Will Everything be Ok?

January 2, 2022

In June 2020, I asked the following questions

1. Define trust
2. Define faith
3. Five reasons for trusting why you believe what you believe.
4. Five evidences of hope in you because of your faith

• Each one answered according to your faith.
• Technically and theologically correct, but totally unhelpful in bringing about a change in you,
• What I wanted was for your faith to be real.
• So I’m not going to answer them for you
• Only Word – dry up, Only Spirit – blow up
• Word of God with a relationship with God

Declaration

Dear Heavenly Father, please give me a revelation of the power of the Gospel today. From this day forward, may Your grace be the foundation of my daily relationship with You.

I declare that I will be free from guilt, condemnation, and a performance mentality. I declare that I abide in faith, abound in hope, I keep myself in the love of God. I will overcome all trials, I will persevere, and develop Christ-like character by His power.

Open my heart to see the hope of my calling, to know the inheritance that I have in the saints, and to understand the depth of Your power at work in my life. Release upon me a Spirit of wisdom, revelation, and enlightenment today.

Lead me into an encounter with You that forever changes me and deepens my love for Jesus. Illuminate the truth of Your Word as You prepare my heart to receive it.

Amen.

A picture of reality

• Matthew 10:25–28 25 It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! 26 Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. 27 “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
• God is Love but not “all-loving” – Just & Fair
• Jesus is no mere optimist—he doesn’t try to pump us up with empty promises or sunny predictions about the future.
• He always tells it like it is, never shying away from hard realities.
• If he were trying to fake reality for us, we’d quickly descend into fear, because mere optimism has no real power to change our reality.
• Here, our Lord is painting a picture of reality for his disciples: They will face hard things as they go out in his name to bring his message of hope and redemption to people who need it, but they are to move in boldness, not fear.
• Everything will be exposed to the light in the end, and if the worst someone can do to us is kill our body, then we have nothing to worry about.
• If we believe we will live forever with him, then nothing—not even our physical death—can really destroy us.

The Heart

Change my heart, oh God by Eddie Espinosa

Change my heart, oh God
Make it ever true
Change my heart, oh God
May I be like you

You are the potter

I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what i pray

• Psalm 51:10 (NKJV) Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

These words reflect David’s prayer

How does God communicate His life-transforming power to us?

How does spiritual growth take place?

The answer is the heart

• the most important biblical term for the human person’s nature and actions. Indeed,
• the heart is the control center of life.
• It is the very place where God works to change us
• and the place where we must work if growth is to take place.
• The heart is one’s core.

We know that God uses His revealed word

• That has been our topic of study for several years
• Now, we are going to base next step on what we have studied

We need to have a relationship with God, our Father in Heaven.

• That is the reason that Christ came, died and rose again from the dead.
• Faith in Jesus the Christ
• The answer is our heart.

Tongue > Heart > Mind > Renew in the Word of God

• Proverbs 18:21 Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.
• Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
• Hebrews 10:16 [ “This] [is] [ the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”]
• Romans 12:1-2 (NKJV) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ²  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

According to Scripture, it is who you and I are at our deepest and most private level.

So profound is the hidden person of the heart that only God himself is able to plumb its unfathomable depths.

The psalmist declared, “O LORD, You have searched me and known me”.

• Psalm 139:1-7 (NKJV) ¹ O LORD, You have searched me and known ² You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. ³  You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. ⁴  For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. ⁵  You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. ⁶  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it. ⁷  Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
• 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 (NKJV) ¹⁰ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. ¹¹ For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
• Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJV) ¹³ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), ¹⁴ that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

For the believer, that is good news, because God is the ultimate heart-changer.

Christlikeness of the inner being is not a human attainment.

It is a gift of grace.

But it is also a process in which we participate.

• In fact, we are responsible before God for embarking on a spiritual journey that produces ever-increasing change and renewal within our hearts.
• God works to effect this change—and so do we. “Work out your salvation,” wrote Paul, “for it is God who works in you”
• Philippians 2:12–13 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

A growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ is the only means by which

• We can obey His commands.
• We can work out our salvation with fear and trembling
• God works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure
• Our hearts can be transformed.

He alone has power over sin; he alone can break its hold on us.

God willing, the focus of this year’s teaching will be on your command center: your heart.

• We will compare the biblical description of our natural heart (the heart in its fallen and sinful condition, with which we were born) with the heart that God desires for his spiritually born children.
• In doing so, we’ll come to see that life’s problems are just heart problems.
• Thus, we’ll discover that spiritual growth, at its root, is the transformation of the heart.

This transformation is nothing less than the liberating, joyful experience of increasing freedom from the power of sin’s bondage.

• It is exchanging the dysfunctional and dark works of our self-centered, sinful nature in favor of the wholesomeness and delight of the fruit of God’s Spirit.
• Luke 17:17So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
• Only one had enough change in his character to come back to thank Jesus.
• Proverbs 4:23Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.

This scripture reminds us that the heart is the center of our thoughts, emotions, and actions.

• But how do they function together?
• How can they be harnessed so that deep spiritual transformation happens?

The renewing of the heart is an inescapable human need, but the solution lies only within the realm of the divine.

Will Everything be Ok?

• Depends on what is meant by “ok”
• Change is a way of life
• Normalcy is an illusion
• Ecclesiastes 5:19–20 ¹⁹ As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God. ²⁰ For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart.
• It starts with a relationship with God.
• Relationship leads to you knowing your God and having a covenant with Him.
• Only Word – dry up, Only Spirit – blow up
• Word of God with a relationship with God
• Heb 10:16 Covenant-Laws hearts & minds
• Laws for us to obey by faith, not our vindication at that time.
• Daniel 11:30–32 ³⁰ For ships from Cyprus shall come against him; therefore he shall be grieved, and return in rage against the holy covenant, and do damage. “So he shall return and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant. ³¹ And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall defile the sanctuary fortress; then they shall take away the daily sacrifices, and place there the abomination of desolation. ³² Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.
• Change simply happens.
• Life is either a constant progression or regression.
• Growing up is a fundamental part of our life.
• Matthew 24:4–8 ⁴ And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of sorrows.
• Pestilences includes viruses
• This is nothing.
• It will only grow worse
• Your faith will be tried
• Do you really know God?
• Do you really trust Him?
• 1 John 5:2–4 ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. ³ For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. ⁴ For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Faith in God and His Christ.

• Only Word – dry up, Only Spirit – blow up
• Word of God with a relationship with God
• John 17:3 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
• We want more than knowledge of biblical and theological doctrines.
• We want to experience God.
• We want to know how this new life operates.
• We want to know how we can grow in this new life.