As I shared in my last blog, “Everybody has a problem, lives with a problem, or is a problem” and that’s the problem!

While we received a healthy, new heart when we were born again, the problem is that we live in a fallen world with other broken people.

Since hurt people hurt people, we must constantly be paying attention to the health of our hearts.

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

This verse does not mean to become guarded in your relationships with others. Many times when we get wounded or hurt we start building a giant wall around our heart to prevent anyone from ever hurting us again.

You think you are protecting yourself, but in reality you are building your own tomb.

What this verse is saying is that it is our personal responsibility to care for our heart in a godly way so that it stays clean from all bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness and judgment. If our heart gets defiled, it impacts every relationship we have.

Our goal is not to get lost in a never-ending cycle of introspection and inactivity. We are not after narcissism, but rather transformation at the deepest levels.

Until we become aware of our own feelings and actions, along with their impact on others, we will never be able to enter into someone else’s world. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? To be healed by Jesus so that we can be an instrument of healing in the lives of others.

Is America following the communist playbook? You decide for yourself!

My good friend, Pierre Bynum, the National Prayer Director with the Family Research Council, recently shared this in one of his latest newsletters. It is amazing how many of our current political leaders are actually taking their cues from the Communist playbook, whether they know it or not! It’s quite revealing and alarming how far we’ve gotten away from our Christian, Conservative and Constitutional roots!

In 1958, The Naked Communist outlined “45 Current Communist Goals.” Here are a few:

• Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind…

• Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

• Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

• Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism… Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

• Infiltrate the press… Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures.

• Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression… “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive meaningless art.”

• Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

• Present homosexuality… and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”

• Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and …the need for… a “religious crutch.”

• Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

• Discredit the…Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations….

• Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats…

• Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture – education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

• Infiltrate and gain control of more unions and…big business.

• Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

• Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

• Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.

• Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

When we are born again, God gives us a new heart. He takes that old, stubborn, hardened, rebellious heart and He gives us a new heart that is soft, submitted and sensitive to Him and to His will.

We read about this heart transplant in Ezekiel 36:26-27, NKJV:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

The problem is that we still live in the same family, we still work in the same place and we still live in a sick, fallen world where our hearts are the targets of all kinds of hurtful words and actions.

Someone once wisely observed, “Everybody either has a problem, lives with a problem, or is a problem!”

And that’s the problem!

This is why we must learn how to keep our hearts whole. Consider Solomon’s advice:

Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.
Proverbs 4:23, NKJV

In his book The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender explains why we must not ignore the language of our emotions:

“Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And reality is where we meet God…Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice.”

Did you hear that?

Emotions are the soul’s language. It’s our heart’s attempt to speak to us about the true condition of our soul.

Healing begins when we are willing to face the truth about ourselves and our areas of hurt, disappointment and brokenness.

Will you join me in listening?