How's Your Heart?

We often tend to put a lot of emphasis on physical posture and health, but what about your heart? How is your heart’s posture toward the things of God? Is it upright and open to Him and His Word? Or is it slouching into apathy and coldness towards His will and purpose for your life? 

There is no better “loving reminder” to straighten up our heart’s health then the Word of God. It is our nudge to keep our hearts open and right with Jesus throughout the day. Here are three ways to help with your heart’s posture as you go about today:

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REC - 005. Hows Your (Heart) Posture.mp3

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Did you know that poor posture can affect your health as one physical therapist said, it's a common and important health problem among Americans and can lead to neck pain, back problems, and other aggravating conditions. And how true that is. You're sitting at a desk all day, or you go home and you're browsing your smartphone on the couch. And it's often hard to remind yourself. Golf to sit up straight during the day. You're putting all that pressure, all that weight on your support system improperly, and it does affect your health. My wife will oftentimes when we are sitting in church, she'll give me a, you know, a little loving reminder with her elbow into my side. Saying hey, sit up straight. Or put your hey, put your shoulders back. Remember your posture. And we talk about it often and kid about it, but we don't want to be, you know, in our 70s and our 80s and and looking at the floor, we want to be able to stand up straight and tall because it does so much to your health. And you know, although I'm convinced. Of the importance of healthy living and taking care of your temple, the your body. I am often reminded that God's work is very much inward. It is a shaping of my heart into the image of Christ that brings on great transformation and spiritual health in my life. We put so much emphasis on the outward, don't we? What we look like, what we how we dress, all of these different exterior things and although we ought to take care of our body, we ought to take care of the temple that God has. Giving us we've been talking about that in a junior and senior Bible class this past week about how to take care of our bodies, what we put in our bodies, what we do with our bodies, how we exercise all these things, those things are so great. But if we put more emphasis on the exterior. Then on the interior work of God. The work that he is doing in our heart. In our life and our minds. Then we have a missed balance priority. The Bible says this for whom? He did foreknow. He also did Predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. That's in Romans, God is teaching us there. He wants to conform. That's literally to the mold of his. He wants to change our heart. Into a heart like Christ and the Bible says in Philippians. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's an encouraging thought that you can have the same thoughts as Jesus. You can live a life like Christ. God's work is very much in work. It is to the heart and this time of year, especially Valentine's Day coming right around the corner. OK, you you see hearts everywhere, everywhere you go. My wife has very artistically and very beautifully dressed my office with roses. And they're our hearts. I can't even count all of them right now, but decorations filled with candy. All these different things. There's hearts everywhere, especially this time of year. As you look around at all these. Hearts let it serve. As a reminder to you that God wishes to do something in your life. He wants to do something in your heart and in your mind, and he wants to conform you to the image of his son. He wants to transform you. He wants to change you into the image of Christ. And there's a certain posture that he wants your heart to have. Can I ask? You. How's your heart posture to God? You say. What do you mean by that? What do you mean? My hearts posture. What is your attitude toward the things of God? Are you upright and and open to? Open to his word. When you sit down to read his word, we've been talking about the last several weeks how to do our devotions, talking to God through prayer. And when we sit down and have that alone time with God, are we open? It's our heart right with him. How's your hearts posture? Is it open and upright, or is it slouching into apathy and coldness? Towards his will and purpose. Because we've talked about it before, but so many times you can open in God's word and sit, sit and you're alone time with him and get so complacent. We get so stuck in a rut, don't we? You know what a rut is? Rut is a grave with two ends knocked out of it. Right. We get so stuck in a rut and what can happen is we get so. To the things of God that it doesn't refresh. We get comfortable, right? We get comfortable in our routine, we get comfortable where we are in our Christian life and before you know it, we start to spiritually slouch. So the question is how can we keep from slouching? I'm going to give you just a few things that throughout the years honestly have been. A small nudge, a small little elbow right to the ribs of throughout the day. To check my heart, to check my attitude. Right. We've heard the phrase before. Check your attitude at the door. Right to check my attitude. My heart throughout the day and my posture to God. How am I open to him? How am I upright and ready to to worship and ready to witness? And ready to do his will for my life. These few things have helped me. Number one, I would say keep short accounts with God. There's no doubt about it that sin will make you slouch. OK, there's sin in your if there is sin in your life. It will make you spiritually slouch. It will make you comfortable and complacent to the things