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How is Your Spiritual Heart Health?

God has been teaching me His way concerning heart health. The condition of my physical heart mirrored the state of my spiritual heart. Through a physical and spiritual heart catheterization He exposed blockages, which left untreated, would be my certain physical and spiritual demise. He exposed areas of my heart that were still wounded and thus divided. I suspect I am not alone in this process.

According to the parable of the sower, Jesus teaches that It is from our hearts that we gain all spiritual guidance and understanding.

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” Luke 8:15 NIV.

“All valid spiritual direction comes to us through our heart-the seat of true knowing and our “eyes and ears” in the spirit. If we discern the “will of God” it is through our heart. Knowing our true identity and destiny is achieved through our hearts as well.” “Living from the Heart Jesus Gave You”, pg.67, published by Shepherd’s House, Inc. revised version 2000.

As a direct result of these remaining heart blockages, I was no longer able to fully hear, retain, or re-produce a good crop from the word that had been so wonderfully planted in my heart for decades. The ability to correctly discern, know and understand Papa’s will or my true identity and destiny as Papa’s beloved son were being robbed from me. In this state, my capacity for joy was weakened. Of course my loved ones were profoundly affected by my heart disease as well (which of course there has been profound mercy and the amazing grace of forgiveness).

When your heart has blockages, your core identity becomes at best skewed and can even lose touch with reality. You are less able to live from the new heart Jesus gave you as your birthright. You even can end up not behaving or acting like who you truly are-an adopted child of God. Probably the most devastating part of this condition is being blocked from enjoying Christ in your heart. He-of course, will never leave us or forsake us-but our intimacy with Him can be diminished.

I am being so transparent about this in hopes to impart the courage for you to ask Papa to search your heart and know truth in your inner most parts, as King David did. This is why he was “called a man after God’s own heart.”

The single goal of heart healing is to

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Are you in a prison of hopeless despair?

Too many of us have lived our lives suffering in a silent, shameful prison of hopeless despair. When we tried to hope — our hopes were always deferred. We were heart sick from all our seeming endless deferred hopes (Proverbs). Hope for us was more of a mirage; one which was continually being pushed into an elusive, uncertain and clouded future.

Thus, our lives became defined by disappointment, disillusionment and shame. And like Rowan and Martin, on the 1970’s show Laugh In, we regularly awarded ourselves with “the twisted finger of fate,” instead of embracing our true divine destiny in Christ.

These three cousins of hopelessness (disappointment, disillusionment and shame) ‘mar’ the true image of God. I don’t recall whose quote this belongs to; but, it goes something like this: “God created man in his image and likeness. Unfortunately, man has returned the favor. We have shaped God into the ‘twisted’ and ‘wicked’ view we have of ourselves.” Disappointment, disillusionment and shame diminished us!

Not so in Christ! With him in our hearts, “hope springs eternal.”

Such hope never disappoints, disillusions or shames us; for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. Romans 5:5, Amplified (my editorial change – deludes changed to disillusions)

Hope enables us to wait patiently for our redemption.

That is why (hopeful) waiting does not diminish us;

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The Irony of Resisting Change

The adventure of life is to learn.
The purpose of life is to grow.
The nature of life is to change.
The challenge of life is to overcome.
The essence of life is to care.
The opportunity of life is to serve.
The secret of life is to dare.
The spice of life is to befriend.
The beauty of life is to give.
~ William Arthur Ward

It’s raining steadily and that always makes me glad to be inside and comfortable in my own surroundings with simple comforts close at hand.

It also disposes my mind to become more reflective and focused on what is important and relevant.

A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.”
~ William Arthur Ward

How strange that though change is the dynamic of life, the nature of human beings is to resist change. The irony being that the very circumstances that we fear could ruin us may be the ones that open us to the blooming potential of who we were meant to be.

Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing
or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.
~William Arthur Ward

Sometimes there are no answers to life’s questions. Accepting the things we cannot change, without question, shows a strength of character that few possess.

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Is Your Husband Controlling?

