How to Develop The Heart

Carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of true life.

Proverbs 4:23 CEV

Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.

Proverbs 4:23 GNT

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

What I am about to share with you now, changed my life astronomically and is still unfolding in it’s vastness. A little history to set the stage. I know a man who has a very close relationship with God. He spends countless hours in seclusion praying and worshiping him. One day he said to me very quietly, “I can hear people’s thoughts.” He said it just started one day. He shared with me how painful it was because his friends would be standing in front of him saying one thing with their words, but he could hear their true thoughts about him and it really hurt.

I am not here to argue with you whether God allows this or not. I know Jesus knew people’s thoughts, and He lives inside of us. God can allow anything He wants to, just as He did for Jesus.

Whether it’s true or not in his case is irrelevant, because the thought of it being true did something to me. I went home and in my own quiet time with God, began to judge my own heart. I began to think to myself: ”What would life be like if everyone could hear my thoughts?” I made a decision that day, that I would live my life as if everyone could.

I began to really pay attention to all of my thoughts. When I was alone. When I was with people.

I noticed that I really thought very differently “behind closed doors” than what I actually portrayed to the world. It’s safe there, right? We feel safe to say exactly what we really think when we think no one can hear us think it. But--would you think it if they could hear you?

The same is true with our imagination. Guys, ever undressed a woman with your mind's eye while standing right in front of her? Ever go further than that with your thoughts and imagination? Would you be so forward if she could hear your thoughts, and see what you are seeing inside where you think it’s safe?

God sees it all!

Let me say that again, God sees it all!

God actually does see our imaginations and knows every thought.

As I began to watch my own thoughts, I realized what a hypocrite I really was. My favorite quote is: “Our character is determined by what we do when no one is looking.”

What do we do when no one is looking? Are we the same person when we think no one is watching as we are in the public eye? I was not, and this had to change!

This now became my new everyday task, to watch both my thoughts and my actions when I thought I was “behind closed doors.” I learned a lot about myself. How judgmental I was. How proud I was as I thought of myself so much more highly than those around me. We all do it if we are honest with ourselves. I learned how two-faced I was. Just like my friend said, “They say nice words to my face, but I can hear the truth in their thoughts and it hurts.”

I was ashamed of what I discovered about myself. I cried a lot. Asked forgiveness a lot. Repented a lot. I asked God to help me. How could I transform my thoughts to honor him? I desired a clean conscience before Him and wanted to be pure in my heart towards both God and man. Purifying my thoughts, taking every thought captive to love, was THE greatest advancement in my personal transformation.

God began a great work in me and gave me some wonderful tools. I’ll share them with you now.

First tool.

He took me to 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

Love is Patient, Love is Kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

He had me break it down and focus on just one section at a time.

Love Is Patient

He wasn’t content with me learning to be patient with others, but with myself as well. I was to evaluate my thoughts to see if I was being patient with others and myself.

Adding to that, He told me one time, “I will judge your love for me, by your love for your husband and those in your household, before I will judge you for your love for strangers.” Ever notice how much nicer you are to a stranger who bumps into you or gets in your way than how you treat your spouse or children? I noticed that my tone of voice and patience was not up to a good standard when it came to my own family and that I would need a lot of work there. He wanted me to grow in becoming a servant, treating my husband and children as if they were Jesus Himself.

If I wouldn’t speak to Jesus with certain tones of voice, then I shouldn’t them. If they needed me to do something for them, I was to do it willingly with love, not grumbling or begrudgingly.

Why do we get angry in the first place? Anger is almost always rooted in selfishness.

Anger became a marker for me. If I was getting angry, I was NOT in patience. I had to become an observer, like a third person watching the scene. Instead of being reactionary, reacting out of carnal instinct to everything happening around me, I would instead become an observer. As an observer, I could evaluate the situation tuned into God’s Spirit. He would help me to see how I was behaving in light of His word. Did I respond to people as one who is of heaven. If you wouldn’t find the behavior in heaven, then it should not be in you on earth. We are to give all those around us a glimpse of the kingdom through our lives. We are a living epistle.

Anger and impatience shows the selfish heart. We want things our way. I would learn that in the majority of the cases, especially in the beginning, that it was me that needed to learn to let go and let the other person have what they wanted, or let them win an argument. It is amazing to me just how much the self nature will fight to be the winner, or fight to have it’s way and desire that everyone else serve them in various ways to make their life better. We tend to want what we want over the needs or desires of someone else. We will rationalize it all and find every reason why that person is undeserving of things and we are deserving.

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Love Is Kind

Are my thoughts kind? Would others, if they heard my thoughts say that my thoughts were kind? Kind towards God? Kind towards my family? Friends? Strangers? And kind towards myself?

Come on ladies and gents, take a good look. Are you kind to yourself? This matters to God and it will change you in incredible ways when you can love yourself enough to be kind in your thoughts towards yourself.

In each of these areas of love, I would camp out there and evaluate my thoughts to see if I were measuring up. Every thought needed to be taken captive to the obedience of Christ. To the obedience of love.

This continued with checking my thoughts for envy, boasting, being proud. Did my thoughts dishonor others? Were my thoughts self seeking? It was at this point that God began to work on the servant's heart in me. Servants are not self seeking. They seek to serve and be a blessing to the lives of others, forsaking themselves. We already touched on this in Boundary 9, so I won’t elaborate again here.

