The power of your heart, the power of your heart, your heart is a very powerful force in your life, it's the most powerful thing that we have in our lives. Now, remember, man is made up of spirit, soul and body. Our spirit is what is recreated when we're born again. Our spirit is made alive in Christ. Our spirit is born again. But our soul is not born again. Our soul has to be transformed, conformed to the image of Jesus through the renewing of our mind. And that's what the process is of learning God's word. We're not reading the Bible to find out what to do. We're reading the Bible to find out how to believe because right believing always produces right living right. Thinking always produces right living. So our objective is to focus on how to think God's way, how to believe God's way. And that will lead us as a reflex into how to live God's way. Can anybody say amen to that? So, so much of religion and even so much of the Christian church has been focused on man's behavior. And what we focused on is really sick psychology, Christian psychology, which is really focused on behavioral modification, what we're trying to get people to stop doing drugs and stop drinking and stop getting high and stop selling crack. And hopefully you're not selling that stuff anymore. But and if you you know, and if you don't have anywhere to put it, bring it up here and I'll take care of it. Not I'm not not like that. Not like I used to take care of it. But but we've had services where people brought their drugs, you know, they brought their weapons to the altar, you know, my God, just leave them at home, please, if you don't bring them. But but we've had people that have that have gone through so many things. And, you know, our objective is not to modify your behavior here. It's to enlighten you and inspire you and and and have a revelation of God's love and his goodness and his grace and his and for you to see the real Jesus and understand what God is really like and and understand what is his word is a love letter to you. The Bible is a love letter. It's in fact, 66 letters. It's 66 books of love from Genesis to Revelation. It's all about love from from the beginning to the end. The Bible is all about love because the Bible is the Bible is a reflection of what God is like. And the one characteristic that stands out about God more than anything is found in First John for eight, where it says God is love. Can anybody say amen to that? So if you ever interpret a scripture. Without understanding, the author is the author of Love He is Love that you will misinterpret the scripture unless you understand the author's nature. The nature of the author is love. God is love. And so whenever I read the scripture now, I didn't used to read it like this, I used to read the Bible and and think, OK, I'm condemned because I'm not doing this enough. I'm not praying enough. I'm not I'm not studying enough. I'm not witnessing enough. I'm not fasting enough. I'm I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. And that mentality is destructive. That's just another religion. That is not true Christianity. True Christianity is a revelation of God's love. It's not that we bring all this goodness to God. Remember that verse. It's not that we bring all this goodness to God, but he brings it all to us. We read that scripture in Romans, chapter 12, verse three, it's the Christian life is all about what God does for us, not what we do for him. What we do for him should be a reflection of what he has done for us, just as whoever he is is a reflection of what we are and who we are. So when we see God the right way from the from the perspective of God's word, then. We begin to understand ourselves because we're made in his image. That's why it's so important to understand what God is really like, then you can understand. Who you really are, so we're made up of spirit, soul and body, our spirit is already recreated in the image of God. Our soul needs to be renewed in our soul is made up of three parts. Our soul is our mind to think, our heart to feel, and our will to decide. It is the mind to think. It is the heart to feel and it is the will to decide that's what our soul consists of. And that is perverted. Our mind to think has been perverted by what we've learned growing up without Jesus or or what what thoughts have filled our mind about ourselves, the opinion we have of ourselves based on our looks or based on our job or our finances or based on the wrong things. Those are all the wrong way to look at yourself is through the eyes of the flesh. But but so our soul is corrupted. Our soul is is is damaged. And that's why the Bible says he restores my soul. The most famous chapter in the Bible, Psalm twenty three. He restores my soul and then guides me in the paths of righteousness. In other words, you'll not you can't live on the right path until your soul is restored and healed from the damage that it's endured through the bad decisions you've made and the bad decisions people have made towards you, whether you've been abused or whether you just made bad decisions growing up. And then then we have the third part of our life is our body, which carries our spirit and our soul. We are our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And God never gave us that scripture to threaten us. Like, you better realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So you better give up your smoking and you better give up all the all the bad things you're doing because you will you will grieve. The Holy Spirit doesn't grieve the Holy Spirit. Look, smoking isn't good for you. Can anybody say amen? But it doesn't grieve the Holy Spirit. God doesn't care if he sees you sooner. Rather