Revelation of the Heart June 24,2024

The Heart of man is complex, seen completely by God, and by it known to Him and to some degree known to others around us. We do not see as God sees in others and so cannot judge another's heart or even our own without insight from the Holy Spirit and even then it is very limited. Whom God will trust with knowledge of another's heart is one who will pray, or be able to help in some way to change a negative condition without personal judgment and with compassion and confidentiality. Is this not the way God treats us? I think we need to treat ourselves this way. There is not a gift of the Holy Spirit called "the pointing of the finger." So then don't do it to others or yourself! There is one place we should point and it is down at the devil. It deserves all condemnation.

How often, knowing what we know about things of God and sin are we moved not to compassion but to condemnation? We tend to know people after the flesh and long term memory of what caused us to think of them in this way. But here is what I know of the human heart from observation over the years.

The core of a man, (heart), seems to be made up of a collection of good, bad or indifferent data which forms compartments, maybe a filing system, or such, on people, places and things which we have contacted in the course of our lives. Mixed together with our judgment of good, bad, ugly or indifferent, this data becomes an area of your heart that can be open or closed to God and his love. The open areas, as you might guess, are places you are in perfect alignment with the Lord and His Word and able to receive His Love. Ahh the closed areas, you want to know about them too. I'll give you a hint. The closed areas have a sign in front of them saying, "No Love welcome here!" Before we proceed to understand those areas of the heart I think we need to see what Hosea said about the hearts condition.

Have you ever contemplated Hosea 10:12? (The verse on the holiness process.) If not I will explain. This is the KJV - "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. What is the meaning of this verse? Let's see how the AMPC renders Hosea 10:12;"Sow for yourselves according to righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God); reap according to mercy and loving-kindness. Break up your uncultivated ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, to inquire for and of Him, and to require His favor, till He comes and teaches you righteousness and rains His righteous gift of salvation upon you."

Keep that in mind while we look at another version. YLT - "Sow for yourselves in righteousness, Reap according to loving-kindness, Till for yourselves tillage of knowledge, To seek Jehovah, Till he come and shows righteousness to you."

Alright, let's explore the wording of this verse. KJV says, "sow to yourselves in righteousness. 'Sow' is a farming term. But "sow to yourselves" is different. Some translations say, "sow for yourselves righteousness"

My rendering is, "plant a crop of righteousness in your own life".

Righteousness is right standing with God, His way. So we are talking about spiritual farming. See our talk on Seedtime and Harvest, May 13, 2024 on the website- paragraph-Turning Yourself into a Farmer

Let's go to the next line. Reap in mercy. Let's look at the MT- My Translation "Have mercy on yourself in the process." You are in the process of  becoming like God-righteous. I know the Word says we already are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus at the new birth but we have to own that righteousness and put it into practice! 1 Corinthians 15:34  "Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God…" You may see yourself as a failure in one area or another but I'm saying to you have mercy on yourself. That is a Godly thing to do. Becoming awake is a time period between asleep and up and at 'em! God has given us counsel through His Word to enlighten our darkness, and "awake" is when the light comes on. Sow and reap!

Alright, next line. "break up your fallow ground". Does He mean out in your backyard? No, He is talking about your heart! The next line says," for it is time to seek the Lord." Fallowing ground is an old concept of farming applied to the ground used.  Fallow is " Too plow, harrow and break land without seeding it, for the purpose of destroying weeds and insects, and rendering it mellow over time."  It is in the interest of the farmer to fallow cold, strong, clay land. When the Lord said, "break up your fallow ground for it is time to seek the Lord", He is saying prepare the ground which is already fallow, been laying unseeded for a period of time, to receive seed! The purpose of the planting is to reap a harvest of righteousness. He said He would come and rain it down on you!

The last line says in the YLT, " Till for yourselves tillage of knowledge, To seek Jehovah, Till he come and shows righteousness to you." The AMPC says," for it is time to seek the Lord, to inquire for and of Him, and to require His favor, till He comes and teaches you righteousness and rains His righteous gift of salvation upon you."

