The Heart of God

Verse of the Week:

Jonah 4:2b  "I knew that you are a GRACIOUS AND COMPASSIONATE GOD, SLOW TO ANGER AND ABOUNDING IN LOVE, A GOD WHO RELENTS FROM SENDING CALAMITY."

The Heart of God

My heart breaks over the tragedies that have taken place the past few months with the Boston Marathon bombing, Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, and even the Colorado movie theater shooting. People's bright futures were taken away from them through death, and other people's lives were changed dramatically due to the violence of four men.  Shame on these evil men for causing so much pain, fear, and heart-ache.  What were they thinking?  God will judge them for what they have done!  They do not deserve mercy! Right?.....

Every day I see something bad plastered on facebook about Obama, our politicians, liberals, homosexuals, abortionists, etc.  Those people deserve put downs because of all the things they do that are against the Bible. God has no place in their immoral lives! Right?.....

I talk to friends all the time about the hurt and  pain their family or back-stabbing friends have brought them. "I am never going to forgive them for how they treated me!" "If they don't treat me right, then I won't treat them right!"  "They have caused me too much pain, they don't deserve to be happy after they way they treated me!" Right?....

What does God think?  

Lets look at a common Bible story that most of us heard growing up...the story of Jonah.  God had ask Jonah to go to Nineveh  a Gentile city, to preach because the city was growing very wicked.  You have to understand, Jews during those days, NEVER associated with the Gentiles, it simply wasn't done!  The Gentiles were considered an unclean race, and Jews by law were required not to associate with them. So Jonah decided to flee by boat so that he wouldn't have to go to Nineveh and associate with unclean people. However, God, caring so much for the people in Nineveh, sent a great storm on the boat to bring Jonah back.  Jonah was dumped overboard, and a great big fish swallowed him and spit him back up on shore.  

After much resistance, Jonah finally went to Nineveh to preach.  While he was there, he began to proclaim that God was going to destroy Nineveh in 40 days.  The Ninevites heard the message and began to fast and call upon God while giving up their evil ways.  God, seeing that the Ninevites were turning from their evil ways and were asking Him for mercy, had compassion and did not destroy them. This angered Jonah.  Jonah 4: 2 says this, "He prayed to the Lord, 'O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee Tarshish.  I knew that you are a GRACIOUS AND COMPASSIONATE GOD, SLOW TO ANGER AND ABOUNDING IN LOVE, A GOD WHO RELENTS FROM SENDING CALAMITY." Jonah knew God's motive wasn't to destroy Nineveh but to give them mercy and love.  God doesn't want anyone to perish.  In 2 Peter 3:9 we hear of God's desire of wanting everyone to be saved, not condemned. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. God doesn't want anyone to perish or condemned. Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it.  ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17

God has a heart for sinners.... 

Ninevah was a very wicked city.  In fact, God said that they "cannot tell their right hand from their left..." (Jonah 4:11) In other words, they didn't even understand their wickedness, yet God wanted them saved.  

Lets look at the human heart...

In Chapter 4, Jonah made a place for himself outside of the city of Nineveh to see if God would still destroy the city.  He is so happy when God grew a vine to provide shade and protect him from the scorching heat of the desert sun. However, later, God allowed a worm to destroy the vine, and this angered Jonah.  Lets see what God said in response to Jonah's attitude.  

¹⁰ But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. ¹¹ And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
(Jonah 4:10-11)

Jonah cared more about a plant than the souls of 120,000 people. WOW!  He cared more about his own comfort than the destruction of 120,000 people.  

People can be very selfish.  We are quick to accept God's grace and forgiveness, but slow to forgive others.  We put down other sinners  and place judgment on them.  If anyone hurts us, we refuse to be merciful because they caused us pain.  We are kind and loving to those who are kind and loving to us, but hateful and mean to those who hurt others or ourselves.
Sometimes we want God to place judgement on people who hurt us or people we think are just plain bad, but God loves sinners and wants all of them to come to know Him.  

I feel so bad for the victims who lost their lives in the Boston Marathon bombing, the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Colorado shooting, but there are 4 other victims in those events that people never think about. One of these men has sadly passed away, but may the three other men learn of God's great love and forgiveness.


