Mr. MNM:
As we embark on the journey into a new year, wanted to take a moment to encourage you to increase your trust in the Lord. We often say we trust the Lord, but our actions, reactions, emotions, and speech don’t reflect any trust in Him. When anger, worry, fear, or even apathy are our responses to a situation, we are not demonstrating the level of faith and authority that comes with the true faith in Jesus.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. What’s in our heart is nothing more than what we’ve spent timing putting into it. Not just putting into our heart, but meditating on it, mulling it over, rehearsing it in our thoughts, or in conversations with others. The real kicker is that if we aren’t diligently putting God’s Word into our heart, meditating on it, mulling it over, rehearsing it in our thoughts, and in our conversations with others, we are giving place for other thoughts or feelings that do not have its root in love and compassion.
In this world there will be troubles, trials, and tribulation. That doesn’t mean that we are defeated, that just means that we’re given a unique opportunity to demonstrate the authority in the capacity that the Lord has graced us with. Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 12:35 that “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” What’s in our hearts is what we will bring forth in everything around us.
If you don’t like something about a situation, look at your heart in regard to that situation. Is that something that you’re supposed to be part of? Is it that you are not doing all the things that you’re supposed to be doing in it? Or is it something that you need to be further developed spiritually and mentally in? James 1:2-4 says to “Count it all joy… when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
Furthermore, Romans 5:2-5 says “Through [Jesus] we have… obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
The responses that the Bible tells us to have clearly show the Way that we’re to act, react, and talk about the situation. We are to demonstrate the endurance and perseverance through the situation so that our character is transformed into what Jesus wants us to be. It starts to produce the hope and love that we’re to personify. This is our witness; this is our authority; this is our testimony; this is the transformation that He wants to do to and through us. This is the calling of every believer.
Proverbs 4:23 says to keep (guard, preserve, tend to, or watch over) your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs (issues, borders, extremities, out-flowing) of life. If were to do and be what Jesus has called us to, then we need to be very intentional about maturing in His Word to the point that our only response to things is in love, hope, and compassion. This is how we serve others around us and start making an impact for the Kingdom.
~mnm
