Guard Your Heart Above All Else

Hey Ya'll!!!


So I've had this thing in my head and in my heart for a few weeks now. Wasn't sure if I was supposed to post this, but since it's STILL in my heart, I'm going to. Mind you, this is something that I wrote 9 months ago. So forgive the references (to my local people) to the Yolanda Adams Show since she isn't on the air here anymore. But please find your place in this. It's more of a lesson. I planned on using it for a bible study with the kids, but the opportunity never presented itself to present it to them. God must have known that someone reading my blog may have needed to hear it instead. :-)  Sorry if it's a little longer than normal!


I Love You All!!! Be Blessed!!!!!

Guard Your Heart:

See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil.

10/22/2015

Story:          

I was listening to the Yolanda Adams Show today, and the “Say Whatcha Wanna Say Thursday topic” was:

How do/did you deal with a co-worker you can’t stand????

Now, let’s be clear. They didn’t ask, with a difficult coworker. They said with a coworker you can’t stand. You know, the one that you see, and you get instant ulcers??  Yes, that person. I was immediately reminded of that one person in my group. I was also reminded of something else. “Heart Check” and “Pride”.  Even in my case, where I had a “legitimate” reason to not like this dude, and could have told him about himself and solved the issue, I had something to check, ME.

• Yup, he was talking trash. I can’t stand that, but he was also talking trash about me! Oh no, that’s a problem, Dude better keep my name out his mouth.
• Yup, he was ALWAYS complaining about sudden rushes of work. Dude it’s your job, just do it! That’s what you get paid for!!
• Yup, he was always stepping on someone’s toes. Can I just do my job??? Why you all up in my stuff?? Don’t worry about me, worry about you!
• Man, if he talks sideways to me but one more time…. Imma mess around and lose my job behind this dude!

 Yea, ya’ll felt that way about someone at your job at some point. Some of ya’ll still feel exactly that way!!!! Don’t go losing your job now! I’m gonna help you try to get past it!

My Pastor has taught us, if there is something in your heart regarding someone, there is SOMETHING having to do with Pride or Jealousy in your own heart. There are 2 types of people in the world. And everyone falls in one of these 2, including you.

Saved and Unsaved

Unsaved:

When you are the unsaved one:

• You can’t stand anyone. If someone looks at you “wrong”, you about to fight. (raising my own hand)
• You acted a fool. Made all sorts of irresponsible decisions. Risky life. (raising my own hand)
• Talked like a fool. I know we got a LOT of ex-sailors in here (raising my own hand)
• Happily listened to foolishness from other fools. Cause ain’t nothing better than someone to co-sign all the foolishness we got to say right! (Raising my own 2 hands!)
• And some of us even Drank and smoked like a fool. (raising my own hands)
   
  Just being real and I know I’m not the only person that did all these foolish things. If anything, I KNOW my own Pastor got my back in this because she has told us her mess herself! 

Give the Lord some Praise if you are honest enough to admit you were this big bag of foolishness or you still find yourself in some of this foolishness. Cause if you are, we about to learn how to get on the right track today. And I’m not about to tell you about ANYTHING that I didn’t have to do myself. And Reggie will tell you, I am stubborn, I’m gonna have to learn by experience, trial and error, or Just God telling me Himself. Cause don’t nobody want to NOT do what they daddy say do. J

Saved:

When you finally get saved:

• You can’t stand gossip.
• You don’t want to use bad language and really find yourself suddenly NOT using it.
• You finally want to get your life right (stop cohabitating, no clubbing, drinking, smoking, etc).
• You want to start to teach your kids better.
• You begin to draw away from some of your old friends, and keep it to a hi/bye relationship.

The problem with all this ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS is, that moment when the enemy realizes "uh oh, she/he trying to cross over, but they not strong, let me make it hard.” And he sends (Unbeknownst to you!) some hidden things that creep in from low to the ground while you are happy in your new found Salvation and distracted looking high to the skies………. And suddenly this happens...... PRIDE, JEALOUSY, DOUBT

Hidden Sin

Pride:

Now that you are saved, you struggle with hidden Pride that you can’t easily see:

                You develop a hate/disliking of what you do not realize is, EVERYTHING YOU USED TO BE.

Meanwhile, you have not yet developed or even thought about, mercy yet or worked on your love. So now the same person you ARE is tremendously bothered by the person who exists as the person you WERE. 

Jealousy:

Now that you are saved, you struggle with seeing others that are way beyond your "stage" of salvation:

                You begin to shy away from the people who can build you up to become the person that God wants you to be. Those same people that you have measured yourself against have a purpose and its NOT to show you where you are NOT. It's to guide you and strengthen you and help you grow to the person God called you to be. But if you shy away from them, how can they help you?

Doubt:

Not sure that you can hang in this the way so many others have. Might be easier the way it was:

                You truly doubt that you can really get that prayer life going. You doubt that you can successfully complete a good fast. You truly doubt that you have the time to study the word. While you are on a roll doubting your spirit, guess what else is happening. You doubt you can be a good enough wife. You doubt that you will be able to raise your children in the admonition of the Lord, so you expect for them to act up and/or get in trouble. You begin to doubt EVERYTHING, including the blessings God gave you. 

I'm sure that many of us have found ourselves in any if not all of these places.

But Don't give up. They are only distractions. If you just focus on God through it, and ask for HIS help, you can get through it.

Take a step toward God so He knows you are for real. Give Him something to work with. Let Him know you are for REAL this time. Here are some examples:

Daily Life -

Will you give him 30 minutes. Just a solid 30 minutes every day. One day study the word. Another day, pray (you are in transition, at this point you can even use the 30 minutes to cry out, ask for sincere help, or anything else you want), worship, meditate on all the things He has already done for you and maybe take the time to thank Him for having done it.

Music

Will you change what you hear? Let me tell you, I loved Biggie like no other rapper. Pac too. Can't forget Fat Joe.... Ok, you get it. I loved my music, but truth be told, I had to let it go. While I was still listening to things that were in the streets, and all the cussing and drugs and drinking and partying, I could NOT get to where God needed me to be. I had to cut out the constant reminders of the past. I replaced my music with Gospel. And if I needed me a hot beat to bounce too, best believe there are some AMAZING Christian rappers with some hot beats to bounce to!!!!

Movies

This one was a little hard, ok, maybe not as hard as the Music was, but it's in line. This has the same effect as the music. There are some movies you may need to not watch. I love Al Pacino, but I can't watch Scarface. Now I'm not saying that you need to watch the Lifetime Channel all day. I'm just saying there are some things that you are trying to purge from your life. If you are trying to really get rid of it, you can't be watching it on the TV. You need to clean your heart from all that completely.








Basically what I'm trying to say is that if you are really wanting to get some things cleaned out of your life, it has to be out of your heart. And the way to get it out of your heart is to starve it. THAT is how you kill something. Then the way to KEEP it out of your heart is to not let it enter your spirit. The way to do that is not listening to those thing (HEAR NO EVIL), not seeing those things (SEE NO EVIL), and not speaking of those things (SPEAK NO EVIL).


Once the fat has been trimmed from your heart, you will suddenly find (after some time of course) that you really have no desire to allow those things to enter back into your heart. Now you can work on other things in your life.


I hope this helped you!!!!!!!!!!!