God has a heart for sinners, if He didn't, then we would never know of His grace and love. If we truly understand God's heart, we will want what He wants and that is for others to come to know of his love, grace, and forgiveness. If we truly understand God's love, we will stop judging others, and love them.  Every politician, homosexual, murderer, abortionist, and terrorist need our prayers and love, not our judgement.  Every person who had caused us pain and sorrow needs our forgiveness, not our punishment.  Lets be quick to love, and slow to judge.

God has a heart for sinners....



This blog is based off of an amazing sermon I heard from Pastor Andrew Herbert of Taylor Memorial Baptist in Hobbs NM.  To hear his sermons about God and his Grace, go to: http://taylormemorial.com/sermons 

What are you putting in your Mind?

Verse of the Week:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1

What are you putting in your Mind? 

I love healthy food.  I am constantly trying out new healthy recipes with my husband to see if they taste good.  My husband and I try to eat something called a plant based diet; noticed I said plant-BASED!  I am by no means a vegetarian, and my favorite food will always be my Dad's yummy rib eye steak fresh off the grill. However, 80% of mine and Brian's diet consists of fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, rice and other grains.  The rest is sugar, oils, dairy products, and meat.  Even though I love eating healthy food, I will be the first one to admit that I am a sweet freak!  Give me some of those yummy chocolate M and M's  or Reese Peanut butter cups, and they will be gone within the hour.  I bought some Cadbury Eggs over Easter, and I am sorry to say that I ate all six, ok five of them (I did manage to part with one and give it to my husband) within 2 days.  I notice that the more sweets I eat, the harder it is for me to get away from them.  Now that the Easter holidays are over, I am constantly looking around our apartment to find something sweet because my body craves it!  Because I didn't buy any sweets at Walmart, I have gotten desperate and have searched in every crack and cranny in my kitchen to find something sweet to eat. My body is similar to a metal detector, only I call it my sweet detector. The moment I come near something sweet, the alarm goes off in my brain, beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeep!!!! Lately my sweet detector discovered that we have corn syrup in the pantry, and I am now mixing it up with peanut butter. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I am desperate for my sweets.

But there have also been times in my life when I am not desperate for sweets, I will have gone weeks without very many sweets.  As a result, my body craves the healthy foods like my fruits and veggies.

Here is the point I am trying to make, whatever I put into my body is what my body is going to crave. If I put sweets in my body, it will crave sweets.  If I put fruits and veggies in my body, it will crave fruits and veggies.  We can apply the same thing with our mind.  Whatever we fill our mind with is what our mind is going to crave.

When we accept Jesus into our hearts we are a new creation.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"  We have a brand new spirit in us, the Spirit of Christ!  Our inner new man is no longer bound by the law and no longer sins but has been made perfect.  So why do we keep on messing up?  One of the reasons is our minds. 

While we are transformed inside, our mind and body has not been transformed.  Our mind is going to respond to situations in life based on what we put into it. That is why Paul in the book of Romans talks about how we must constantly renew our minds. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1)  We renew our minds by focusing on Christ, reading His word, praying, discussions with fellow Christians, etc.  

Paul also talks about walking in the Spirit.  Galatians 5:16-22 says,  "I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness  revelries."

When we walk in the Spirit and fill out minds with the things of God, we do not have desire to fulfill the desires of the flesh.  So when Paul lists off the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 (adultery, fornication, sorcery, hatred, jealousy, selfish ambitions, etc.), he is saying that if you walk in the flesh  and fill your mind with the things of the flesh, you are prone to doing the things of the flesh.  But what happens if we fill our minds up with the things of the spirit inside of us?  Here is what Christ's spirit inside us has...

