Conquer By Having A Changed Heart
Bound for Conquest Series, Part 1
Sunday 12th February 2006
'Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'
1 Samuel 16:7
God wants people to succeed in life. Jesus said: ‘I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness.’ Christ promised his disciples, that no matter what they faced in life, He would give them the power to overcome.
He recognised that there were evil powers in the world but he stated in Luke 10:19, 'I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.'
King David was one of the great conquerors in the Bible and he reproduced conquerors - he had 30 outstanding or ‘mighty men’ close to him and he formed a very assorted group of characters into a victorious army.
Right from the start he knew that the most important issue was what was the condition of his own heart. 1 Samuel 13:14; ‘The Lord sought out a man after his own heart.’
Before he was chosen as King we see in 1 Samuel 16:7 that 'Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'
Our world today is seduced by illusions. Make-up and makeovers are all important. Image is everything. But it is not reality. Magazines airbrush and digitally enhance pictures. Cosmetic surgery is booming.
People make look good but inside there’s a lot of bad. They may appear to be rich but in reality they feel they have little or nothing of value. They may look confident but inwardly be tormented by self-doubt. They may smile sweetly but privately be consumed by bitterness.
This is why Christianity focuses on root issues in our lives. Men and women maybe fixated on the outward but 'God looks at the heart.’
See:
Matthew 15:17-20
Jeremiah 17:9-10
What’s going on in your heart is all-important. Deuteronomy 10:12-13
To become a Christian means that there must be faith in your heart that you express with your lips, Romans 10:9-10.
If God’s people are to move forward and build together there must be heart commitment. Nehemiah 4:6
To live as a Christian there must be a heart to heart relationship with god. Proverbs 3:5, ‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’
1. You Need A Clean Heart
The Bible makes clear how dark and dirty the human heart can be. Hosea 5:4 'A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the LORD.'
God calls for far more than an outward morality but an inward reality of holiness. Matthew 5:27-28. Just as sexual uncleanness can clog up your heart, so can the pull of money, Matthew 6:20-22:20.
Matthew 5:8, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’
Psalm 24:3-5, 'Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?'
David knew how important it was to be clean. After committing adultery and having Bathsheba’s husband put to death, he prayed, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me,’ Psalm 51:10.
God wants to bring his light to our lives and that means getting rid of the darkness in our hearts. The only way that can happen is when we come to the Cross for it is only the blood of Jesus that cleanses from sin.
2. You Need A Healed Heart
Many people have wounded hearts. It is as if someone has shot arrows right into your heart and you can’t get rid of them.
You may have been wounded by a betrayal, someone you trusted let you down badly, maybe a family member, a friend or business partner. Maybe you have been wounded by the loss of a loved one or by bitter words or experiences.
You look like you are fine, but your pain makes it hard for you to move forward in life. For you to be a conqueror you have to be healed.
Our role in our own healing
This seems a strange point to talk about when we are the ones who have been hurt. But there are times when our response is key to our own healing.
Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there a bitterness that is holding you back? You need to realize just as God has loved you unconditionally and forgiven you your sins, so He wants us to touch us with His love so that we can unconditionally forgive others.
God’s role in our healing
God is the great and ultimate healer:
Psalm 34:18
Psalm 147:3 - 'He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.'
Psalm 51:17 - 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.'
Isaiah 61:1 Jesus came to bring healing at all levels - physical, spiritual and emotional.
Healing is a process and the more we open up to the Holy Spirit the more we will receive healing.
3. You Need A Humbled Heart
Proverbs 16:5, 'The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.'
Deuteronomy 8:12-15 warns the Israelites about the dangers of material blessing making people proud.
In Daniel 4:24-37 the seemingly all-powerful ruler of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, experienced a dramatic humbling by God.
James 4:6 says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’
2 Chronicles 32:24
Isaiah 57:15
To conquer in life you have to have a humble heart, not a proud heart. You have to stop being so sure you are always right and start to listen.
You have to appreciate that, while you may have worked hard to achieve what you have, it is God who has given you breath and ability to do so. You have to learn that if you are going to know God then He, not you, is God.
4. You Need A Generous Heart
At heart are you stingy? Is your first reaction to count the cost and give only with reluctance? Deuteronomy 15:9-11 speaks about being generous to the poor by canceling their debts.
In the early church they had generous and open hearts. Acts 4:32-34, All the believers were one in heart and mind…
How much does your heart need to change in respect of generosity? Well to be a conqueror that knows the blessing of God you need a generous heart, as well as a clean heart, a healed heart, and a humble heart. At root it comes down to this….
5. You Need A Tender Heart
Too many people in our world today have become hard hearted - towards God and others including their own flesh and blood.
Exodus refers repeatedly to Pharaoh’s hard heart, Exodus 7:13-19.
Probably we can all think of people who have shown that they have hard and calloused hearts and Christians are not immune from this condition.
Coming To A New Place Of Conquest
To come to a new place of conquest in our lives as individuals, families, a church and nation there has got to come a great change of heart.
For some that involves real repentance, saying sorry to God and others for how you have been.
Joel 2:12, "Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."
For others there is so much pain that you just need God to pour out His love and work and miracle of change in your heart.
Ezekiel 11:19-20, 'I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.'
Let us pray like David:
‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.’
