[00:00:03] Welcome to the prayer is breathing podcast, my name is Latoya and I want to thank you so much for tuning in. I am so glad that you are here and we're going to get right into the
[00:00:16] word but before I do I just want to let you know that every Monday night I host a woman's Bible study called the Equiping and as virtual via zoom you can sign up on event bright
[00:00:28] up to join us every Monday night at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and it's going to be amazing. Love, love, love to have you. So today I'm going to talk to you about matters of the heart
[00:00:47] because the heart is so important and I want us to make sure that our hearts are truly pastured before the Lord and so we're going to talk about the heart and how we can guard our
[00:00:59] hearts because the Bible tells us to guard our heart. So let's start off with three verses I want to share with you if you are taking notes and first verse is Matthew 5 verse 8 and it says blessed
[00:01:13] all the pure and heart for they shall see God and some of us we sing that song Lord I want to see you right that's one of my favorite songs open the eyes of my heart Lord I want to see you and so it's
[00:01:26] important to me to keep a pure heart it's important to God for us to keep a pure heart and so God desires for our hearts to be pure before him and we see this so many times throughout scripture and our
[00:01:41] very next verse is going to tell us why. So this verse in first Samuel chapter 16 verse 7 it says and this is a reference to the time of Saul when Samuel was looking for a king he was looking for David
[00:01:55] and Saul of course was really tall and you know God called Saul and so so much is going on you have to read the whole story in first Samuel but first Samuel chapter 16 verse 7 says but the Lord said
[00:02:08] to Samuel do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature because I have refused him for the Lord does not see as a man sees for men looks at the outward appearance but the Lord
[00:02:22] looks at the heart let's run that back but the Lord looks at the heart so it's not necessarily the things that you do outwardly it's not necessarily your stature or your outward appearance it's
[00:02:36] not necessarily the things that you say or things that we do that are on the outward side of things but God looks internally and God looks at our heart and this is why it's important to
[00:02:49] ask the Lord to search our heart to ask God to give us clean hands and a pure heart because that is what God is after he's looking for our hearts. Alright third verse I want to share with you
[00:03:01] is Proverbs 423 and you may have heard this is a very powerful familiar verse but Proverbs 4 23 says keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issue of life and so if you
[00:03:17] words look at your heart as that headquarters is the headquarters of everything that you do so even in business a lot of instructions a lot of the practices of business comes from the headquarters where
[00:03:29] every that company has his headquarters everything branches out from there and the Bible tells us that out of our hearts everything springs from our heart even the words that we say a lot of that is
[00:03:42] hard but into our hearts and so this is why it's important that we take the state of our heart very seriously and we ask the Lord to search us we don't just keep going and going and going but it's
[00:03:55] important to have a heart check it's important to take some time to examine where your heart is and so I want you just to think about that for a moment think about where your heart is think about the
[00:04:10] things that you may be holding or hosting in your heart and before you do before you say well you know what I don't have anything with my heart the Bible tells us in Jeremiah 17 that the heart
[00:04:23] is desperately wicked who can know it so your heart can deceive you according to the word of God and so what we have to do is ask the Lord by his spirit to reveal what is in our hearts and a lot
[00:04:38] of times when God does that it's not always pretty it's not always beautiful sometimes there can be things hidden in our heart there can be doubt unbelief jealousy envy competition brokenness trauma fear
[00:04:55] anxiety your heart can just hold and host so many different things but the great news is God is able to cleanse your heart God is able to God is able to purify your heart and if God needed to
[00:05:10] he can give you a new heart and we see that in scripture as well and so I just want to bring to your remembrance that God is looking at the state of your heart because that's what matters and that's
[00:05:22] what's important to him and so I want to give you this one more verse that is so powerful when we look at the Bible when we look at the word of God of course we know about the 12
[00:05:33] disciples and we know what happens there and we understand the story and there's things that happen when Judas betrayed Christ right but I want you to look at this part and look chapter 22
[00:05:47] and if we're looking at Luke chapter 22 verses 3 through let's just do 3 and 4 all right and so Luke 26 this is in the contemporary English version it says then say in entered the heart of Judas is scary it
[00:06:04] who was one of the 12 apostles Judas went to talk with the chief priest in the offices of the temple police about how he could help them arrest Jesus and so because God looks at our heart and God goes after
