The Lord Pondereth the Hearts Prov.21:2 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

As Christians we are pretty careful about our ways.  For the most part you wouldn’t be doing what you do the way you do it if you didn’t think it was right.  I didn’t say you wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t right.  I said you wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t think that the way you are doing it was right.

But when the Lord checks us out, he looks beyond our ways.  He goes deeper and ponders our hearts.  Because your heart is where you find the real you.  What’s in your heart explains why you do things the way that you do them.  So, the Lord ponders our hearts and there he sees:

Our thoughts – 1 Chr 28:9 – the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts.  He knows what’s inside of you.  And what’s inside of you defines who you are [Prov 23:7].  For you to know your thoughts the way God does, you must read the Bible [Heb 4:12] and let the Lord, through his words, search you heart.  The Bible discerns your thoughts.  So, here are some key things to consider.

• To correct my actions, the thoughts of my heart must first change. In other words, if I start by doing right things but I’m still thinking wrong, I’m going to end up doing wrong things at some point.  And if I keep trying to correct my actions without addressing the thoughts behind the actions, I’m going to get caught in a vicious, frustrating cycle.  You see, “the thoughts of the righteous are right,” [Prov 12:5].  The thoughts have to be right.
• To correct the thoughts of my heart, I must: 1) bring into captivity every thought. 2 Cor 10:3-6 gives us the weapons for getting our thoughts to obey Christ, thereby fulfilling our obedience and revenging our disobedience. Our weapons are the word of truth, the power of God, and the armour of righteousness [2 Cor 6:7] which is the whole armour of God [Eph 6:11-18; 1 Thes 5:8]. You cannot surrender to the enemy; you must yield to God [Rom 6:13]. You must be vigilant every day and every night of your life.  There is no letup in this war.  Our enemies are relentless.  2) think only about right things.  The thoughts of our hearts are naturally evil [Mk 7:21].  Phil 4:8 instructs us to think only about things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report.  The moment any thought enters your mind that is not in line with these six things, stop it immediately.

Conclusion: Pastor Welder divided this sermon into two parts at this point.  Part 2 will continue next Wednesday night.