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering  kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.  Against such things, there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

 If you fill your mind up with the things of the spirit, you tend to display the fruits shown in the above verse. So lets renew our minds and walk in the Spirit!  We do this by focusing our minds on Christ. It is like driving a car; when we drive, we focus on staying on the road.  The moment we stop focusing on the road, and start doing other things like texting on our cell phone or looking at a crying baby in the back seat (yep...I am guilty of that one!) or falling asleep, you start to veer off the road and eventually you can find yourself crashing.  So how do we focus on Christ so that we don't crash?  Well, in John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Christ is the word. Lets fill ourselves up with His Word. I found out from a friend of mine that she renews her mind by focusing  on who she is in Christ.  You see, In Christ, I am loving. In Christ, I am joyful.  In Christ, I am peaceful. In Christ, I am kind.  In Christ, I am good.  In Christ, I am faithful. In Christ, I am gentle. In Christ, I have self- control. Christ displays those traits and is living inside of me. But you can move beyond the verse in Galatians and look in the Bible at other ways you are with Christ living inside of you.  In Christ, I am a Saint.  In Christ, I am righteous.  In Christ, I am loved.  In Christ, I am forgiven.  In Christ, I trust in God. The list goes on and on.  

What are you filling your minds with today? Are you filling it with who you are in Christ?  Or are you filling it with the things of the flesh?

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Ephesians 4:22-24 

Forgiveness

Verse of the Week: 

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:1

Forgiveness

I spent a long time in guilt over something I had done.  It wasn't anything major according to the world's standards, but every time I thought of it, guilt would consume my emotions.  I desperately wanted to ask that person for forgiveness, but the opportunity never came.  The chances of seeing that person again was slim.  For over a year, sometimes something someone said or something I saw would trigger what I had done, and once again, I would swim in a sea of guilt over what I had done.  I would CONSTANTLY be asking God to forgive me for what I did. Sound familiar?  Can anyone relate?

About a year later, I started studying something  amazing, God's forgiveness and grace. I love grace.  Simply believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that through Him we now can go to heaven to be with God.  That part is simple and true and is amazing, but over the years people have made grace more complicated;  people would say that in order to receive God's blessings and approval, that you need to make sure that no sin is hindering your relationship with Him.  You need to keep asking Him for forgiveness to make sure you are right with Him. People would say that God loves you so much, but when you do wrong, he is displeased with you.  Now, when we sin, we will have to face the earthly consequences,  but does it change the way God views us?  When we sin, God may seem far off, because our focus is not on Him but on the things of the flesh, but has God turned his back on us? Has sin created a wall between believers and God?  Is God really ready to pounce on us and condemn us when we mess up?  Is he displeased with us when we sin? 

Lets see what the Bible says:  Isaiah 59:2 says, "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear."  When you read this verse, it sounds like God does turn his back on us when we sin. Here is the problem; this verse is part of the Old Testament and the OLD COVENANT.  For those of you that are not familiar with the old covenant, here is a brief background on it.  Through Moses, God made a covenant with the Israelites.   If you follow my laws, I will bless you; however, if you don't follow my laws, then I will punish you and turn my back on you.  That was the old covenant, and, as we know, God is faithful in all that he says and does. Psalm 33:4 says, "For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does."  Therefore, whatever God says He is going to do, He will do.  So in the old covenant, even though God desires to bless the Israelites, He also is going to be true to his word and punish them if they do not follow his laws. God will not be unfaithful in His part of the agreement with the Israelites.   Unfortunately, the Israelites failed over and over to follow God's laws; as a result, we see a God in the Old Testament who seems unloving and full of condemnation.  

We tend to think then that in the New Covenant of Grace, that God is still going to be upset with us if we mess up; after all, He was that way in the old covenant.  We think we are still under the written code of the law and are punished or blessed when we follow or fail to follow the law, but we find the opposite. Colossians 2:14 (NLV) says,  ^"We had broken the Law many ways. Those sins were held against us by the Law. That Law had writings which said we were sinners. But now He has destroyed that writing by nailing it to the cross." 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."  Once we confess our sins, God has forgiven us once and for all.  We are no longer condemned by the law; the cross is finished, and Jesus is alive!  The debt has been paid in full.  When you are forgiven, you are forgiven!  "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1) God is not going to condemn you if you mess up!  

So when we mess up, there is no wall between a believer and God; the Law of the old covenant is what put a wall between us and God.  But in the new covanent, the law is out, and is replaced with God's grace and forgiveness through Christ Jesus. God is not displeased and ready to condemn us; He loves us!  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) We are forgiven!