[00:06:17] our heart the enemy is also after your heart and I remember reading this that say in entered the heart of Judas so sometimes we focus on oh my goodness Judas betrayed Christ which he did
[00:06:32] in that story you have to read many of us are familiar with that but what we see in verse 3 is that Satan himself actually entered into Judas's heart now why is this important because your heart holds
[00:06:44] everything your heart out of your heart flows the issues of the life and so you have to like provost 4 23 guard your heart with all diligence and how you guard your heart as you keep a tab on it
[00:06:59] you're constantly before the Lord and prayer you're constantly doing a heart check almost like in our cars we're constantly looking at the needle to see where is our gas level how much gas do we
[00:07:11] have in the car because we know at some point the gas is going to run out and if we don't examine where we are we can look up and just be on empty and on the side of the road somewhere running out of gas
[00:07:24] and so what we have to do is keep tabs on the state of our heart and so this is daily this is in prayer this is sitting in the presence of the Lord this is allowing the Holy Spirit to minister to your heart
[00:07:38] allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal things to you that may be in your heart that you're not aware of right because we talked about the heart is desperately wicked and so I want to give you
[00:07:50] some practical things to help you protect your heart and what happens with your heart first thing is you want to protect what goes into your heart and sometimes you're not fully able or responsible
[00:08:06] because things happen and things happen sometimes beyond our control and so things can come and hit our hearts and many of us are familiar with the term a broken heart and so life happens in a
[00:08:19] life takes place where we take some hits sometime even in our hearts and what we have to do is ask the Lord to bring healing to our hearts when we've been through things that have heard us
[00:08:33] that have caused us trauma we have to ask the Lord to please bring healing to our hearts and one thing that I really love about God and I think this is just so beautiful and so
[00:08:45] profound to me is that the Lord actually cares about our hearts and not only does He care about our hearts but He promised to heal our hearts as well it's a part of the gospel it's a part of
[00:08:58] Jesus coming he came to forgive our sins he came to wash us he came to cleanse us all those things right and then the word of God also tells us in Isaiah 61 and it's also repeated in the book of Luke
[00:09:11] but in Isaiah 61 it says the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor he has sent me to heal the broken hearted this is Jesus referring
[00:09:27] to Jesus and this is followed up in the book of Luke and the opening of the prison to those who are bound so it also says to proclaim liberty to the captives so let me just read that to you one more time
[00:09:38] the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor he has sent me to heal the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening
[00:09:52] of the prison to those who are bound and this goes on this is Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1 and you can read the full chapter but I love this part because Jesus lets us know in his word that He was sent also
[00:10:07] to heal the broken hearted and so we can rest in that that God cares that much about our hearts and that He wants to heal us and so things that you see outwardly a lot of times are just the
[00:10:20] fruit of what is going on in your heart and so that's where sometimes you see the fruit on the tree you see the apple you see the orange you see the mango but what happens is you have to get to the
[00:10:33] root of that thing and say okay God what is in my heart what is springing out of my heart what is growing from the place of my heart and so again first thing you have to do is protect
[00:10:46] what goes in as much as possible so you have to guard what goes into your heart and how you guard what goes into your heart is you have to make sure that you have a very quick turnaround time
[00:10:59] and let me explain to you what I mean by this because I live this and I know this to be true and so when things happen in life you have to ask the Lord to heal you you also have to let things go
[00:11:12] and I'm going to just repeat this for some of you that may be listening today that there are certain things that you are holding onto and it's just keeping storage in your heart
[00:11:22] and one of the biggest things that we hold onto are offenses and unforgiveness and when you hold onto that thing not only is it in your heart but it grows over time and it can cause your heart to be
[00:11:36] very hard and so you want to make sure that even if somebody offends you even if somebody hurt you as much as possible right because some things are really big or we need the power of the
[00:11:47] Holy Ghost to forgive because there's a lot of heavy things and it's not easy to forgive but I want to say even to the things that are a little bit smaller like somebody says something to you you
[00:11:59] don't like or you have an issue with this person I want to tell you to please keep a short inventory don't hold onto things especially little things let them go and so when you have a quicker turnaround
