes that will make us uncomfortable.

Without an understanding that we are to enter into a relationship with Jesus so that we can begin to be conformed to His image, we will helplessly wander in the wilderness of salvation without sanctification.  From our salvation all the way to standing in the presence of the Living God, we are to be engaged in a progressive process that is designed to unite, bind up, and restore our broken, damaged, and yes, sin-filled hearts.  This sanctification, our perfecting in Christ, is accomplished when we begin to surrender piece by painful piece to the only One who can transform our hearts into hearts that are united and that fear the name of Jesus."

Unite My Heart

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

Teach me Your way, O Lord;  I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name."  (Psalm 86:11)

"Isn't that awesome?  God knows that our hearts, even after salvation, are broken and divided.  The apostle Paul obviously knew it as well, for that is the very thing he is trying to convey in Romans 7: 15-21.  He can't seem to understand why, when he wants to do the right things, he continually does the wrong things.  He needed the Lord, just as we do, to unite the pieces of our hearts.  God alone is capable of healing them.  When we finally see our broken hearts being restored by the Spirit of God, we will be able to become all that He intends for us to be--like Him.  This is sanctification.  This is the highway to holiness."

Are you ready to submit your heart to the only one who can transform it? Today, why not stop all of your "trying" to get it done, and surrender your heart, that is divided between flesh and Spirit, to God. Follow in the footsteps of Paul, who learned to say, "I die daily." This is victory!

 

(Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory--Chapter 6)

Finding Spiritual Healing

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

                                                                                    

                                                                                     

Today I want to introduce to you my book, Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory.  The message of this book is the inspiration of this blog.  If you haven't listened to the video, please do.  It will give you an overview of the precepts found in Spiritual Healing.

You might find yourself wondering why you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, have need for further spiritual healing.  The answer lies in understanding that when you first believed in Christ, the penalty of your sin was removed.  You no longer would be held accountable for the wickedness of your heart and flesh.  But I am convinced that it didn't take you much longer than it did me to realize that the practice of sin was still very much a part of your life.  You were still quite capable of sinning.  This is why you and I need a spiritual healing of our sin-filled hearts.  We need to learn how to overcome our sinful tendencies.  We all need to discover the way to gain victory over our flesh and sin life.

As believers you and I now have the opportunity to choose how we will live.  And there are only two real choices.  Either we will live in the comfort of the status quo, ignoring the sins we commit on a regular basis, thus, becoming complacent in the sin lifestyle.  We will profess Christ as our Savior, living solely in the expectation of salvation in Christ (our "ticket to Heaven").  The only other choice would be to press into our relationship with Christ and press through the temptation to sin, on to the abundant life in Christ where we will walk in obedience to the Spirit's whispers, overcoming what used to be the constant sinful tendency of our flesh.

After walking in my belief for the last 37 year, I am convicted of the sin that remains in my life.  Are you?  Is it possible that God is preparing this generation to rise up against our own fleshly wills and surrender to Him, so that we might be a light to this lost world?  Our hearts are where this battle rages--in the very home of the the Holy Spirit.  He has a job to do in our hearts.  It is to transform our hearts and lives into the very image of Christ.  But we constantly prevent Him from building a pure home for Himself in us because we refuse to surrender to the work He is designed to do in us.  

Are you passionately seeking a transformation of your heart?  Do you want to experience Spiritual Healing?  It is available to you, but only through the Spirit.  If you sense that the Spirit is speaking to you right now, and your heart is racing in anticipation of the life that lies just beyond the veil of your flesh, you might well be on a pathway to the holy and pure life that is yours in Christ.

Would you like further instruction on this topic?  Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory is available on this blog.  Look for the "Buy Now" button and purchase a copy today!  Say good-by to your complacent walk and fix your eyes on the journey to victory!

Remedy For a Sin-broken Heart

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

Solomon had just finished his beautiful, powerful prayer to God as he dedicated the newly built temple.  He concluded with a call to all of Israel to devote themselves, their hearts, to the Lord by walking faithfully in all of His commandments.  By setting the Ark of the Covenant in the new Holy of Holies, God would then be able to say, "My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually."  

Solomon's connection between the Ark of the Covenant where God dwelt then, and our hearts where God dwells now is critically important to us today.  It is in our heart, the core of our being, that the Holy Spirit perpetually dwells.  He is the eyes who watch everything we think, do, and say.  He is the very heart  of God in us.  And what is the "heart of God?"  It is the very life of Christ.  That is what the Holy Spirit represents in the life of the believer.

Though we have the life of Christ living in us, we so often try to do every spiritual thing in our own power.  We use our strengths and our sheer will-power to try and overcome sin.  We want desperately to walk faithfully in the commands God gives us to live by, and fail miserably with each attempt.  We so often life in a sin-confess-try again cycle, and usually never realize that this is simply a dog chasing its tail.  We go round and round and round, but we never really get anywhere.

So what is the secret, then, to having an unbroken heart, a heart healed of its sinful ways that obeys the Lord's commands?  Zechariah the prophet speaks loudly the key to having an unbroken heart.  "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the Lord. (4:6).

The healing of the continual sin in your heart will not come by might ("I am trying hard to handle this.  I failed yesterday, but I will try harder today."), nor will it come from your strength and power  ("I am strong; I can get through this; I did yesterday, so I will today as well.").  The spiritual healing of your heart, the very removal of fleshly gods, idols, and sins,  will happen because of your working at it.  God requires one thing from you to become an obedient child who walks in His pure and righteous ways.  He requires your surrender to the Spirit.  Your transformed heart, changing from broken to unbroken, from sin-stained to holy, is the work of the Spirit.  This work happens from the inside out by the Spirit, not from the outside in by your striving flesh!

In every 12 step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the transforming work begins with these 3 principles:  I can't; You can; go ahead!  Do you hear the surrender of such a prayer?  This should be our constant prayer!  Why not begin right now to apply the truth of Zechariah 4:6.  It will sound a something like this:

"Holy Spirit, you have a job to do in my heart, but You require me to seek Your work in me from a place of humility and surrender.  I am struggling with committing the sin of _______.  I have tried to stop and have failed miserably.  I know that my flesh cannot transform my heart.  Only You can.  So I come to You today, with my flesh crucified and my spirit crying out to You.  'I can't get this done in me!  But I know that You can!  So please go ahead!'  I surrender to Your work in me."

By using the "Post Comment" button below, why not report back what the Spirit is doing in you as an encouragement to the other readers of this blog!  And while you are at it, click on the "follow" button to the right!