Ask Angie: I have spent the past two years fighting and praying for my marriage. I can’t remember two straight weeks when he has been nice to me. I am disappointed; he’s disappointed and after four different counselors, we are still at odds with one another. Our marriage has improved but it’s not even close to normal. My husband never kisses me, can’t say anything nice about me, and he has an ANGER problem. I told my husband he was controlling because he used to lock one of our bathroom doors and openly brag to his family that I was not allowed into “his” bathroom. I told him that we are married and not one has the right to tell the other that he or she isn’t allowed on his or her joint property. His answer was you have two other bathrooms to choose from and that I am crazy to think he’s controlling he just wanted something of his own. He chose which side of the garage my car can be parked on, when I can have family over, what I can cook until I said no way. Now all we do is sleep in separate rooms and have sex when he wakes me up in the middle of the night but kissing is not allowed.

The first thing that needs to be done is to print out this marriage column and read it with your husband. Communicate your feelings to each other and come up with amicable ways to get along and be happy with one another. Marriage cannot be restored unless both husband and wife are willing to make the needed changes and sacrifices that marriage so much needs. Click all of the articles in this marriage column because that is where I feel you need the most support, which will steer you in the right direction to having a great marriage.

Marriage Guidance: After reading your letter I can see that you are focusing too much on your husband and his behavior rather than on what you can do for yourself. The negative focus you are putting upon your husband to be a certain way for you “is controlling”. Do you see how your attitude and behavior could be controlling as well?

Most of the time, not all of the time, when a wife thinks her husband is controlling it is because she is controlling. It usually means that she isn’t getting something just the way she wants it and she starts feeling resentful towards her husband.

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Seizing the Gospel of Grace for Yourself

This maybe one of our most daunting challenges; to daily apprehend through faith, the gospel of grace for yourself and others aggressively.

“Aggressively” literally means it will be marked by obtrusive energy and will be strong in effect and intention. Wow! Too daily apprehend through faith, grace strongly and intentionally toward ourselves and others.

Instead, most are passive about their daily faith in the gospel of grace. Whatever will be will be? No! May it never be!

Your salvation is not a reward for good behavior! It was a grace thing from start to finish; you had no hand in it. Even the gift to believe simply reflects His faith! Ephesians 2:8 (Mirror)

You did not invent faith; it was God’s faith to begin with!

It is from faith to faith. Romans 1:17 (Mirror)

He is both the source and conclusion of faith. Hebrews 12:2 (Mirror)

This aggressive grace journey progresses in/by a “mind shift” away from re-penance (faith in the law) to (faith in grace).

“The word ‘repentance’ is a fabricated word from the Latin, penance, and to even give it more ‘religious’ mileage, the English rendering became re-penance!” ~Francois du Toit

That is not what the Greek word means at all! The true word that sets the journey of grace, by faith in motion is “Metanoia.” This comes from (meta) – meaning together with, and (nous) – meaning to mind together with God’s mind; continuously perpetuated by a “radical mind-shift.”

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Reclaiming What Satan has Stolen from You

Satan has managed to convince many unbelievers, that he is not real, even though he has been influencing their every day lives abusively, in all manner of ways. Satan is a material, emotional, mental, and spiritual abuser. And if you have experienced abuse on any or all of those levels, he is at the root
cause.

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:4

Confronting and facing up to evil, is never easy. As humans we are inclined to go into denial, rather than confront evil for what it is. This is why so many addictions, addictive behaviors and systems continue relentlessly; enabled by ordinary every day people, until the pain brings them to their knees.
I find it a little sad that we humans still need the use of pain and suffering, to remind us to worship the living God!

Those of us who have experienced abuse and addiction, can testify to the truth of the Bible, that Satan and his demonic influence are indeed real, because we have experienced and witnessed his effects in our lives.

