Heart – Page 2

Looking at Unseen Eternal Truth with Your Heart

June 24, 2016 by Clint Byars

God is shining the light from the face of Jesus into your heart. Connecting with that glory inwardly is the secret to outward transformation. Seeing his righteousness in the deepest part of your being will facilitate an environment of peace and his peace will guard those deep places of your heart. In that environment, righteousness and joy will effortlessly grow and take over every part of your being.

You have to think from the inner man, in the presence of God, aware of Christ in you, beholding what’s true of him in spite of what the world and your actions say is true of you. In that place his peace will guard your heart, the place your beliefs dwell. In that place, under his influence, honest before him, seeing his reality as your own, you WILL transform.

Set your mind and heart on God, change the way you think, get into agreement with what Jesus has already done in you and your emotional/thought life will change which means your actions will change

Transformation is effortless but you must choose to draw on the only source that can produce transformation…Christ in you.

Message Titles

1. Conquering Temptation
2. God is Active in Our Lives
3. Grace Works from the Heart
4. Grace Reigns through Righteousness
5. Confession unto salvation
6. The Law of Death vs The Spirit of Life

Have you ever asked “HOW DO I GET GRACE TO WORK?” Every aspect of salvation works by grace through faith. Every blessing and promise you’ll ever experience from God is spiritual in nature and exists in a dimension called Heaven. The essence of the Kingdom of Heaven dwells within each believer. Intellect or dead works only serve to hinder manifestation, what’s needed is the power of grace working from the heart.

Grace is not magic, it’s just spiritual. In this series I teach you how to access that spiritual reservoir of Heaven within and walk in the power of God’s grace from the heart.

FREE MESSAGE FROM THIS SERIES

The post Looking at Unseen Eternal Truth with Your Heart appeared first on Forward Ministries.

Living from the Heart – Part 1

June 9, 2016 by Clint Byars

Believers have become new creatures with a new kind of life source flowing in us. Leviticus 17:11 tells us that the life of the creature is in the blood. We have been reformed into righteous, spiritually eternal beings through faith in the atoning blood of Christ.

In this process, the dead man/heart is cut out of us and the new man/heart is placed within us. Physically we’re the same person but we are exactly like Jesus in our spirit. The problem is that our minds are caught in the middle of our new hearts and our former way of thinking.

Our journey now, is to renew our minds to be in agreement with what God has done and is doing in our spirits. All of this comes together in our hearts. The heart is the deepest part of our being; it’s part spirit and part soul, it’s where our beliefs dwell and it’s where we make decisions on what we believe about God and ourselves.

Proverbs 4:23 from various Bible versions

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. NIV

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. NLT

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. ESV

Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life. NASB

Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. HCSB

Keep your heart with all caution because from it is the outgoing of life. Aramaic Bible

Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it. God’s Word

Above every charge keep thy heart, For out of it are the outgoings of life. YLT

God influences us through our hearts, which is the very definition of grace. It’s our responsibility to keep our hearts in confidence toward him so we will allow his influence to transform us. If you don’t, you do not lose your salvation, it doesn’t make you any less righteous and it doesn’t make you any less qualified for God’s blessings…it only limits your experience of God’s promises and kingdom in this life.

The first video in this series lays the foundation of your new heart, stay in touch for next week’s video where I go through Mark 4 and shed light on Jesus’ explanation of why we don’t always experience God’s kingdom in this life and how to stop limiting him.

Listen to the first message in my newest series, “The Secret to Experiencing God’s Kingdom In This Life.”

The post Living from the Heart – Part 1 appeared first on Forward Ministries.

We Are Fed the Glorious Riches of God as Our Hearts Become Rooted in His Love

May 9, 2016 by Clint Byars

Do you understand the doctrine of Grace but have difficulty living under the power of grace at times? You’re not alone.

There is no secret and no mystery you need to learn to be nourished and sustained by God, you just have to have faith in your heart toward Christ in every situation. Faith just means trust or confidence. We can have confidence in Jesus, therefore we can experience the power of grace.

I want to give you an illustration regarding how we can experience the influence of his power in our hearts. As with all word pictures, this is not a perfect example but I believe it will help you understand the direct connection you have with God as a believer.

