unclutter your heart
- Ariel Evans
- Oct 30, 2023
- 6 min read
Welcome back to another edition of #churchnotes from Pastor Ray Brown's sermon titled, "Unclutter Your Heart." If you missed last Sunday's #churchnotes check out "Unclutter Your Mind" here.
🌻Proverbs 4:23 NIV
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
- Clear the clutter
- It's a rare thing to find anybody anywhere who doesn't have heart clutter.
- Is your heart cluttered?
- Is your heart cluttered with the white noise of others opinions? with the stories you tell yourself to cope with the lies you believe in or agree to, with unregulated emotions or pain that has becomes so paralyzing that you can't even proceed?
- Is your heart cluttered?
💜Heart Clutter: the internal disorder that takes its toll on a soul that was created for wide open spaces
- If heart clutter is not addressed, it can take on the form of fear, depression, anxiety, addiction, constant stress and physical ailments.
- If you are emotionally honest with yourself, you've got to admit that you have some behavioral problems, coping mechanisms and addictions that are cluttering your life. They confound you and confusing you into not changing your life.
How to Unclutter your Heart?
Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts. Proverbs 4:23 MSG
- Unclutter your life by uncluttering your heart
- If you want to unclutter your life, you have to start with your heart
The Difference between our mind and our hearts
🧠 the mind has to do with our thoughts
🧠 the mind centers our capacity to think logically and rationally
💛 the heart has to do with our feelings
💛 the heart is associated with our capacity to detect, discern, and deploy emotion
- When scripture uses the word 💛heart, it has multiple meanings in both Hebrew and Greek.
- In over a thousand times in scripture, it points to a person's capacity for physical, emotional, moral and intellectual activities.
That is probably what is intended in the meaning of
Proverbs 23:7 - For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
1 Samuel 16:7 - People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Jeremiah 17:10 - the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.
Psalm 51:10 - Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me.
Matthew 12:34 - for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Romans 10:9 - that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
💛 Your heart is the real you!
- "God knows my heart" yes, yes he does!
- He knows its joys and sorrows, rage, peace, troubles, rejoicing, loves and hatred, doubts and fears, faith and confidence
... if you want to unclutter your life you have to start with your heart
- Out of your heart, the rest of your life flows
- The heart wishes, desires, remembers, reflects, and meditates
- The eyes were meant to see and the ears were meant to hear and the heart was meant to understand, discern and give insight
- The heart plans, makes commitments and decides
- It is the inner forum where decisions are made after deliberation
💛 The heart is where we engage in self-talk
Proverbs16:9 - In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.
- The heart can be hardened like Pharaoh's or enlightened by faith
Proverbs 2:2 - turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding
How to guard your heart
- Filter your emotions, desires, thoughts and responses through the word of God
- God is the keeper and the primary tool he uses to keep our hearts is his word
- If you want him to keep your heart you have to read his word
Your heart is extremely valuable
- That is why you cannot give it to everybody
👉🏾 We don’t guard what is worthless
💛 Your heart is the essence of who you are
💛 Your heart is your authentic self, your true self and the core of your being.
- Your heart connects you with God and with other people
- Make guarding your heart your top priority
- Your heart overflows into thoughts, words and actions
💛 Your heart and mind are under constant attack
- There’s a war going on
- The enemy of our soul attacks our heart
- If your heart is unhealthy, it impacts everything else - family, friends, career, ministry, legacy, etc. that is why it is imperative to guard it!
How to unclutter your heart continued...
1. Practice the discipline of reflection 🪞
- Think deeply, carefully and be deliberate in meditation
- Intentionally pull away
- Be still in the presence of God and let God talk back to you
- Give yourself at least 15 minutes of quiet time when you wake up in the morning
2. Practice the discipline of rest 😴
- God built rest into the fabric of our physiology
- Our bodies were designed to shut down for at least a third of the daily cycle
- Rest is a God given off switch
- God made places for us to pause, rest and start over
- We have to make the deliberate choice to rest and take a nap
🔑 Rest is the key to re-creation
- Amusement can exhausts us, but re-creation refreshes us and grounds us
- Re-creation is any activity that gives us the opportunity to express our creativity, anything that pulls us away from our daily routine
- Anything that enables you to detach from work and shift your focus to the present and reconnect you with your heart
3. Practice the discipline of release
- Invest in those you love and forgive those who hurt you
- Forgiveness is a decision and then a discipline
- First ask God to forgive you, then forgive others
- Stop trying to hold over your head what God has already taken off
- If God has forgiven you, then YOU need to forgive you
1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Proverbs 28:13 - Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
Release yourself from the pain of your past
- Every time the devil tries to remind you of your past, remind him of his future * cue KB song
- Confess when you’ve done wrong
- Nobody came I here today with a clean slate
-Confess when you've done wrong knowing that God is able to wipe our conscience clean
- People won’t forgive you, but God will
Psalm 103:12 - as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Isaiah 1:18 - Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow
- Don't ask God to forgive you, if you're not going to forgive others
🚨 Nothing clutters your heart more than failing to forgive
- Do you have past grudges that you’re holding onto?
One of the most unfortunate, yet unavoidable universal patterns of life...
- We will hurt and we will be hurt by other people
- Hurt people, hurt people
- That is why forgiveness is vital
🩸If you don’t heal from those who hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who NEVER cut you!
🩸If you never heal from what hurt you, you will bleed on people who did not cut you!
- Failure to forgive doesn’t hurt the person, it hurts YOU
- The longer you wait to forgive, the more your provide the enemy with opportunity to degrade our hurt into offense to resentment, and resentment into bitterness, and then bitterness turns into revenge
- If you want forgiveness, then offer forgiveness
❌Unforgiveness is like drinking poison expecting someone else to die❌
4. Practice the discipline of rejoicing
- No matter what you’ve been through, you’re still HERE!!!
- I’m not a victim, I’m a VICTOR!
- You have a history of victory!
- Rejoice because God is with you!
Reasons to rejoice
Philippians 1:6 - being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
1 John 4:4 - You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
Romans 8:31- What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Isaiah 54:17 - no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
Isaiah 40:31 - but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Godspeed,
SimplyAriRenee
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