Follow Your Heart...not!

This past weekend, our pastor talked about repentance.  He said that repentance starts in the heart.  Our sin needs to make us sad.  We need to feel remorse.  We need to agree with God that this sin is messing us up rather than attack God and His character because He says we can't have what we think we need or want or deserve. 

There is a point of view that says that we can go ahead and sin since God created us with that particular bent toward that particular sin.  That we are born a certain way and have no choice but to give in to our instincts.

We need to quit blaming something or someone else for our attitudes and behaviors.  We need to own up when we mess up.  Not minimize or justify it.  We are not entitled to go around contining in our sin, getting ticked off when it screws up our lives.  (speaking from experience here.)

I haven't yet been successful in ridding myself of sin.  and I'm certain that I am not the exception to all the generations of people who have ever existed.  I will sin.  I will make a royal mess of my life.  But I will NOT give up trying to abstain from the things that God says are bad for me. Though I will likely resist at first.  I'm going to trust God and not the way I feel about it.

Jeremiah 17:9 says "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Don’t follow your heart! You must lead it. As 1 Samuel 7:3 says "direct your heart to the Lord."

Paster Mike said it this way:  "You have no control over the future. You life hangs in the hands of God. We are here, not because we are masters of our fate, nor because we are the captain of our soul, but because Jesus Christ holds all things together.

Every time you and I sin, we must direct our heart, we must reorient our hearts to God. Instead of saying, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” we say, “Lord, You are the Master of my fate. You, Father, are the captain of my soul.”