of God. When you step into the church building, you will be turned off to the word of God. Something that I've reminded teenagers I can't before sin will blind you. It will bind you. It will remind you and it will find you OK. Sin will make you slouch. The Bible says in first John if we confess our sins. We confess him he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why is he faithful and just to forgive us of our sins because we are faithful to. It is a part of our sin nature. We are the Bible says lay aside the weight and sin that doth so easily beset you, or puts you off the path that God has for you, and I am reminded so often in my life that I am so easily beset by sin. So often I and get distracted by this or distracted by that, or I have a thought that I shouldn't have. Or I say something and I wish I could take it back. And you know, sin will cause us to slouch. These principles have helped me so very much. My father-in-law was my youth pastor and and he gave me these principles that this teenager and I'm very, very grateful to God that I grabbed a hold of them and I remember them often. First of all, confront your sin. Confront it. If you're going. To keep short accounts with God, you've got to confront your sin. Now I don't know about you, but there's some people they don't like. Confrontation. I am one of those people. I don't like confrontation. I don't like unnecessary friction. And sometimes people don't confess their sin to God because they they don't want the confrontation. They don't want the Frick. That's oftentimes what keeps people out of church, because when the word of God is open, it is something that reminds them of the sin that they've regarded, and they've kept in their heart, and they don't want to confront that. But you've got to get honest. You got to get honest about it. Is there sin in your life? Is there something there? And when you're going throughout the day, immediately when you think a thought that you shouldn't or you say something you shouldn't say or do something you shouldn't do, it should be an automatic response should be lowered. I shouldn't have done that. You confront it, you say? OK, they're sitting there. This is wrong. I shouldn't have done that. Confront it and confess that literally means and 1st showing. It says. Confess your sins. It literally means to say the same thing as God. Basically you call it out for what it is. OK. We live in a culture today. That we pride ourselves in calling stuff for what it is, right? A lot of times we call out people on social media, which is a very cowardice thing to do. But we pride ourselves. And and calling something for what it is or or throwing down a truth bomb. OK, onto somebody. Right. Well, you know, we've got to have the same attitude about our sin. We've got to call it for what it is isn't often how relentless we are on other people. God get them for their wickedness, for their sin. I can't believe they would do something like that, but yet we want God to be merciful to us. We want God to be easy on us. We want to skirt around what it is that we've done. But you've got to confess it. You've literally got to say the same thing as God has the idea of you've got God's law here. Here's the law and you say, OK, here's God's law. Here's the Bible. And this is what I've done is wrong. I have violated the scripture. I have violated God's law and God's work. OK, you've got to confess it. So confront it, confess it. And then thirdly, I love this one. Continue. There's a lot of people that they may confront their sin. And they may confess their sin, by the way, when we confess our sin to God as a believer, our sins are forgiven and we are saved from the penalty of sin. OK, but they're obviously we don't drop our sin nature after we sin. We still why do we confess it as a believer? Well, we're getting it right with God. I'm married to my wife. We got married, we had our wedding 2017, OK. Our pastor married us. Grateful to God for that. But you know, after that, after I got married, I have said things to Catherine that I've regretted. I have done things that I've regretted. And what I have to do, I have to to maintain a healthy relationship. OK. Do I say OK, well, I have to. Get married again, do we? Have to do our wedding vows again? No, but it's simply just a matter of saying. Catherine, will you forgive me? I shouldn't have said what I said or shouldn't have done what I did. So it's not a matter of getting saved again when we confess our sin. It's literally just a matter of confessing. It's saying, Lord, I don't want there to be anything between you and I. I want you to be able to work in and through me today and I want to. Confess that to you. So, confronted, confess and then continue. Continue. Keep going. Keep going. Don't let the sins of your past paralyze you. From the blessings of God for your future. So often people live in the past. They think about their past failures. They think about all these things, right that could. Or they think about all their mistakes that they've done, and God doesn't want you to live in your mistakes. He has a great plan for your life. He has great blessings ahead of you, and you can't let sin of the past paralyze you from those things. So I would say keep short accounts with God throughout the day. How do you do that? You confront your sin, you confess it and continue. How quick should you do this as soon as possible. So I would say to keep short accounts with God. Throughout the day, confront your sin, confess it to God, and continue because that will make you spiritually slouch. I'll say the second thing would be to consult Christ in every decision throughout the day, big or small. Right. We're talking about our hearts posture, our hearts disposition to God, our attitude towards God and the things of God. We've got to consult Christ in every decision. This