Back to my story above.  A year later, I once again was asking God to forgive me for what I had done so long ago.  Then it hit me.  I am already forgiven, I didn't need to keep asking Him for forgiveness over and over. Jesus paid for all my sins in full, so why am I asking God to do something he already did for me?  Jesus forgave me on the cross.  According to the law, I should be punished, but according to Jesus, I am forgiven. The devil loves to make us feel guilty and filled with condemnation when we mess up, but God isn't full of condemnation; he is full of forgiveness. I began to thank God for his grace and forgiveness. When I thanked him for the fact that I am already forgiven, the guilt began to disappear.  Even though I have to face the consequences for my sins, I have realized that I do not have to keep begging Him for forgiveness, that is what you do when you are under the law of the old covenant. Instead, I am going to THANK Him that I am already forgiven.  A long time ago I confessed my sins to Jesus, and I became a Child of God; I only have to do that once, not over and over.  I am His, and no future mess ups will ever separate me from Him.  Thank you Lord for forgiveness!  I am in AWE of it all!

Give Thanks in All Circumstances

Verse of the Week:  

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Give Thanks in ALL Circumstances

It had been one of those days in school that all teachers face at one point or another.  I had lost my cool and screamed at one of my students.  I kept telling him to get on task over, over, and over, to not interrupt when I was talking over, over, and over, and to stop clowning around over, over, and over.  I sounded like a broken record saying the same thing to him OVER, OVER, and OVER!!!!  I had reached the end of my rope, and I turned into his worst nightmare.  The poor kid's ears must have gone deaf as I yelled as loud as I could,  my eyes were shooting fiery darts, and I must have looked like I was ready to go to war.  I was tired, fat (I was pregnant at the time), and stressed out that day, and had lost it.  

To make things worst, I went home with that kid in my mind, and continued to fume over what he had done.  Why was I teaching again?  Why didn't I get an easier profession that didn't involve 12 year olds? I should have been a military commander, because I spent the rest of the evening strategically planning out my next battle I was sure I would face with him the next day.  I went over every possible scenario of what he might do  and thought of every possible action I could take for each scenario.  Sound familiar fellow teachers? Well, after I got a good nights rest, I rolled out of bed that morning, and got myself ready for another day of school all while dreading to see that particular student and class.  As I was driving to school, I started to pray like I always do, and I was thanking the good Lord for my husband and our child in my womb.  But then I did a very difficult thing,  I THANKED God for that kid, and for the privilege of teaching him and my other students.  My heart began to soften and I was able to pray for that boy. I didn't solve all my problems with him, and he continued to give me fits on some days, but because I was praying and thanking God for him, my own perspective began to change. 

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says,  "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." Did Paul really say give thanks in ALL circumstances?  Maybe Paul made a typo when he wrote ALL?  Really?  ALL circumstances? 

I have learned over the years that you truly can be thankful in all situations.  Sometimes it isn't easy to find a blessing when you are drowning in a pit of despair, but when we do, we find out that we begin to view the situation differently.  We begin to look at our circumstances through Christ's eyes.  

"There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." Corrie Ten Boom, one of my heroes said that.  She and her sister Betsie were placed in a concentration camp during World War II and despite the horrible, brutal devastating situation, they found a way to give thanks in ALL circumstances. In her book, The Hidding Place, she and her sister Betsie talk about this while they are being assigned to their barracks. Here is what Bestie starts off saying...

"That's it Corrie!  That's His answer. 'Give thanks in all circumstances!' That's what we can do right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!"

I stared at her, than around me in the dark foul-aired room.

"Such as?" I said.

"Such as being assigned here together."

I bit my lip. "Oh yes, Lord Jesus!"

"Such as what you're holding in your hands."

I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank you dear Lord that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank you for all the women here in this room, who will meet You in these pages."

"Yes," said Bessie.  "Thank you for the very crowding here.  Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly, "Corrie!" she prodded.

"Oh, all right.  Thank you for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds."

"Thank you," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for-"

The fleas!  That was way to much.  "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"Give thanks in all circumstances,'" she quoted.  "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for the fleas.  But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

As I read on later in the book, it turns out they found a reason to be thankful for the fleas.  NO guard or officer in the concentration camp would enter the barracks because of all of the fleas inside.  The fleas helped to provide a safe haven for all of those women.

Give thanks in all circumstances.....