The Mother’s Womb

The first 9 or 10 months of our lives we’re in our mothers womb. In the womb we are fed and nourished because we are organically, directly connected to our mother. The environment is a perfect balance of nutrients and safety in the amniotic fluid. When we become born again we are hidden in God with Christ. It’s like Christ is our twin in God. As he is, so are we in this world ~ 1 John 4:17. God has chosen us in Christ to receive the same quality of life that Jesus inherited.

When we become born of God we have a direct spiritual connection that sustains us just like we used to have a direct organic connection with out mother. In God, the environment we’re in is the promise of the New Covenant in the blood of Jesus but the active nutrients of that place are his promises. In the womb we receive oxygen, vitamins, minerals through the umbilical cord. In God, we receive righteousness, peace, joy, wisdom, provision and strength through our hearts by his spirit.

Just like a baby in the womb doesn’t have to convince the mother to feed it, we don’t have to try to motivate God to bless and provide for us. It’s a natural aspect of being born of and being made one with his spirit. The way we experience all of those benefits is by grace through faith.

Allowing Christ to Dwell In Your Heart by Faith

Everything God has for us is ours already in Jesus, we just have to let Christ dwell in our hearts to engage the process of being nourished and sustained by God.

God wants us to have and experience his steady stream of life and health but we must keep our hearts aware of him. He doesn’t withhold from us when we’re not in faith or trust toward him, we’re just turning our hearts to a different source of sustenance, which is the world.

But the world doesn’t give life, it actually sucks the life out of us. When we’re not in faith toward God in our hearts, we’re like a tree that pulls up its own roots from fertile ground and plants them in a desert. The world is like a desert to our hearts, it only has death. But if we all the roots of our hearts (our beliefs and expectations) to grow deep into God’s love for us, we can become whole emotionally, mentally and physically. Our physical and soulish being will begin to enjoy the same state of life as our spirit that is safe in God.

Believers are not on a journey to complete our holiness by staying out of sin or enduring suffering, we on a journey of transformation through renewing our minds so we live yielded to God and allow his life to bear fruit within us.

I believe this passage beautifully states these concepts. This passage is an excellent description of the function of grace. Take some time to meditate on the powerful truth that we are strengthened, nourished and provided for by God because he loves us. As we allow him to strengthen us, we become emotionally, physically and mentally whole; whole to the point that this world can no longer affect us with fear, worry and doubt. I pray you find a new way to live in God as you discover the powerful truth of his indwelling spirit that is seeking to bless, nourish and sustain you.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ~ Ephesians 3:16-19

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Has Your Heart Ever Been Broken?

December 24, 2015 by Clint Byars

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised

Jesus is speaking under God’s authority and he declares God’s will to the brokenhearted, the captive and those who have lost their way. The will of God for those who identify is freedom. The will of God for those who are bruised or stuck in life due to trauma or emotional pain is emancipation. Jesus’ declaration is deliverance from the dulness and depression of life.

Salvation is best understood in sacrifice. Sacrifice is best understood as exchange. Jesus carried your sorrows, he absorbed your grief. Jesus became your failure and underwent the necessary penalty for your deliverance. You are qualified for joy and happiness because Jesus has traded places with you.

Yes, you’ve experienced failure and pain but Jesus has secured your salvation. Behold him in his glorious state and personalize his victory. He became your pain, now become his joy.

This is a season where our past is inescapable for some. Christmas is truly a wonderful time of year but it comes with baggage. I find myself still having to make the choice to let go of the past in certain Christmas situations. Of course, it’s all about Jesus but there’s still stuff to deal with. I encourage you in this season to remember why he was born, to rescue from death and the power of sin, to set you free from your failures and heal those wounds that seem to never heal. He is with you, he is for you, he knows what it’s like to be you and he is pouring his grace into you heart as you read this.

I pray you find peace in his finished work and open your heart to let healing flow.

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Suffering with Christ with Thanksgiving

December 2, 2015 by Clint Byars

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Romans 8:17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This is such an amazing promise! But, I have seen this passage create confusion for people. You may have heard this passage taught from the perspective that we have to suffer the things that Jesus suffered in this life to be worthy to share in his glory.