may sound kind of elementary, but it's so vitally important because what we do is we often clock in on our jobs and we work our busy schedules without much thought. Of Christ. We gotta start. We may start. We may even start our day in the word of God doing our devotion, spending time with him, but oftentimes we put on our work hat, we put on our what we call secular hat, right? We separate what spiritual and what secular. And oftentimes that is such a mistake that we as believers make we separate secular and spiritual. Well, here's my secular life. Here's here's my job. Here's my career. And then we have our spiritual life. That's when I go to church, and that's when. But no, Christ wants to be with you throughout the day. Christ wants to be a part in the center of everything on your list of priorities. And so you've got to consult him in every decision. That's something that's so helped me in my life. Just even when I'm. Maybe it's a Sunday morning and I'm thinking about what suit to wear or what, what tie to pick out. Why don't you ask the Lord? And that may be kind of silly to you, but it's something you're just you're realizing his. Presence. You're acknowledging that he is there. The Bible says trust in the Lord with all that heart. And lean not unto thine own understanding in all thy ways, not some of them, but all of your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy past many Christians. They want God to direct their past, but they don't acknowledge him. It's like they want the blessings of God of they want the blessings of his plan, but yet they don't want to acknowledge him in their decisions. When you're making financial decisions today. Ask him what you should. Even if you're dealing with the situation at work that it's a little bit confrontational, right? Or it's a there's a little bit of friction there. Consult the Lord. Ask him what should I do? Have a business, a window cleaning company that started back in college. And you know, I have enjoyed doing that and I told someone the other day, one of the number one things that grew my business was. I said because I I face situations trying to wash houses and driveways and Windows, I faced situations that you know I needed the Lord. I needed his help. I needed his guidance. A unit would break down. And So what do I do? I don't even have another unit to do this job. I've got to complete this job. The customers already paid me or whatever the case. This right and I had to pray. Lord, help me. Help me in this decision. So as you're going throughout the day, one of the things that can help your attitude toward the things of God, your hearts, posture toward God. It's going to be to consult him in every decision, big or small, even if you're just sitting at your desk at work. Hey, God, what? Should I do today? What? How can I help someone in need today? How can it be encouragement to someone today, whatever it may be, consult him in your decision. Agent. And then lastly, I would say be quick to thank him for the little things, there's no doubt about it that a grateful heart is a heart that's contagious. OK, a grateful spirit and attitude is completely and utterly contagious and nothing accelerates your hearts health. Like giving praise and thanks to God, it's an attitude that just energizes your mind, gives you the support that you truly need throughout the day. The Bible says this saw him 100 make a joyful noise unto the Lord. All ye lands serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God. It is he that Maith made us, and not we ourselves. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture enter into his gates with what Thanksgiving, and into his courts with. Praise. Here it is again. Be thankful unto him and bless his. Him for the Lord is good. Why should I be thankful to him? Why should I be grateful? Why should I praise him throughout my day, verse 5 for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Be quick to thank God for the little things throughout the day. James tells us that every good gift, every perfect gift, is from above. It is from God it cometh down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variable. In this, neither shadow of turning the God of heavens has poor blessings. Into your. Live and we should be quick to thank him for them as you're going throughout the day. So he consult him about one of those crazy situations at work and you don't know what to do and you've consulted him and you've asked him, Lord, what should I do? Well, when he gives you an answer and when he helps you through it, Lord, thank you. God, thank you for helping me with that and not just a matter. It's not just a matter of ritualistically reading through a list and and saying thank you for this. Lord, thank you for this, Lord. Thank you, but thank him throughout the day as things come along as blessings come along as miracles come. Along I had someone sitting in my office the other day and said hey, praise the Lord we had. I got to witness to two people and they trusted Christ as their savior. Hey, that's a miracle. That is God at work. And we should be quick to thank him for those things. Thank him for the little things in my life. So let me ask you again, how is your heart's posture to the things of God? Do you keep short accounts with them? Throughout the day. Short accounts not letting much time pass. Before you confess that sin to God. Are you quick to? Consult him in your decisions or. Do you think you got it? You stop and praise him for the little things. I don't know about you, but I want to make sure that my heart's attitude is right with him. It is where it needs to be so that God can pour in spiritual health and spiritual life into my life and use me for his honor and for his glory. The Bible says keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. How's your hearts posture today?