Psalm 139:23-24
Sunday 12th February 2006
'Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'
1 Samuel 16:7
God wants people to succeed in life. Jesus said: ‘I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness.’ Christ promised his disciples, that no matter what they faced in life, He would give them the power to overcome.
He recognised that there were evil powers in the world but he stated in Luke 10:19, 'I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.'
King David was one of the great conquerors in the Bible and he reproduced conquerors - he had 30 outstanding or ‘mighty men’ close to him and he formed a very assorted group of characters into a victorious army.
Right from the start he knew that the most important issue was what was the condition of his own heart. 1 Samuel 13:14; ‘The Lord sought out a man after his own heart.’
Before he was chosen as King we see in 1 Samuel 16:7 that 'Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'
Our world today is seduced by illusions. Make-up and makeovers are all important. Image is everything. But it is not reality. Magazines airbrush and digitally enhance pictures. Cosmetic surgery is booming.
People make look good but inside there’s a lot of bad. They may appear to be rich but in reality they feel they have little or nothing of value. They may look confident but inwardly be tormented by self-doubt. They may smile sweetly but privately be consumed by bitterness.
This is why Christianity focuses on root issues in our lives. Men and women maybe fixated on the outward but 'God looks at the heart.’
See:
Matthew 15:17-20
Jeremiah 17:9-10
What’s going on in your heart is all-important. Deuteronomy 10:12-13
To become a Christian means that there must be faith in your heart that you express with your lips, Romans 10:9-10.
If God’s people are to move forward and build together there must be heart commitment. Nehemiah 4:6
To live as a Christian there must be a heart to heart relationship with god. Proverbs 3:5, ‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’
1. You Need A Clean Heart
The Bible makes clear how dark and dirty the human heart can be. Hosea 5:4 'A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the LORD.'
God calls for far more than an outward morality but an inward reality of holiness. Matthew 5:27-28. Just as sexual uncleanness can clog up your heart, so can the pull of money, Matthew 6:20-22:20.
Matthew 5:8, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’
Psalm 24:3-5, 'Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?'
David knew how important it was to be clean. After committing adultery and having Bathsheba’s husband put to death, he prayed, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me,’ Psalm 51:10.
God wants to bring his light to our lives and that means getting rid of the darkness in our hearts. The only way that can happen is when we come to the Cross for it is only the blood of Jesus that cleanses from sin.
2. You Need A Healed Heart
Many people have wounded hearts. It is as if someone has shot arrows right into your heart and you can’t get rid of them.
You may have been wounded by a betrayal, someone you trusted let you down badly, maybe a family member, a friend or business partner. Maybe you have been wounded by the loss of a loved one or by bitter words or experiences.
You look like you are fine, but your pain makes it hard for you to move forward in life. For you to be a conqueror you have to be healed.
Our role in our own healing
This seems a strange point to talk about when we are the ones who have been hurt. But there are times when our response is key to our own healing.
Is there someone you need to forgive? Is there a bitterness that is holding you back? You need to realize just as God has loved you unconditionally and forgiven you your sins, so He wants us to touch us with His love so that we can unconditionally forgive others.
God’s role in our healing
God is the great and ultimate healer:
Psalm 34:18
Psalm 147:3 - 'He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.'
Psalm 51:17 - 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.'
Isaiah 61:1 Jesus came to bring healing at all levels - physical, spiritual and emotional.
Healing is a process and the more we open up to the Holy Spirit the more we will receive healing.
3. You Need A Humbled Heart
Proverbs 16:5, 'The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.'
Deuteronomy 8:12-15 warns the Israelites about the dangers of material blessing making people proud.
In Daniel 4:24-37 the seemingly all-powerful ruler of Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, experienced a dramatic humbling by God.
James 4:6 says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’
2 Chronicles 32:24
Isaiah 57:15
To conquer in life you have to have a humble heart, not a proud heart. You have to stop being so sure you are always right and start to listen.
You have to appreciate that, while you may have worked hard to achieve what you have, it is God who has given you breath and ability to do so. You have to learn that if you are going to know God then He, not you, is God.
4. You Need A Generous Heart
At heart are you stingy? Is your first reaction to count the cost and give only with reluctance? Deuteronomy 15:9-11 speaks about being generous to the poor by canceling their debts.
In the early church they had generous and open hearts. Acts 4:32-34, All the believers were one in heart and mind…
How much does your heart need to change in respect of generosity? Well to be a conqueror that knows the blessing of God you need a generous heart, as well as a clean heart, a healed heart, and a humble heart. At root it comes down to this….
5. You Need A Tender Heart
Too many people in our world today have become hard hearted - towards God and others including their own flesh and blood.
Exodus refers repeatedly to Pharaoh’s hard heart, Exodus 7:13-19.
Probably we can all think of people who have shown that they have hard and calloused hearts and Christians are not immune from this condition.
Coming To A New Place Of Conquest
To come to a new place of conquest in our lives as individuals, families, a church and nation there has got to come a great change of heart.
For some that involves real repentance, saying sorry to God and others for how you have been.
Joel 2:12, "Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."
For others there is so much pain that you just need God to pour out His love and work and miracle of change in your heart.
Ezekiel 11:19-20, 'I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.'
Let us pray like David:
‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.’
Psalm 139:23-24
posted by WESLEY at 10:18
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