The phrase “share in his sufferings” is the greek word, sympaschō. It’s only used twice in entire Bible. The other place is in 1 Corinthians 12:26 where it refers to the idea that if one member of the body of Christ suffers then we all suffer. In other words, if one person go throughs something, we all share in what they’re going through.

For this application of the word “sufferings,” you have to understand the meaning to be “you feel what the other person is feeling.” You sympathize/empathize with them because you identify with them. We do this all the time when we’re watching a movie. We feel what the characters are feeling, we put ourself in their place and wonder what we would do.

This is what we are to do with Jesus. You are to identify with his sufferings because he did it for you. Your deliverance and salvation was gained by what he did for you so you get to share in the glory that he obtained through the suffering of death, burial and resurrection.

The Old Covenant sacrificial system included a type of sharing in the sufferings of a sacrifice. When you brought your animal to the priest for the sacrificial atonement for your sin, you were supposed to look at that sacrifice as its blood was spilled and say, “that should have been me.” You were expected to get your heart involved and identity with what this sacrifice was going through for you. You were to personalize or identify with the suffering of that sacrifice for your benefit.

God doesn’t need you to experience difficulty to experience his glory, Jesus suffered for you so you could be a partaker of his divine nature and be qualified for all his promises. We don’t gain an aspect of spiritual salvation by suffering something in our flesh. If we did then we’d have something to boast about. But we are to boast in Jesus’ finished work. We participate in and benefit from his glory on this side of the cross.

Yes, you may experience suffering but it’s never from God. The only references to suffering under the New Covenant come as a result of you standing up for your faith and being persecuted for doing so. That kind of suffering doesn’t make you holy or qualify you to share in his glory, it just means you’re willing to lay your life down because you in Christ.

Jesus suffered the death you deserved so he could give you the life that he deserves. Take some time to meditate on what he experienced on the cross, in his death and in his resurrection. See yourself in his suffering because it should have been you. See yourself in his victory because it is you. See yourself and feel what it means to be a child of the most high, loving father who lavishes good gifts on the ones he loves. Your Father God knows you can gain not one ounce of favor by anything you do in your flesh so he makes it all available in Jesus. Awaken to righteousness and allow your Father to glory himself in you by establishing his promises through you. You, as a believer, are truly qualified for everything that Jesus inherited from his Father because you trust in him!

FREE FULL LENGTH MESSAGE

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Are You Obeying God?

November 11, 2015 by Clint Byars

Do you want to obey God?
Do you think you’re doing a good job of obeying him?

If you think you’re not doing a good job of obeying God, how do you define obedience?

I would guess that all Christ followers want to obey God but often times we feel like we fall short. This is true for various reasons but one overwhelming reason we feel we’re not obeying God is due to a wrong understanding of obedience.

Look at the Hebrew and Greek definitions of obey:

shama – Hebrew – to hear, to listen, to obey
hypakouō – Greek – to listen, to harken, to submit to
peithō – Greek – to be persuaded, to trust, to have confidence, believe, to listen, to suffer one’s self to be persuaded

The focus is listening and being persuaded. To obey God is to be persuaded of and confidently act on what he has said.

Yes, obedience does have an element of submission but it starts in the heart, where we truly believe. If you have put your trust in Christ as your righteousness then you have obeyed God at the deepest level of obedience. From there, we are to remain confident in his finished work to the point that we are continually submitted to the transformative power of his spirit, which is the very essence of GRACE.

If you want to be obedient to your Heavenly Father, first and foremost do whatever it takes to be fully confident of what Jesus has done for you. In every situation you face in life, persuade yourself of the victory that Jesus has already won and shares with you.

Peithō also happens to be the root word of faith (pistis). Faith is not a commodity that you need to figure out how to get more of to be more spiritual. Faith is something that grows as you are persuaded of what God has done through Jesus and promised in his Word. Jesus says that all things are possible to the one who believes. The more confident you are in him, the more you believe and the more anything becomes possible for you.

Are you actively persuading yourself of your victory in Jesus?
Are you intentionally placing confidence in God’s promises?
What does it take for your heart to be grounded in his truth?

Take 3 minutes and watch this encouraging video. Share it with you friends when you’re done. Below is a free full length teaching on this topic for those who like more detail.

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