than later. It's not it's not about God wanting you to stop doing that because it's so unholy and degrading him and and he's coughing up inside your spirit and he can't, you know, he's hacking away because you're filling him with Salem or you're filling him with, you know, some some some some some marbles or whatever. Whatever you've been smoking. Someone said, you better you better stop, you know, making it easy on people. Jesus said, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. It's a lot harder to believe the wrong things than it is to believe the right things if we just understood what the right things were. The Holy Spirit doesn't leave you because you smoke, the Holy Spirit doesn't leave you because you cost if he did, man, he would never come back because solecism some machines, man. And you know what? You don't say you don't do it in church. You don't cuss in church. But as soon as something you know, as soon as you stub your toe, boom. Oh, you don't say, oh hell, hallelujah, Jesus, I worship you. You don't even say, oh, shoot. You pull the scripture out, you know, like when Jesus spit in the mud and then he put it on the guy's eyes, it was blind. We call that Holy Spirit. I only spent. I know you're like, are you going to get to the teaching? I don't know. This is what I've learned. That is more important to be a good listener. Then a good speaker. Because I can bumble and stumble my way through a teaching here, but if you have a listening heart. God will speak to you. Through my flaws and my poor delivery, I'm not trying to be. I'm not hoping to give you a poor delivery. I'm hoping to give you a good delivery. But you understand, if you have a heart to hear, Jesus said to him, he has ears to hear. Let him here. So we need to come together with a heart to hear with a listening ear. We need to come together with a humble heart that's like God. Teach me, Lord, speak to me, Holy Spirit, Minister to me. Encourage me, strengthen me, teach me. The Bible says he's the encourager, he's the coach. He's the help. Or he's the counselor. He's the teacher. He's the advocate. He's the defender. He's all those things for us. The Holy Spirit will teach you through me in spite of me instead of me from me as a result to me, he can use me in on a good day and he can use me on a bad day. Hallelujah, thanks, brother, said always. So look at the scripture in First Corinthians two, verse nine, because this is what I want to get to, and over the next several weeks, I hope you won't miss any of this series on the power of the heart. Probably teach this all the way through August. There's so many directions we're going to go with this and so many great treasures we're going to discover. But he said, as hard as it is written, what I is not seen nor ear has heard. Nor the heart of man has yet imagined what God has prepared for those that love him. Now, here's here we could really focus on what God has prepared for those that love him. And I could tell you how important it is to love God. But then you're going to get under this guilt and condemnation like I don't love God enough. I don't love God enough. And that's because this scripture has been taught so incorrectly to so many Christians that it's all about our love for God. But you've got to remember in first, John, for 19, the Bible says we love him because he first loved us. So the focus of our search of scripture and the focus of our of our understanding of God's word should not be on and the focus of our Christian life should not be on how much more we got to love God better. We got to love God better. We got to love God better. He doesn't even he doesn't even say to what degree that we love him. He says all these things that God's prepared for those that love him. It doesn't say those that love him with all their heart. It doesn't say those that love him with all their energy, although he just says for those that love him. But the Bible defines itself. Look at first, John, for 19 and then we'll come back to this verse, but in first John for 19, he says it very plainly. We love him. We love him because he first loved us. We love him because he first loved us. Aren't you glad it doesn't say he loves us because we love him? No. That would be such bondage. That would be such. That would be that would be so imprisoning and condemning because we'd always be evaluating God's love for us based on our love for him. And we got and that's completely backwards. We need to realize how much he loves us. And the more you focus on how much he loves you, the more you will love him back in return. In response, as a reflex to his love for you, you I believe this will set you free. No one ever again has to focus on loving God better. If you will just focus your attention on meditating on the Scriptures, about God's love for you, it will transform your attitude towards God and towards people for that matter. You know, when that woman came and she was forgiving much, the Bible says she who was forgiven must. She comes and weeps and sits at the feet of Jesus and and is wiping his feet with her tears and her hair. And Jesus said this woman has been forgiven much. Therefore, she loves much. In other words, she's been loved much. Therefore she loves much you can only love. And then he said, you Pharisees who have been forgiven little. Not that they needed less forgiveness. They needed they probably needed even more forgiveness for their self-righteousness. Come on, somebody got to help me here today. But they didn't need less forgiveness. They just didn't think they needed more. They didn't think they needed to be forgiven. That's self-righteousness. And he said, you guys who have been forgiving little, you