My People are Destroyed for Lack of Knowledge Series

Part 4: A Guarded Heart versus a Hardened Heart

February 16, 2012

Blessings to All!

I’m so excited about what God is doing in His Kingdom.  I wish I could take credit for this next teaching but I can’t.  It was inspired by someone else, a lot of someone else’s if the truth be really told and God used it to help me in this season of my life, to see even more of me and how I could get unstuck and move forward with His plan, purpose and the call He has on my life.  Amen?!  Amen!!!

Let’s jump right in!  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. [Hosea 4:6, KJV]

The King James Study Bible (KJSB) annotation states ‘The cause of man’s problem is lack of knowledge.  It does not stem from a shortage of information, but rather from rejection of information.’

My God!  The NLT version of Proverbs 4:[23] says Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. The KJV says Proverbs 4:[23] Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.  The AV says Proverbs 4:[23] Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.

The King James Study Bible (KJSB) annotation of this verse reads:

Heart could often be translated “mind” in the book.  Since the Hebrews had no separate word for “mind,” the word “heart” often served to represent the seat of the intellect.  The key to the whole man is his mind.  Whatever captures the mind captures the man.

The KJSB doctrinal footnote of this verse reads:

The Old Testament word heart often refers to the physical organ of the circulatory system. Both Testaments also see the heart figuratively as the center of the personality or spiritual life.  The heart is the seat of intellect, emotions, will and moral consciousness.  It is the personality which has that extraordinary ability to perceive itself.  The heart is presented as the seat of conscious life and the fountainhead of life.  Illustration: Jesus taught that sin came out of the heart of people, thus defiling them (Mark 7:21-23). Yet after conversion, one of the characteristics of Christians is that they have the law of God written in their hearts (Heb. 8:8-12).  Application: Christians should love the Lord with all their hearts (Matt. 22:37).  (First Reference, Gen. 6:5; Primary Reference, Prov. 4:23, cf: Rom. 2:15)

Stay with me for just a few more minutes please.  Mark 4:1-20 Jesus speaks on the parable of the sower.  The KJSB annotation says ‘a parable is a brief story that makes a comparison.  It typically uses an illustration from everyday life to bring out a spiritual truth.’ The parable of the sower is a very familiar teaching of Jesus where He stated the sower sowed and some fell by the way side, some fell on stony ground, some fell among thorns, and some fell on good ground.

Glory to God!  I used to love to think that which was sown to me fell on good ground.  What Christian doesn’t want to think that? However, what we forget is that life situations oftentimes leave residual affects on us or in us unaware.  Where as our heart may have been good, soft and receptive to people and the things of God, the cares of life has left it tainted. Thus, our good heart has become a hardened heart unaware.  We have begun to live in pretension, masked unaware.

I’m probably the only one who has experienced this more times than I’d like to admit.  My heart had become so hardened unaware that I allowed my emotions to dictate my decisions, my actions in life unaware, all the while calling on Jesus.  We can be deceived on that level all the while loving up on God, and it is during these times, when God does bring us to ourselves like He has done to and with me and continues to do, and all you can do is say ‘Thank you Jesus for knowing my heart.’  As I was trying to say, God was showing me the extreme difference between guarding my heart, protecting my heart in comparison to operating out of hard heart.  I had been tricked by the enemy.  I had been confused about my heart operation.  Again, I called myself ‘guarding my heart,’ ‘protecting my heart,’ but in fact, I was operating in and with a ‘hard’ heart.  This is one of the reasons when God gave me the double dip in December 2011 and I kept repeating, ‘Lord, where have you been?’  ‘Lord, where have you been?’  It was because I had moved out of the position of God in my heart unaware and it was Him knowing my heart that brought me back.  Thank you Jesus!  I’m so grateful and appreciative to God for knowing my heart!  I was lost but thank God He found me again!  Hallelujah!  Glory to God!

Last, a guarded heart still gives love, receives love to and from others, and to and from God.  We are still able to grow.  A hard heart doesn’t allow us to even get close enough to anyone to receive anything or very little from anyone and even from God.  We become stagnant in a way.  A hard heart is a closed heart.  Nothing goes out and nothing comes in.  We have begun to lean to our own understanding unaware.  We say we love people, and no doubt we try to love them, and we think we are but we really aren’t, and it will show through our level of growth and in the relationships we have with ourselves, with God and with others.

Ya’ll just don’t know how grateful and appreciative I am that God found me, that God brought me to myself.  I didn’t know how far I had gone in my heart.  Now God is teaching me how to guard what comes into my heart from others on a deeper level.  God has made it crystal clear to me that there are seasons in my life when I am to pour out my soul (releasing to receive help).  There are also seasons in my life when I don’t need to ‘speak it no more’ of a certain thing because deliverance has come in a particular area that I have been freed, and all I need to do is walk in that freedom and speaking it no more fuels my flight to embrace and walk in my freedom.  This is revelation to me.  Ya’ll just don’t know I thank God for the Body of Christ and the members in the Body who are speaking life to me at this crucial season, and I mean very crucial season in my life.  I give God glory and honor for what He is doing not just for me, but for all of us.  We are all in this together.

I pray that each of you will take this information and not reject it, but rather take it to God in prayer, seek His Face, ask Him what applies to you and help you to move to the next level in Him.

I pray God blessings continue to chase us all down and take us over in Jesus majestic name.  Amen!  Amen!  Amen!

Until the next time,

Pastor Andra