May We Guard Our Hearts

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

Please let us not use social media platforms to disparage our brother or sister who we may deem to be of weaker faith.

I believe the Apostle Paul would have none of this.  “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” Romans 14:4  For if we do stand, it is He that has caused us to stand.

For Paul said of himself - “Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” 1 Timothy 1:16  This letter is one of the latest penned by his hand to his young disciple as a last will and testament.  It has been said that the older the Apostle became the more aware he became of the infinite grace and mercy that called him forth from that dusty road.  I have heard it said that he “descended into greatness.”

It is the Pharisee - of which Paul had been one - who said, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.’  Yet this very tax collector implored - ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’  The heart of the tax collector is one of humility while that of the Pharisee is one of arrogance. 

Let us guard our hearts and minds that the spirit of the Pharisee enter not within and cause a hardening. For we are called to “strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,...so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” 

May we be those who are repairers of the breach so it cannot be said of us, “I sought for a man among them to build the wall and stand in the breach in my presence on behalf of the land so that it won't be destroyed, but I found no one,” Ezekiel 22:30 

For our immutable hope is...

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 1:24-25