love little, but she who has been forgiven much loves much. In other words, all of us are the same. We love in proportion. To how much we feel loved by God. We love to the to the proportion or to to the degree that we believe he loves us. All right. So let's go back now. To First John, first Corinthians to nine, where he says. Your eye not seen, nor is your ear heard. Nor has man's heart imagined. All that God is prepared for those that love him now, why do we love him? We love him because he first loved us. We love him because we love him, because so do we first love him or did he first love us? So we got to that's where we need to focus our attention now. When we know how much he loves us, we love him, he's saying, as a matter of fact, we love him because he first loved us. He's not saying we're trying to love him or striving to love him. He said we love him because he first loved us. You get a hold of that will change your life now. It has not our hearts have not been able to imagine all that God has for us, and one of the reasons why our hearts have not been able to imagine all that God has prepared for us is because we have a limited view of God. In other words, remember what it says in Ephesians three 20 that God is able to do, exceeding abundantly above and beyond all that we can ask or think. One translation says all that we can dream or imagine God can do infinitely beyond our highest dreams. God can do infinitely beyond our highest dreams. But the problem is the problem is not with God. The problem is with what we're dreaming. The problem is, is what since he said he's able to do exceeding abundantly above and beyond all that we can ask or think, we have to begin to ask and think big. Because when we understand what God is like, we're not going to think small, but we understand how much he loves us. We're not going to dream small when we understand how much he wants for us. We're not going to desire small. We're going to go big because we understand how much is in God's heart for us and how much he wants to do in your life and do you through your life. And this is why it hasn't entered the heart. The heart can't imagine all that God has prepared for those that love him because the heart is broken, the heart is damaged, the heart has not been watched over. The heart has grown weed's. The heart has grown hard. The heart has not been able to digest. Listen, there's a reason why Jesus came once. The first thing he did when he came was to save us. But the next thing the Bible says that the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus to do it. And look for 19, Luke for 18. Jesus said The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and to heal the broken hearted. Why is it that the second most important thing that God can do in a human being's life once he saves us, is he heals our broken heart? Why? Why? Because a broken heart cannot contain the dreams that God has for you. A broken heart, a broken anything, cannot contain anything of broken glass, cannot contain the water you pour in it, the milk you pour in it, the the juice you pour in it, whatever you're pouring in that glass. A broken glass cannot contain whatever you want to pour in it. So a broken heart cannot contain the dreams. A broken heart cannot take in the seeds that God is wanting to plant in your heart. Seeds of greatness, seeds of blessing. Seeds of of love. Seeds of hope. Seeds of faith. Seeds of wisdom. Seeds of destiny. Seeds of purpose. These seeds of joy of all the gods prepared for you. He's got such a better life for us than what we've ever imagined. And our heart can't even imagine it because we have a distorted view of God. When you walk out of here with a view of God as love, with a view that God is good, with a view that God is for you, with a view that God will never judge, you were condemned to another day in your life. God not send his son into the world to judge the world, but that the world would be saved through him. So he's not he's not judging. Well, what about the judgment day? The judgment day of the last. The judgment day in heaven. The judgment day at the throne of God is for those that rejected Jesus, not for those that accepted him. There will be no judgment for you. There will be no reference to your sin. The Bible says that God does me. God doesn't even remember your sins. Now, it's not like when you get to heaven, he's going to all of a sudden remember them. Oh, you know what? Now that I've seen him, boy, I saw you, man. You did some doozies back then. If Jesus blood does not wash them away forever, then his blood is not powerful at all. But his blood is more powerful than we can imagine and his blood is washed away. All of our sins as far as east is from west, past, present and future. All your sins are washed away, you say. Well, if you tell people that they'll keep sinning. I don't believe so. I know people that are more religious than all of us put together and they sin more than more than any of us do because religion makes you puts you in bondage and it forces your flesh to react and the law causes you to to be stirred up in your flesh. And you decide you listen, if we would just realize that if we would just realize that our desires are not evil. That any sin you ever have thought or contemplated about committing if you're born again, any sin you've ever thought about committing is because there's a cry in your heart. For more of God. And if you could just understand that temptation, that desire, that that thing pulling me, that addiction that that lost, that that temptation to steal, that lie, to cheat, to do whatever, that is a cry of your heart that God is wanting to heal something in you so he can fill you