Protect Your Mind and Heart

The psalmist said in Psalm 119:37(NLT), “Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word.” It is utterly amazing how timely this scripture is. There is much in our world today that isn’t worth a look, but many of us are captivated by it. These are things that can’t give us life, but instead, these things may take away from our sense of God’s joy and peace. We forget that any space God’s goodness doesn’t occupy is a space the enemy will fill with messages of death and destruction. The external we know to be the devil’s playground, but the internal is totally under our control. We decide if we will allow God to flood our hearts and minds with His peace, or if we will give the world the dominance it seeks over our thoughts and feelings. Heavenly Father wants the direction of our lives to be forever changed, and this can happen when we decide to protect our minds and hearts, and not let them be guided or persuaded by the circumstances of troubling times.

Our Heavenly Father is completely and totally transparent. Some will say that He has a sense of humor. It’s hard to argue against the notion of His keen wit, because He, Himself, is the Creator of humor. Even so, God does not play games, especially as it pertains to His truth. The Bible is a spiritual book written for God’s spiritual people. It is a book that tells us of the past and the future, and not all of it is rainbows and tiptoeing through fields of daisies. There is some very dark, stark, and fearsome stuff contained in God’s Word. The wrath of His judgment will be upon those who have rejected Him. When this will take place, none of us can say, but we know that it will be a time of unprecedented destruction and darkness. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 24:21(NIV), “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now--and never to be equaled again.”

These words spoken by the Master reveal the infinite and uncompromising righteousness of God as a Righteous Judge over all. It also reveals the inexplicable extent to which people will love darkness more than they love the light. You and I must never be mistaken, every thought, attitude, word, and deed we express will be judged. This is law, and it is unshakable and inflexible. There will be incredible evil occurring immediately before the return of our Savior to the earth. People will have such disregard for his Gospel, and because of this there will be intense suffering. It may feel as though this judgment is upon the land now, but none of us can say that this is the case with absolute certainty. What we can say with assurance is that God has a plan for His people, and Jeremiah 29:11 declares that it is a good plan, to give us a future and a hope.

This earth has seen many dark days in its past, and they have presented horrible peril and death for many, but God has been merciful, and we should all be praying He will be merciful again, and that our evil has not outweighed any grace He desires to give us. To be sure, if we opened our eyes this morning, we are in a period of God’s unfailing grace. We have time to praise, worship, and adore Him, and to get our houses in order.

Heavenly Father doesn’t tell us about the Great Tribulation in His Word so that we will be afraid of evil, but so that we will bask in the glory of His love and light. He tells us in 1John 4:18 that His love has no fear, because His love is perfect. Fear comes from the devil; it is corruption, bondage, doubt, and death. It does not belong to God, and that is why it must not takeover our hearts. 2Timothy 1:7 declares that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Heavenly Father has also given us the grace, mercy, and gift of time. We are being perfected in Christ with each decision we make to love, and not release fear through the expression of anger, resentment, pride, shame, jealousy, or bitterness. We must use the spirit of God’s power, love, and self-control to rid our hearts and minds of fear and all its cousins, for one day, God’s love will overcome all evil once and for all.

Now is not a time for quaking in our boots. 1John 4:18(NLT) says “If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” We are children of God, born of His seed through Jesus Christ. By accepting Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, we are transformed into new creations. This begins our journey of walking in the Spirit. When the love of Christ dwells in our hearts, we should no longer walk by the flesh, because walking in the flesh is a short trip that will end in death. Romans 8:1 tells us that there’s now no condemnation or sentencing to punishment to those that are in Christ and walk under the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Walking in Christ is living by his example. It’s thinking like he thinks, living as he lived, and it is sharing the way he shared. When we go about our everyday lives with a heart like this, our obedience perfects us through the love of Christ.

The love of God in Christ is perfection, and because of its perfection and majesty, it cannot in any way ever be punished. Jesus Christ is perfection, and when he died on the cross, 2Corinthians 5:21 tells us that he, who didn’t know sin, took on our sins upon himself so that he could make a full and complete payment for them for all eternity. He did this so that we could become righteous through him. We could not do this for ourselves. We couldn’t pay the price Christ paid because we are not perfect. But when he comes to live in our hearts, we have his perfection abiding in us. And when we let this love have its way in our hearts and minds, there is no punishment. Instead, there is joy everlasting, because we get to live through his perfect love. Romans 8:39 declares that nothing can separate us from that love.

Even at our weakest moment, even during our most challenging tribulation, we must never doubt that the power of God’s perfect love is the strongest power there is. It is able to preserve those He has made righteous through the blood of His only begotten Son. Our responsibility and privilege are to put on that love. In this season, we don’t have time to allow the world’s fears and confusion to consume our hearts and minds. We must protect them from all manner of darkness by walking in God’s love.

Judgement will be upon the unrighteous, but the righteousness of Christ is our salvation! The Apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:21(KJV), “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Oh, but his death was not in vain, and Paul refused to frustrate in even the tiniest way the grace that God has given us through the accomplishment of Christ. God did not save us to destroy us. By His grace we have been saved! This salvation is not from a work half done. Jesus Christ paid the highest price, and it is indeed the finished work of our salvation.

2Corinthians 7:10(NLT) says, “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.” Let’s be ever so careful to give God the praise, glory, and honor He is due for the redemptive work He completed for us in Christ. He did it because He so loves us and doesn’t want any of us to perish but have everlasting life in Christ. Let’s stay focused on God’s light and saturated in His love. If we remain anchored in the reality of our salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, it will keep our minds and hearts protected through these dark times. God cannot fail, and He will never forsake the righteous.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Protect Your Mind and Heart

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