"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life"... proverbs 4:23
Says Tozer...
"Every person is really what he or she secretly admires. If I can learn what you admire, I will know what you are, for people are what they think about when they are free to think about what they will. ..."
He goes on to to exclude those things we are forced to think about like at tax time... and I would include school work and job work to a certain extent...
..."I assure you it is not consentingly done! (referring to tax time thoughts) But if you can find out what I think about whenever I will, you will find the real me. That is true of every one of us.""Your baptism and your confirmation and your name on the church roll and the big Bible you carry - These are not the things that are important to God. You can train a chimpanzee to carry a Bible. Every one of us is the sum of what we secretly admire, what we think about and what we would like to do most if we became free to do what we wanted to do"....
This brought to mind a quote (which I am not sure whom to attribute it) "I can't change my heart, but I can change my mind. If I change my mind, then God can change my heart" ... I heard it from John Courson.
I cannot help to think about Paul's words in Philippians 2
2:1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
What if we fell so in love with Jesus... What if we read His Word and got to know His character so well that we desired to do nothing more than be imitators of that character. Would it not permeate our thought life and change the way we treat one another? Less judgmental, more kind, more tolerant of non-essentials and more encouraging to those who are learning.
I think that if we demonstrated this kind of love the church would be edified and strengthened, united, and maybe even respected as a moral compass. Sure the Gospel will be offensive, the cross is offensive, but we should not be... look at our example...
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Lord, today, again, I am changing my mind, to look toward you, your character, your example of love and holiness, and asking you to change my heart. Please remind me to do this daily until that day when I am complete in you and will see you face to face and know you as you are.
Help me to demonstrate to others your love, your command for holiness, and compassion toward those who are learning what that is... knowing and understanding that I am so far from it in my flesh and yet ... though I cannot comprehend it... that is how the LORD God sees me because of the finished work on Calvary... Thank you Jesus...
That's what I read today... How about you?
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