with something more than you've ever been filled with. So you can experience all that God has prepared for you who love him. Listen. If we would just if we would if we would stop. Seeing ourselves through the prism of all that we've done wrong and all of our hearts are evil and wrong and our motives are wrong. Your heart is simply a. A garden. And it's going to grow whatever seeds you plant in it now, you see, God, there's two creations in the Bible, there's two creations in human history. There's the first creation when God created Adam and Eve. And where did he put them? He put them there in the Garden of Eden and they wrecked it. Right. But he put them God created Adam and Eve and then put them in the Garden of Eden. And that word, Eden, is actually comes from a derivative. Of a word, that means pleasure. So God put Adam and Eve in the garden of pleasure. Because God is the creator of pleasure. The devil didn't create pleasure, the devil created opportunities for counterfeit pleasure, temporary pleasure, but God created pleasure because he put man and he put Adam and Eve in the garden of pleasure. If it was a sin to put them in it, pleasure is sinful then God's sin by putting Adam and Eve in a garden of sin. He didn't put them in a garden of sin. He put them in the Garden of Eden in the Garden of Pleasure, because pleasure was his idea. In his some 16 elevenses in his presence is fullness of joy in his right hand are pleasures forever. Are you with me still? Aren't you glad you didn't go to a church today that's beating you up and condemning you and slapping you over the head with guilt and condemnation? We're talking about flesh. We're talking about pleasure. We're talking about and these are things God wants us to talk about, because when you stuff it all down and you try to act all religious and you and you and you and the whole goal is to change your behavior so that you're more holy than you ever were, then what happens is, is you really you're denying the true desires that you have, which are the pleasure that comes from God's presence and God's love and God's forgiveness and God's mercy and God's grace. You're denying yourself of the pleasures that come from being free, to be real and to be honest. And then when you when you didn't when you live this self-denial of pleasure, because the Bible, when Jesus said deny yourself, he wasn't saying deny yourself of pleasure, deny yourself of ice cream sundaes. He wasn't saying deny yourself of good things. He was saying deny your social life that is led by emotion and accept and embrace the God kind of life that is led by the word of God. OK, so we don't have time to get into that, we're talking about the power of the heart, so they're true to Creation's. There's the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis to where God puts man in the garden. And then there's the new creation of being born again, where God puts the garden in man. So the Garden of Eden did not leave this earth. God just relocated it, he relocated it from Iraq and Mesopotamia, where it was first put, and he now has put it in the human heart. And how do I know that? Because the Bible says the kingdom of God is like a man that plants seed in the ground. The ground is your heart. The soil is your heart. Your heart is the soil, the kingdom of God. He said, when people say coming to you and say in Luke 17, Jesus said people will come and say, the kingdom of God is here, in the Kingdom of God is there. But he said, realize this in Luke 17, verse 21, the kingdom of God is within you. It's within you. It's within you, it's inside of you, so the soil. Of everything that God wants to grow in your life is in your heart, your heart is the soil and you see so it's really the soil doesn't have an opinion. The soil just grows and cultivates whatever seeds are planted in it. So that's why it says in Proverbs four, verse twenty three, look at what it says, you see, he makes it really clear, he says in Proverbs Chapter four of us. Twenty three, watch over your heart. One translation here says, Keep your heart with all diligence. It literally means watch over your heart for out of it flow. The issues of life out of it springs forth the issues of life. So what is he saying now? Look, what he's saying is God has done everything. He's made your spirit brand new. He's made your spirit born again. Your spirit is created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Your spirit is perfect, but your heart is different than your spirit. Your heart is a part of your soul and your heart needs to be healed. Why? Because your heart is designed to contain the seeds that you saw in your heart is designed to carry the dreams that God places inside of you. Your heart is designed by God to to make or break relationships, you see. So everything in our life is that flows from the issues of our heart. So if we have a if we have a health issue, we need to just plant. Seeds of healing in our heart. And get our heart, our soul into agreement with our spirit, does that make sense? So if you have a financial issue, then you should plant the seed of God's promises concerning providing for you. You should plant those seeds in your heart, because out of the heart comes the issues of life. So if we have a financial issue, then if we plant seeds of God's promises about his provision in our heart, it will produce. And what will it produce? It will produce in a good heart. And it's not a good versus evil heart. Good heart means a soft heart. In Mark Chapter four, verse 20, he talks about four types of soil. He doesn't talk about four types of seed. He talks about four types of soil. The same seed is planted on all of the soils, but the soil is what