[00:12:12] it doesn't allow the enemy to go in and take ground and take room and take storage in your heart and sometimes you just have to be spiritually mature enough to not hold on and replay and hold on
[00:12:26] and harbor things that can grow and so when you're taking inventory of your heart it's just kind of like a company or retail store they're going to get rid of things that are from the fall so even now
[00:12:39] when it's about 100 degrees I'm not sure where you are but when you go into Walmart we go into Target we go to whatever store you're going into you're not seeing sweaters you're not seeing heavy
[00:12:51] coats because they're not in season and so what they do and retail is there's a constantly switching out paraphernalia they're constantly switching out items they're constantly switching out things and holidays and getting ready for the next thing that is coming and so what happens when you're
[00:13:07] offended that can often take up storage in your heart and you have to go to God and prayer and say okay God I'm gonna let this thing go I'm not gonna hold on to this I'm not
[00:13:17] going to replay this in my mind I'm just going to let it go even very small little things where you can look back and say man I wish I did that differently or maybe you're hard on yourself
[00:13:29] I want to encourage you to just constantly be in a place where you are releasing things from your heart and you look at your heart as inventory to say you know what I don't want to store this I
[00:13:40] don't want to hold this in my heart so you have to protect what goes in and then also in the midst of that is you control what goes out so not only do you look at what goes into your heart but
[00:13:53] you can actually say okay God I release this to you I release this worry I release this care I release fear I release doubt I release unbelief and it's just like you cleaning out your closet
[00:14:05] right like a spring cleaning I know we're in summertime but if you clean out the areas of your heart you say okay God I am laying these things before you and there's another scripture says
[00:14:15] cast all your cares upon me because I care for you and so we have to constantly say okay God what is going on in the state of my heart and I wanted to read the scripture as it relates to
[00:14:31] forgiveness as it relates to you know forgiveness right so let's just look at this and Matthew and we're a Matthew chapter six and Matthew chapter six of course you have the Lord's prayer in there
[00:14:44] and then verse 14 is so wonderful verse 14 says for if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you now first 15 I don't really like to play around with it's just too costly but verse 15 says but if you do not forgive men their trespasses neither
[00:15:06] will your Father forgive your trespasses and I don't know about you but I do not have the time to not have my sins forgiven right and so as hard as it is to forgive always pray God help me
[00:15:20] to forgive let me let things go because these are two very strong verses in the Word of God again Matthew six verse 14 if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive
[00:15:31] you and verse 15 but if you do not forgive the men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses and so those are one of the main things that can take up space in your heart is holding on to bitterness and unforgiveness and all the many things that
[00:15:49] can take place in our heart so I just want to encourage you and remind you today and flowing back to the very first scripture that we read which is blessed all the pure heart for day
[00:15:59] shall see God and so of nothing else let's just pray for God to purify our hearts that we will see him Hallelujah so I just want to take some time to pray Father I thank you I thank you Lord Jesus
[00:16:13] I thank you for who you are I thank you God that you have given us life and life more abundantly and I just pray for every person listening to this podcast especially for those that have not
[00:16:25] accepted Jesus Christ into their heart God I just pray that they would invite you in that they will repent of their sins oh God and in turn to Jesus and look to Jesus for forgiveness for healing
[00:16:39] for life for strength for hope Hallelujah and God I just pray for every person that may be battling some things or some things that are weighing so heavy on their hearts God that they will be able to
[00:16:50] cast those things upon you because you care for them and God I thank you that you look at our heart not our outward appearance not the things that we do outwardly but you're looking at the state of
[00:17:02] our heart so Holy Spirit we ask you to search us search our hearts try and see if there's anything that's not like you and take it away oh God because we want to see you and your fullness we want to see you
[00:17:14] and your power we want to see you and all your glory and all your splendor oh God and so we just give you glory we give you honor and we give you praise in Jesus mighty name amen amen I want to thank
[00:17:27] you so much for listening I would also like to tell you that if you are looking for any Christian apparel I would love for you to check us out at www.awake ChristianColden.com that's a WAKE ChristianColden.com God bless you and thank you and for tuning in