Prov 4:23 "Above all else guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life"

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me" Yeah right!

Peoples' comments and judgements toward us hurt very much and hinder our walk with the Lord and with others, but the Lord would say this morning from Proverbs 4:23 to "guard our heart for it is the wellspring of life."

God judges very differently than man and we see in the story of 1 Samuel 16 where the Prophet Samuel is called to anoint a new King and in verses 6&7 "Samuel saw Eliab and thought, 'Surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord'. But the Lord said to Samuel 'Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."
How quickly we judge by what we see and hear, but the Lord calls us not to do that, but to look at the heart.

Psalm 139:23-24 "Search me, O God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting"
This has been and continues to be our journey with the Lord. One way the Lord has shown me over the past few years of the state of my heart, has been through dreams. I would have a dream that would show I was frightened in a situation, show that I was hurt by something or show some sort of attitude. In these dreams and the processing of these, he would show me the truth that needed to be there instead. For instance "His perfect love casts out all fear" so I would question, why was I afraid and then speak God's truth to the situation. If His perfect love casts out all fear then I needed a deeper revelation of His love for me and the truth of what the love looked like. If I was anxious about something then I would ask myself, 'why was I anxious?' 1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you" so I would learn that I needed to give him the things I was anxious about trusting that he would look after those things as I surrendered them to him. Phil 4:6 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".

Prov 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of Kings. As the heavens are high and the earth is deep, so the hearts of kings are unsearchable".
We don't know the true state of our heart sometimes, but if we are willing to test out our hearts, then the Lord will show us. Sometimes like the verse above we need to search out what the Lord is trying to say. Dreams can be one way where the Lord is speaking to us in a way we can understand - like a parable - but then we need to search for the deeper hidden things; the gold. As I have searched out what the Lord has been saying and have been learning to speak the truth which sets me free into it, the Lord has brought greater and greater freedom into my life and especially from the mindsets and words that come from man.

Psalm 51:10-12 "Create in me a pure heart, O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me."

The Lord is wanting to take us from glory to glory and for that to happen we need to ask the prayer above - to be willing for the Lord to create in us a pure heart. Matt 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God".

Sleeping while driving?

How many of you have ever driven a car and you become so sleepy that you either need to pull over and sleep or you will crash or you continue to drive only to find yourself swerving to avoid a car that comes upon you or even worse find yourself in a crash. The other day I had a vision where I was preaching and the whole back row in the gathering of men were asleep while I was preaching. And today I had another vision of driving a car while so sleepy that it was going to cause an accident. This is what is like for many in our spiritual walk in the Lord, we are going around in our lives spiritually asleep and if we continue to do so will have a serious crash at some point not only causing damage to yourself but to other people who you may not even know. Men particularly I challenge you to take a look at your lives to see whether you are hearing from the Lord, whether you are responding truthfully to the Holy Spirit and living as He would ask you to live or whether

6 legged sheep???

In the weekend I saw a vision of a sheep that had six legs. And what I believe the Lord is saying, there are many sheep, (followers of Christ), but they are trusting in their own strength and not in mine. When we trust in our own strength and abilities we forfeit the grace that can be ours, the enabling that comes from stepping out in faith in the impossible, the testimonies that give God the glory rather than the expectation of what should be because we have put our hand to something. God is the God of the impossible and in order for the miracles, the testimonies, we need to be a people that step out in what we can't do and allow God to come in and do the impossible. That may simply be asking the Lord to help you to forgive someone that has hurt you so much, to getting on a plane with no finances because the Lord has asked you to, to continue to stay in a job/church/marriage/relationship you don't want to because that is where God has placed you, to praying for a

"A man's enemies will be the members of his own household" Matt 10:36

Recently we have been pondering how to deal with situations in our family that don't line up with the word. What action do we need to take? Are we being too harsh? Do we accept the behaviour or be considered by those around us as "too radical" or "too black and white"? "Where is grace in all of this? How do we love the sinner but hate the sin? What about forgiveness? What is the role of discipline? What makes that sin any worse than lying? What is true love? And there are a lot more questions going through the mind in how to work through this and know God's will and desire for the situation and the person. And firstly to say we have not come to any conclusions and are growing and learning day by day in this but I want to throw it out there. In Matt 10:34-39 says "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "a man against his father, a daughter

Prophetic pictures: Burnt Flesh, Big Fish, Expansion, Signs and Wonders

A couple of weeks ago I have had several visions which I believe is a prophetic picture of what God is currently doing and what He is about to do. Fi rstly, I saw ahead on the highway a huge explosion with black smoke billowing up and as I came to it I saw people had been burnt and I could smell the smell of burnt flesh. Our God is consuming fire (Heb 12:29). His love is in the fire. Something the Lord has been talking to us about is the fall of the acts of the flesh, the strength of man. This vision I saw was a representation that of the fire of Gods love is coming and going to burn away the things of the flesh, the things that were not of the Lo rd, the things that may have been good in their time but today is a new day. Perhaps the familiar things we are so used to that we don't even know it's there. The way we might speak, the way we might act, the way we might respond that are familiar with us but aren't necessarily of the Kingdom nature we have in Christ.

Do you feel small and insignificant today? Well be encouraged!

Reading Psalm 68 and verses 24-27 struck me ……Verse 27 “There is the little tribe of Benjamin, leading them…. What struck me this morning in the great assembly of Israel, in the great congregation, the Little tribe of Benjamin led them. It hit me how it was a little tribe that led the great congregation. Straight away I got other pictures that came to mind, that of a small tug boat that leads a huge ship safely into harbour, and of the story of the Lion and Mouse where the lion was caught in ropes but the mouse ate the lions ropes around him, setting him free. “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the wise” You may feel you are little, you may feel you are small and what effect could you have, but like that of Gideon with only a small number of warriors, came up again defeated thousands in the Lord. Like David in the eyes of Goliath and yet David overcame Goliath. Like yeast in a loaf of bread and how it infiltrates everything, so too can the little thi

Obedience and Commitment are big things in Gods Kingdom

Reading in Acts 7 this morning the story through Stephen of Abraham being told by God to " Leave your country and your people and go the the land I will show you" So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child." As I reflected on this and the journey of Abraham stepping out in faith into a land that he received no inheritance in but a promise of what was to come for his descendants of which we live in the fruit of that, I thought of todays generations in which often is only doing things that we want to do or that will benefit us personally as we live for 'today' not worrying about tomorrow. A sense of if it feels good then do it, if it doesn't then we will move on - perhap

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