determines whether the seed is going to grow. Remember, in the good soil, he says, these are the ones on whom seed was sown on good ground. Those who and who are those people? Who is that good ground? Those who hear the word and accept it. And then what happens, they bear fruit 30 fold, 60 fold and 100 fold, 30 fold is an incredible number. But he says that's the minimum return you're going to get when you plant a seed in a good heart or good ground. And what I'm trying to say is if you look back at verse 17. He says, well, verse 16, he says these are they that were seed is sown in Mark, Chapter four, verse 16. He said these are they which are sown on stony ground. When they hear the word immediately, they receive with gladness. But verse 17, they have no root in themselves. And so they endure only for a short time, but when tribulation of persecution arises, for the words sake, immediately they get offended. The word here is stumble. I think the King James says it most accurately. He says immediately they get offended, they get offended. And we'll get into that because that's that's something we need to protect our heart from being offended. And the reason we get offended is because we we value our emotions more than we value God's word. We love our feelings. We're more in love with our feelings than we are with God's word. And all that means is the word love. There is the word attachment. It says in Psalm, What am I going too fast to not only have a few minutes, so I'm going to go fast. But in Psalm 119, verse one sixty five is this great piece. Have those who love the law and the word law there is it's implying the word we're not we don't love the law that kills the law of the Ten Commandments. He's not talking about that. He's talking about the principles of God's word, the promises of God's word, great peace. Have those who love God's word and nothing shall offend them. Now he gives us the secret to not being offended right there, if we love God's word, that word love is translated as an umbilical cord attachment between a mother and a child. So to love God's word means it doesn't it's not an emotional feeling. Some emotions come and some go. But to love God's word is not how I love your word. I love your word. I love you. I feel so good. To love God's word means to be attached to God's word and not let go. But we stay more attached. Or what that person did to me or I can't believe what they said about me, hey, you know what you should realize? You only heard you haven't even heard half of what they said about you. If you knew all that they said about you, old man, you would just blow a gasket. You probably just die right there. We got to stop putting so much value on what people think about us, what people say to us, what people say about the only news. That's why your life must be built upon what God says about you and what God thinks about you, not what anybody else says or thinks about you. Come on, somebody. So if you go back, he says, Mark, chapter four, verse 18, and these are they Mark Chapter four verse, and these are they where the word is. I know this is a scripture we've all seen a million times, but these are they which are sown among thorns. They hear the word. But what does it say? But the thorns of this life, the desires of other things. Verse 19, the cares of the world. The deceitfulness of riches. And what is the deceitfulness of riches, it's not having riches, it's the deceitfulness that the riches. Convince you that that will make you happy? That's the deceitfulness of riches, having money is not evil. Believing that it will make you happy is where it's deceitful. And where it's tricking you. OK, we don't have time to get into that and the desires for other things enter in and choke out the word and it becomes unfruitful. But verse 20, where we started and then we worked our way backward, but these are the ones on whom seed was sown on good ground, they hear the word and accepted that word. Accept is what where we get the word humility from it's to its to accept it. It's like I accept God's opinion over my own opinion. I accept what God says over what I feel, over what I have thought and over how I grew up. I grew up with one opinion of of things and people and myself, but. To accept God's word means I am accepting God's opinion about me and about people and about life, about money, about my body, my health, whatever. So we got to stop shaming ourselves because we don't like ourselves, because God likes you. He came to live inside you, you say, man, I got to lose 20 pounds, you maybe that would be better for you to lose 20 pounds or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. That's between you and you in case you're schizophrenic, but. I know this. The Holy Spirit came to live inside of you even when you were twenty pounds heavier than you wanted to be. He didn't say, you know what, you get to the gym, get on that new Ketel diet and I'll come live inside you. He came to live inside of you and he got in there and he's like, hey, the more the merrier. I don't care. We got to stop shaming ourselves because of our size and our color and the shade of our skin and be like, oh, I wish I was, you know, I wish I was like, you know, white folks are like I wish I was a little black and black folks. I wish I was a little lighter. And we got to we got to love our color without. Hating some other color, we got to love our tone. You need to love your eyes, you need to love yourself, you need to look in the mirror, and if you don't like what you see, it's because you have not forgiven yourself. You need to forgive yourself for the things you've done. Forgive yourself for the things you failed to forgive yourself for the things that you don't haven't haven't done that you should have done. We got to stop hating ourselves, because if God loves us the way we are, we need to love us the way we are. It's called approving before improving. Like, you need to approve of yourself, you need to like yourself the way you are, then if you want to change something, do it because you like yourself already. But if you change yourself because you don't like yourself, then you're not going you you're going to deceive yourself and you're never going to like yourself. Then you're going to have
