TOPIC: AFFECTIONS OF LIFE
Bible Reading : Numbers 11-13; Mark 5:21-43
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”- Proverbs 4:23 (KJV)
One truth that will make for either a life of success or failure is realizing how God designed for you to live. Life was designed to be lived from the inside out and not the other way round. When we look at a beautiful wristwatch or clock, we are often drawn to the glamour of its face, the way the hands tell the time and the material from which it is made but you must understand that if anything goes wrong with the engine – the gears, the watch won’t be able to do what it was designed to do. The success of the watch is dependent on the unseen gears inside.
It is the same with cars whose engines aren’t always in the open and the beautiful dresses that we wear whose weavings and threads aren’t visible to see. God’s design of life is always from the inside out. It is the backend of a computer application that determines the beauty and functionality of its frontend.
Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (KJV) admonished the saints saying, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Notice the order, it is ‘spirit, soul and body’ and not ‘body, soul and spirit’ like some seem to put it.
The interesting thing is that the real work is always on the inside and the inside doesn’t always look ‘beautiful’ because it is primitive. You don’t work on the externalities of the material world by simply changing jobs, relocating to another city or changing your clothes in order to live the beautiful and successful life that God has given you in Christ Jesus. True change begins from the inside, and this is why you must be deliberate about what you are building on the inside. Proverbs 18:14 (KJV) says, “The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?” The spirit here isn’t referring to the Holy Spirit but the soul which is the will, mind and emotions – of a person. Apostle Peter refers to it in 1 Peter 3:4 as, “… hidden man of the heart…”
Regardless of whatever generation, the forces that determine the outcome of life are in the mind and today’s text says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence …” Because your world is a reflection of the forces within your heart.
Rather than guarding your job, money, reputations and material things, you are told to guard or protect the issues/forces of life on your inside because regardless of colour, race or level of education, everyone is eventually a product of what happens on the inside of man.
DECLARE: I am born of the Word of God by His Spirit, and I have the mind of Christ.
Pastor Alfred Samuel