How many of us have put sowing and reaping to work in our quest for righteousness? God your Father is interested in the condition of your heart!

Many times people come in for prayer and their difficulty has to do with an area of the heart which received trauma, or rejection, or fear, or something of that nature with the result of closing them off to God's grace. They are unable to receive the miracle of God's Love they need. It doesn't matter whether it was sin they did or someone else did to them. Bitterness can get in and complicate things. I used to think they had some sort of wall up preventing the Lord access. Sometimes a false idea about God or His Love for them will be that thing which prevents them from getting free. Our desire is to help them in the process but we need to deal with the heart. Holy Spirit will help us!

Proverbs 23:7 "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." I might insert that, "as he agrees with something in his heart, so is he." Matthew 13:19 "When anyone hears the Word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart."  In dealing with the love areas of the heart, we need to ask questions, "discovery" is what I call it. I found that it helps us and them understand what is wrong. One can be deceived or essential truth can be stolen by the wicked one. Look for the deception but also the truth which may have been stolen. To try and correct either one of these could mean the use of truth serum or truth lasso! Remember Wonder Woman? The truth in love can always help.

So what is most needed is a revelation of God's Love in the heart of a person, that(love) will eliminate fear, deception, lack of truth and heal and set people free. The Lord wants them free more than we do! We can ask Him  for this for them! At least we can sow the seed of the Word which will not return void! Mark 4:14 "The sower sows the Word. 15 And these are they by the wayside, where the Word is sown; but when they have heard, satan comes immediately, and takes away the Word that was sown in their hearts."  Where is the Word sown?  Who is responsible to keep the Word?

Did you know if we struggle to receive God's promises the answer is not to have more faith but to seek a greater revelation of our Fathers Love for us.

The root of unbelief is a lack of love. Faith can't work in an area where we are not receiving Love because the Word says 'faith works by Love.' (Galatians 5:6)

If we seek this revelation as ministers, and receive this from God then we will be able to impart the same to others. God is into fullness. He wants us full of Himself and that means our hearts!

So many we see are victims, not only in their own minds but also in the area of parent -child relationships. How many have we seen who've suffered under abuse or rejection or being ignored or accused falsely by parents or guardians or other relatives and even non-relatives? These are people with real memories of real incidences of love failures causing them sometimes a lifetime of torment. Can you imagine what their hearts are like, the pain and torment?  I want to see them set free and I know you do as well! A healthy heart is one who knows they are loved!

There are many ways the enemy tries to block God's Love for us. Each time this happens can mean a dark and closed area forming in the heart of someone who did not want this. Here are some of the events which can set a person up for this. Unforgiveness, not believing God's Love, personal sin or generational sin, abuse, no faith in God, narcissism, robbing God in tithes and offerings, fear, rejection, occultism, depression, trauma, and many more. If you grew up in a faithless Church you might have issues! But Good News! There is nothing negative that a revelation of God's Love can't fix.

Ephesians 3:14-19

"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." 

When God’s love is perfected in us, keeping God’s Word will be the result.

1 John 2:3-5 says, “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whosoever keeps his Word, in him indeed is the love of God perfected: hereby we know that we are in him.”

Personally I've had events where the Love of my Father has taken care of me in unusual ways . I can tell you that whether it was anxiety or medical conditions, or even facing death, my Father gave me or my wife revelations of His love which absolutely made us free. We seek to have the Love of God perfected in us in all areas of our hearts because there is nowhere we want to tolerate the enemies 'stuff'. Nowhere do we want to have closed areas of our hearts preventing God and His Love from reaching us.

Let's pray to receive His Love right now into those areas where we may have closed Him off, knowingly or unknowingly. Say this out loud, "Father, I come to you now in the name of Jesus, and ask you to show me the areas of my heart that have not received your love and grace. I choose to allow your love into this area. I repent for… (repent for whatever your Father is revealing to you). I choose to receive your Love Father. I receive your Love! Thank you Father for your love.