to keep changing, keep improving, you know. I mean, how much plastic surgery can any human being get before they like them? So, I mean, you could just you could just peel yourself until you're nothing. And disappear, you just cut up everything until you're gone, until you're just. Where you been on vacation? We have to realize, man, God loves you the way you are and and he wants to heal. He wants to heal and soften our hearts, because when our hearts are hard, they break easier. You cannot break soft dirt. You can only break hard clay, you can't break soft dirt, you can't break soft soil, but because it wasn't designed to break, it was designed to produce a harvest from the seeds that you sow in it. Does this make any sense at all? Listen, there's so much here, there's too much to that we we're not going to be able to get into. But Hebrews three, verse seven says. Just as the Holy Spirit says, look at this, Hebrews, three, four, seven, just as the Holy Spirit says today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, he says in verse eight, do not harden your hearts. Like in the day of rebellion, a hard heart leads to rebellion. Do not harden your heart in the day of trial. In the wilderness, you fail in the trials and temptations of life. When you have a hard heart, when you have a soft heart, you do not rebel. When you have a soft heart, you do not fail in the tests, in the trials that come and how many. No tests and trials come to every one of us. Count it all, Joy. When you encounter diverse and manifold temptations and trials, it says in James Chapter one count it all joy, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Well, look, what I'm trying to tell you is this is that there's so much. Greatness that God wants to give birth to in your heart, but in order to do that, you got to soften it. It's a humble heart, Jesus said, take my yoke upon you, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. My heart is humble. And I want to give you that rest, and he says, Don't harden your heart when you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, you know, when we talk about forgiveness, you might harden your heart when you hear that. And like, I can't forgive that person when we talk about giving or tithing, some of us have hardened our hearts and we've kind of just decided, no, I'm not going to listen to that. I'm or I'm going to come late after the offering. Maybe we should start receiving the offering at the end, you can't come late for that is because you've hardened your heart. It's not because all that money, all that church just wants your money. No, God wants to soften your heart. God's trying to give something to you, not trying to get something from you. We got to stop being so nervous and worried about money. It's because we've hardened our heart. If we would just soften it and I'll show you how to soften it. Next Sunday, she's going to leave you with a hard heart for the next seven days, because I'm so soft in my heart towards you. No, I'm just kidding. Whoa, what was that? Oh, my my wringers was on and my time is up. So my my next point, my next. I'm not kidding, but I do have to show you a couple more things go to market 17. Jesus said to his disciples something about a hardened heart, he said. They were they were talking about they didn't have enough bread to get across the water. And when Jesus knew what he said to them, why do you reason about not having bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand, is your heart still hardened? And then he says in verse 18, he said, you have eyes but you don't see you have ears, but you don't hear. And do you not remember? So right here, he gives us five things that hardened our heart. He said he said we're unable to perceive so we don't perceive it's a lack of awareness of God's love. So he said, you don't perceive that, my love. He's really saying, look, I looked at the people that were hungry and had compassion on them. And so I fed them. I didn't feed them because I wanted to prove how great I was. I fed them because I had compassion on them. I love them. I love you guys. Why would I why are you worried about not having any bread? You didn't have any bread when we were feeding 5000 guys and ten thousand women and children. Why did you why did you get you know, why didn't you learn and perceive that? Because I love you just as I provided for everybody. Then I'll provide for you now. He said, what hardens our heart is we have we are not perceiving the love of God. We're not perceiving whenever something bad happens, whenever we don't have any bread, we don't have any bread, we don't have any money. We don't have a healing. We don't have this. We don't have that. We don't have opportunity here on the job. I don't have a husband or no wife. I don't have kids. My kids don't like me, my kids this, my parents this. And we start talking about all the things that are against us and we end up giving more weight and more power to those negative things in our lives than the love that God has for us. We've got to be like, you know what? When something bad happens, when something bad has happened