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Love Is Not Easily Angered

There’s that marker again. Love keeps no record of wrongs. I repeat: Love keeps no record of wrongs. This is another one that I spent time in my prayer room with God asking him to show me if I was keeping records. With much love, He would bring up people I had held unforgiveness toward and would elaborate on why I felt pain about it. It amazed me that the reasons I held record and unforgiveness was because I had not yet fully grown to live a sacrificial life for others. Until you are able to live sacrificially, willing to suffer loss, you will be offended when someone takes something from you--whether they take an object or hurt your reputation (Boundary 4) or hurt your emotions (Boundary 9) or cause you to suffer loss in multitudes of other ways. Unforgiveness shows you are still in self. Be willing to suffer the loss. Be willing to let them go. God will judge them righteously at the appointed time. Our job is to live free from holding a record of wrongs.

It was yet another point that brought me closer to God in knowing His great love for me when I grasped that He too was holding no record of my wrongs. That was not what I felt my whole life in church. I had to camp out there and drink that in. God was not keeping a record. I actually remember one time when I was bringing up a past sin again to Him for the umpteenth time. He spoke to my heart and said, “Forget about it, I already did.” My mind was blown. I was finally able to let it all go after that. Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Rejoicing with the truth

God brought another scripture to me here. It is Philippians 4:8 Finally, Brother and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable---if anything is excellent or praiseworthy---think about such things. NIV

Right then He gave me a new list. Just as before, I began again. Now it had changed from things I needed to fix in my thoughts, to things I could think about and put into practice on another level.

Here is how it worked. Take that list and look at someone you know. Instead of seeing their faults, now you will look at them and see, whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy, think about those things. At first, you may have to dig if you are having a difficult relationship with them. But this is how you begin to see gold in everyone. We are told to edify, encourage and exhort people. This is how it is done.

Take the list and look at God. You will see if your relationship with Him is skewed. You must always look at Him to see what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Think on these things.

Finally, take this list and look at yourself. Find the gold. Love yourself. See what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. Think on these things. Love yourself in your thoughts.

The last tool He gave me was, the fruit of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

To continue this work on my heart, He led me to evaluate my heart, my feelings, thoughts, emotions, and outward works on this fruit.

Forbearance (patience). There it is again. Must be important.

Was I patient? Was I patient with God? Patient with myself? Patient with others?

Kindness: Was I kind in my thoughts and actions towards God? Kind to myself? And kind to others?

Goodness: Was I good? My conscience would tell me. Was I good towards God? Good towards myself? And good to others?

Faithfulness: Was I faithful to God? Was I faithful to myself? Was I faithful to others? If not, then work on becoming faithful. You have to put these into practice. Practice makes perfect.

Gentleness: Was I gentle? Tender? Gentle and lowly in how I came before God? Was I gentle in how I thought and acted towards myself and to others? If not, work on that.

Self-control: I am still working on this one--just being honest. Self control touches everything. Do I have control over my actions? Over temptations? Over my mouth and what comes out of it?

Out of the overflow of the heart does one speak. If you pay attention to your thoughts, they will reveal what is really in your heart. They are the window in, who you are at your core. The evidence of what is in your heart will come out through your words and your actions, which is your fruit. God looks at the heart of a man. He said, “You will know them by their fruit.” Matthew 7:16

Fruit is what you see of a person’s life over time, what is consistently true and evident about them. You can get a look at what other people see when you hear what they say about you. Do people tell others, Oh he is so patient! She is so kind! She has such great self-control. He is so faithful and gentle-hearted.

What is your fruit?

If you will take the time to develop your heart in this way, you will literally experience life, God and people differently.

Love, joy and peace will be your consistent life experience.

Continuing with The Heart

I would discover something fantastic after doing this work of cleaning my heart and purifying my thoughts. The logs had been taken out of my own eye, I could now see clearly how to help with what was in your eye (heart).

What was fascinating to me was, because I had taken the time to focus on my own logs and did the hard work needed to remove them, I was filled with compassion for those who had a speck or log in their eye.

Before all of this work to change my thoughts and my actions, I judged. I judged myself harshly and therefore, I judged you harshly.

All these boundaries touch. It was as I put them all into practice in relationship with God, that I learned He was not judging me, and didn’t want me to judge myself so harshly. Because I felt God’s extraordinary love in patience and kindness toward me as I grew in self discovery, my heart was softened by His goodness toward me. I felt safe. God doesn’t desire to judge us or punish us. He desires to set us free! He desires to work with us toward our full sanctification. And I discovered He was extremely patient and kind as I looked to Him to sort it all out. This caused me to grow in patients, kindness and goodness towards myself in my imperfections and weaknesses, and this then followed through to others. I no longer saw others weaknesses or imperfections as things to judge harshly, but saw them as areas that needed a touch from Jesus. Whatever Jesus touches gets healed.

I also learned that not everything was my business to touch. No one had to tell me about my logs. God did. In His timing, as He grew me, He would show me. Sometimes, He wants us to help others see their logs/specks, but only by His leading and only from a heart that truly loves the individual and wants to bring about healing. God demonstrated this to me by bringing me very special friends who walked very closely to God and had His heart. They would at times help me to see what I could not see in myself. But it was always done with so much love and compassion that it never felt like they were finding fault. We were simply sharpening one another according to God's word.

Even as I write this I feel the soft gentleness of God’s love for us. In closing this chapter, understand that this work was done over months and even years of time. I spent time on each area and put it into action in my life before moving on to the next one. It is too overwhelming to do it all at once. Work on one at a time until you feel you are ready to take on the next. In this way, you are living it out by experience and it will not be lost on you as only words, but as a living truth.

May I pray for you?

Father, it is my prayer that each one reading these pages discovers how incredible Your word is. That if we follow the precepts you have laid out, we can walk in extraordinary freedom, authority and power in Christ Jesus. I pray You help them just as You helped me, to sit down with each of these lists and one by one, evaluate our own heart in the presence of Your Holy Spirit to be led by Him. In Jesus’ name, Amen

#keepingthefaith #dealingwithtragedy #faith