Prepare Your Heart

     Prepare your heart to what matters most to God. In the days of Noah before the flood, God saw in Noah that he had a heart of righteousness. Genesis 6:9 "These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God." God chose Noah to make the ark and to live through the flood not because he had the most wealth, knowledge, strength or power upon the Earth. Noah was saved because he was a righteous man, who walked with him. God knows the condition of our hearts. 1 Samuel 16:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." Noah's heart contained what mattered most to God. It was filled with righteousness and obedience to God. Whatever that Noah needed to do to build the ark, he just needed to be himself and God would provide the rest through his grace.
     Noah is a good example to how our own heart condition should be as we draw near to the last days of the coming of the Lord. We want God to see us like he saw Noah. We want him to see us also to be righteous and obedient, someone who is worthy to be saved. We definitely do not want to be someone that will be rejected by the Lord. Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
     Sometimes people will honestly believe what they are doing is right however they may have been lacking a pure heart according to God. Proverbs 21:2 "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart." King David told his son Solomon that he must serve the LORD with his whole heart. 1 Chronicles 28:9 "And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and a willing mind, for the LORD searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever."
     We are what our hearts reflect. Proverbs 27:19 "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man." The apostle Luke tells us something similar that we act and speak according to the condition of our heart in Luke 6:46 "The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure of his heart produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." The apostle Paul told us what we should be doing if we have a good heart in 2 Timothy 2:23 "So flee your youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the lord from a pure heart." What is a pure heart? A heart that is clean and blameless. It has no deceit and hypocrisy. It has the desire to follow in the ways of the Lord so to be sanctified by Jesus's sacrifice.
     Prepare your heart so to be pleasing to the Lord. Let us be like Noah who is someone that God sees as righteous and blameless. He was someone that out of all the people of the world that was not corrupt or evil. His heart was blameless and full of righteousness. God could trust him for he was obedient to his words. We should foremost want to become like Jesus, God's only begotten son. He die for us to set us free from our sins and gave us eternal life in his kingdom. Our heart should be like his full of kindness, compassion and love. God just like he did in Noah's days is bringing our world full of corruption and violence to an end. He is bringing his kingdom to our world and wanting the believers of his son Jesus Christ to be apart of it. We should be preparing our heart so to be acceptable to God and so that God seeing our heart's condition will want us to be apart of his glorious kingdom.   

Sufficient Grace

     In 2 Corinthians 12:7, the apostle Paul said that a thorn was given to him in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass him from becoming conceited. In verses 8-10 he said, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
     God told the apostle Paul that, "My grace is sufficient for you." The grace from God is his undeserved favor. God's grace is his gift to us and we did nothing to earn it. Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your owned doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." Our salvation was a gift from God. God's grace gave to us what we could not give to ourselves. God allowed the apostle Paul to have a thorn in his flesh so to keep him humble and not to become puffed up with pride. However God by his grace, supplied him the sufficient power and strength that Paul needed to endure his troubles and accomplish the work that needed to be done.
     God has made his grace to be sufficient for us. 2 Corinthians 9:8 "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work." Hebrew 4:16 "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." God's grace is sufficient for every hardship that we may face. God's power is greater than any problem that we may encounter. When the apostle Paul was weak he could feel the Holy Spirit of God upon him, making him feel confident and strong.
     When I feel weak and I do not have the energy to do what I need to do. I continue on in life with my faith in God. I pray for his help and the strength to get through my day. In those times, I just surrender my life over to God so he can help me. By his grace, I did receive the energy that I needed to get through my day. I accomplish the tasks that I needed to do. I look back at the end of my day and ask myself, how did I do that? The answer was only through God's grace. God's grace was sufficient, it was more than enough to get me through my day.
     The apostle Paul recognized, what the power of God's grace could do. 1 Corinthians 15:10 "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." The apostle Paul told us that God's grace made him into the man that he is now. He worked hard as God's disciple but he said he could not have done this without God supporting him with his grace. He realized in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 that when he was weak, he could feel the power of Christ resting upon him, making him feel strong. His troubles and hardship that he had to go through was also a witness to others of God's strength, power and grace that was upon him. He said, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for he knew that God was with him, supplying him with everything that he needed through his grace. If someone were to asked him, How did you endure all these things? He would say by the grace of God.