in my life, this is how I was. And this is I still this is still a battle. This is what spiritual warfare is. But my habit, when something bad would happen was to evaluate myself, oh, man, where did I let the devil in and what did I do wrong and why is God against me now? And why isn't God listening? Remember when they were they were sinking, the boat was filling with water and the disciples were sinking and they said, Lord, don't you care? Don't you care? Remember, Martha, she's like, don't you care what this was was it was an assault and it was an attack. And it was an allegation, an accusation against the love of God. Don't you care? Don't you care? Don't you care? See, he is telling his disciples right here, your guy's heart is hardened because whenever a problem hits, you're not perceiving my love. You're perceiving a problem. When the problem hits, you've got to stop accusing yourself. You got to stop accusing God and you got to stop accusing everybody else and realize the love of God never fails and he will not fail you. He didn't fail you then and he will fail you now. He said, you do not perceive I fed the multitudes because I love them and I love you guys. I'm in the boat with you fellas. Why wouldn't I take care of you? You think I didn't know you were going to have any bread? You don't think I realized you were going to be without. You don't think I realize the storm was going to hit. I am with you and love is with you and love is with you. Everything's going to be all right. He said you don't perceive I could just fill in these words. This is how I interpret the scripture. This is just how I apply it, I should say. He said, you don't perceive the love I have for you. You're not aware of it. It's there. You just don't perceive it. He said, Neither do you understand my grace is sufficient for you in every situation, so you don't perceive my love, you don't understand my grace. And then he says in verse 18 and you don't remember. You have eyes, but you don't see you have ears shown here and you don't remember. So you break this down into three things. We must perceive the love of God whenever anything goes bad in our lives. I used to think of something wrong with me or God's against me. And now I think of something bad just happened to. God's getting ready to turn it into something good. Because that's what the Bible says. That's what the Bible says he does. He turned something bad into something good. What the devil sent to defeat you got bent to complete you. What the devil sent to destroy you. Got bent to employ you. So. We don't perceive. Belove. We don't understand the grace. And we don't remember the good that God has done, but if you will perceive the love. Just be aware of God's love. Something bad happened on God's Love is about to turn it around. Perceive the love, understand the grace. What does that mean, that means. That means God's going to do you good because of his grace, not because of your work or your performance or because you crossed all your T's and dotting all your eyes. There's only one team that had to be that had to be cross. And that was the beauty that Jesus died on that cross when he said it is finished. That's the key that Jesus died on so that he could say it is finished, it is complete. There's nothing else you have to do except look to that cross the author and finisher of our faith. Look to Jesus. Look at what he did for you and remember the goodness of God, David said in Psalm 27, verse 13, I would have despaired to been depressed, discouraged, maybe suicidal. You could interpret that as or apply or translated. I would have despaired. I would have lost heart. Unless I believed that I would see the goodness of God. In the land of the living. That's this land. Yes, in heaven, you're going to see the goodness, you're going to see the goodness God here, goodness and mercy should follow you all the days of your life, all the days of your life includes today. This is one of the days of my life. So guess what? I'm going to see the goodness of God and the mercy of God following me everywhere I go. This way, goodness and mercy is going to be right behind me. Come on. Come on. Goodness. Come on. Mercy, in fact. In fact, fellows, I'm just going to stop for a minute and let you, you know, keep going ahead of me so I can run into you. I don't mind bumping up into you goodness and into you mercy. Sometimes we slow down, sometimes we get stuck. Don't you worry, God's goodness and mercy never get stuck. And if you stumble or fall, God's goodness and mercy is following you is going to come pick you up. You you get stuck. God's goodness and mercy doesn't get stuck, it's going to keep going and pull you. I just wish. We would just do these three things. Perceive his love, understand his grace, and remember. He said, don't you guys remember in March 18, don't you remember, remember his goodness, remember all the good things David said, man? He said. Forget none of his benefits. Pardons, all my iniquities, makes a list, heals all my diseases, redeems my life from destruction, crowns me with loving kindness, compassion, satisfies my mouth with good things. So my youth is renewed like the eagle as far as east is from west. Remove my transgressions for me as a father has compassion on children. So our heavenly father has compassion on David's making this list. He's remembering. He's remembering. He's remembering. He's remembering. This will soften our hearts. The power of your heart can only be experienced when it's soft and your heart will soften when you perceive his love in every situation. Understand his grace is sufficient for you in every situation and remember his goodness as you look back at your life.
