good and bad heart


1 Thessalonians 3:13  NLT
May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen.

The heart is a vital part of our bodies.  In fact it is almost the most important part for the health and working of everything.  It pumps blood and life through the body, but it has to pump at just the right speed or beats per minute. 

Yet God uses the heart to speak about our spiritual life as well.  When our heart is good, it is obvious.  When our heart is bad, it is always pretty obvious.

Take a look, a short look, at the different.  First, the good heart.

2 Thessalonians 3:5  NLT
May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.

I am taking this from a God perspective.  Others will lead you in another direction or to see things from a different point of view.

The foundation I am building on first came from God, is held by God and is formed to honor God.  That heart will be filled by God.  He gives understanding and love.  Love ought to be what fills us and flows through us.

So, a good heart is one that Christ flows through in the same kind of characteristics that we know about our good and gracious God.  Love flows through the heart touched by, warmed by and turned toward God.

What does a bad heart look like or what characterizes it?

Ephesians 4:18  NLT
Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.

The bad heart, when we speak physically, is one the needs surgery or medicine or simply much help.  Turning toward the spiritual side the bad heart is one that is dark or darkened by the pain of life and the absence of God.

Illustrate it this way: have you ever looks at the different of a lung that has been clear of smoke or negative toxins?  Have you seen a lung that has ingested all kinds of toxins like smoke or dangerous gasses?  The difference is dramatic.  On the outside the bad heart is dark or black.  The good heart will be clear.

My prayer is that we will let God fill and fuel our hearts.  I pray that we will let God clear our hearts of the darkness that takes us in the wrong direction.

Know the difference in your heart.  More to come as we more toward what a generous heart might look like!

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