I have found it helpful

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Compassion Fatigue

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live
by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody
that stands right, and stand with him while he is right,
and part with him when he is wrong. ~ Abraham Lincoln


Compassion is defined as “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”

Compassion fatigue is a form of burnout that manifests itself as physical, emotional and spiritual exhaustion. Clinically it is defined as a more user friendly term for Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder which is nearly identical to PTSD, except it affects those who are affected by the trauma of another, perhaps a family member, friend, acquaintance or client.

Caregivers and therapists/practitioners who serve others are particularly prone to this condition. In the broader picture, I believe that many of us are experiencing compassion fatigue as it relates to the world at large. We are assailed by the news
of war, crime, disease, famine and natural disasters. Reportedly, thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocents are being raped, kidnapped, brutalized, tortured, sold into slavery or the sex trade, forced to leave their homes and livelihoods, renounce their religions or be crucified and as is becoming more common, beheaded.

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What happens when we sin?

If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.1 John 2:1

From time to time we hear – sometimes even in the secular media – of some prominent Christian who has fallen into scandalous sin. I remember when Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart very publicly got caught in sin, and they were neither the first nor the last people to endure those circumstances. When we see such famous people – famous, at least, in Christian circles – fall into sin, many questions can come into our minds.

Obviously we wonder whether these people are actually Christians – a legitimate question, though we have to be careful not to condemn on partial evidence, for what would someone think of us if he had no more hard facts than we receive through the media? There is also the question of what happens to such people if they are in fact truly regenerate. Sometimes it might seem that a sin is so public, and so egregious, that surely the person involved must have lost his salvation if he ever had it.

Of course to create doctrine based solely on our reason is dangerous – our minds are as fallen as any other part of us, and are as subject to malfunction as our hearts or eyes. We simply don’t think clearly in this world – the most brilliant preachers and theologians in history (I think offhand of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and J.I. Packer – with a little work I could extend the list a long way) have not been as brilliant as they would have been had there never been a fall. Every one of us, from little children just born to certified geniuses, suffer from the effects of the fall on our minds. This is one reason why we must always derive our doctrine from the Scriptures, and subject our doctrine to the Book, for there is no human mind capable of infallibly reasoning its way to the truth.

And when we think of the

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Vices and Virtues in Marriage: Jealousy vs. Trust

Have you ever had to deal with a jealous husband or wife? Most marriages at some time or another go through a period of mistrust and jealousy when their spouse does something to merit mistrust. Maybe they flirted or maybe they had an affair or it could be that they didn’t do anything at all to warrant distrust.

More often than not when a spouse is jealous of the other without merit it means they do not trust themselves. If they don’t trust themselves they usually are jealous, suspicious, controlling, and insecure. This can be a living nightmare for the spouse who has to take this sort of abuse. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Ask yourself. Why am I jealous? Why do I not trust my spouse? What have they done to merit my suspicions of them? Maybe you have good reason to feel the way you do. But more than likely your misgivings about your spouse have gotten out of hand. We need to be honest with our self about the actions we take in life. The heart of the matter is, we either trust our spouse or we don’t, there is no in between here.

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Help My Unbelief

Our beliefs can either work for or against us.

Years ago, a life altering point in both my eating disorder recovery and my relationship with God involved the scripture, Mark 9:24:

“Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.”


It punctuated the state of my life. I didn’t think I could believe in who I was, in life and in God. My faith wasn’t “enough.”

Through my eating disorders, be it anorexia, bulimia or binge eating, I believed God hated me and was going to send me to hell. My perfectionistic thoughts had obliterated His grace. Increasing amounts of shame from my behaviors, which included theft and lying, made me reach a point of no return. I was “un-save-able.”

So, when I encountered Mark 9:24, it validated my struggles with doubt. That ninth chapter in Mark, uttered by a man, centuries earlier, sent the reassurance I needed. I was not the only person to ever think this way. And before Mark 9:24’s zinger, there was the set up scripture of the twenty-third verse:

Jesus said unto him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”

Ordinarily, this would have caused me to despair. If Jesus was telling me it was solely up to me to “believe right,” then, let’s face it, I’m a goner.

But again, centuries ago, He responded to another doubting person. Mark 9:24 was this man’s only comeback.

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