Keeping Your Heart

Well, I have a message for you.

I just meditated this morning, and so let's turn in our bibles, if you will, to Proverbs, chapter four.

And, by the way, if you have need of prayer any time during the broadcast, all you have to do is message us on Facebook or you can email us at staff at gwccc, and we will pray for you before we go off the air.

Proverbs, chapter four, verse 23.

It says keep by heart, with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

And, in my margin, it says keep by heart above all keeping, above all keeping.

And the amplified says out of it flows the springs of life.

Don't you like that?

Out of your heart, not your blood pump, but out of your spirit, flows the springs of life, and the Moffitt I like the Moffitt guard above all things.

Guard your inner self.

Don't you like that way of speaking?

Your inner self, that's your heart.

Guard your inner self, for so you live and prosper.

And so I wanted to share a message entitled Keeping your Heart, which is so appropriate because I kept mine.

I mean, I kept my heart, my physical blood pump, and I kept it pumping and I kept it going, and it was faith.

I know the doctors work.

All they can do is treat and guess.

But God's word works and this scripture that we read tonight.

It implies that keeping your heart is primary, it's of highest priority.

The word keep there means to guard, to keep, and so, and it's why we read our Bible why do we read our Bible?

Well, it's food for our heart, our spirit, our inner self.

There's no other way to feed your spirit except with a word of God.

And if you don't feed it every day, then you're not keeping it.

Above all, keeping You're violating the scripture, and there has a cost.

It's not God that gives you the cost, it's not God that does the trouble, it's.

The enemy has a place.

You've left your door unlocked, so to speak, and he has a way in no, read your Bible, pastor.

I know I sound like a broken record, but in 33 years of ministry, 40 years of being saved, I've run across a lot of people that just try to go to church.

They don't read their Bible, they don't really pray, they don't have a prayer life, and they wonder why they're miserable.

They wonder why they have one defeat after another.

They wonder why there's one set of drama followed by another, and another and another.

You know, in the world, jesus said you shall have tribulation.

Even when you guard your heart, even when you keep your heart.

You'll have trouble.

But he said be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

The only way you're gonna overcome the difficulty is if you've taken the word of God and stored it up in your heart when you don't need it and then God will bring it out of your heart when you do need it.

It's like a bank you store it up, but do you take spiritual vacations?

I mean when nothing's going on, you're not in any particular pressure, and well, I just like to do that today, but I got this, that and the other.

Listen, there's gonna come a day when that gap shows up, and I know I say it a lot, but a lot of the folks that I've seen in my ministry fall short in life because of the basics prayer, reading their Bible, obeying the Word, being a doer of the Word.

See, this is the basics, basics.

It's like the football team blocking and tackling.

You know, it's the basics.

And so all of our fellowship with God, all of our healing, all of prosperity, all of our guidance begins in our inner self.

It begins in the spirit.

Faith is of the heart, and so you have to be spirit dominant, spirit dominant, so keeping your heart.

You know we say boy, so-and-so, keeps a really clean house.

You know, when we first built a home, I was a home builder and after a while we built a home and in those days we used our personal home as a model home.

And Gladys worked.

But I mean to tell you, when she got home she cleaned the house, she vacuumed the carpet.

I mean you didn't dare mess the bed up.

It was made before.

She left at five o'clock in the morning to go to work.

And I mean, even after the kids came along, she was stickler for clean house.

Or this guy really keeps a nice yard, or you know so forth and so on.

Then the opposite is true.

Well, they keep a sloppy house, they keep a lousy yard.

They don't.

You know they're in their yard, looks like, you know, nobody lives there.

And so then there's a gap.

You know there's a gap.

There's a gap between how it ought to be and how it is, and in that gap it represents what's available to you that you're not getting.

God's not at fault, it's not him, he's not the one holding back, he's not the one that's mad at you.

He loves you, but you're in charge.

So it's up to you to keep, or to guard or not.

Guard or not keep.

You know, when we have an expensive you know anything expensive, like an expensive watch or expensive ring, or maybe we have a big bunch of cash, do we just leave it laying around?

No, we lock it up.

We keep it locked up and we have this treasure in earthen vessels and we must protect it.

You have to protect your heart.

I was reading, I was watching actually on television, about an apartment house in San Francisco.

It's, I think, 50 stories tall, it's a big one, very elite.

I mean they've got a concierge, they've got a theater, they've got all the amenities and I mean, I think the cheapest apartment in there is a million plus on, up to as much as you want to spend.

It was built in the recent, less than a decade ago, I think.

It's only set eight years old and they have discovered that it is 16 inches out of plum Plum would be exactly vertical, and so by the time you get from the ground to the 50th floor, there's a gap of 16 inches About, like that, well past your 50 floors.

I mean that's not much in 50 floors.

Well, the problem is it grew to that.

I mean it didn't start out that big and it's still growing.

At some point it's going to become a hazard.

Just think about the apartment project in Miami that just fell down and 180 or some odd people died because, number one because, I believe, a terrible builder and contractor and number two, a feckless public works department.

They knew there was defects there and they didn't do anything about it.

They kicked the can down the road.

Let's not kick the can down the road.

When we discover a gap.

Let's close the gap.

Let's get the gap closed.

That's what Bible reading and prayer and being obedient to the Word of God will do.

It will close the gaps between what's available and what you have and that way you can live and maximize At least the out of your heart flows, the issues of life, the springs of life.

It's coming out of your heart and God wants you to have life more abundantly, super abundant quantity, superior in quality.

It's available to you.

And so they're working on this apartment project.

They're having to do a bunch of foundation repair.

They're going down and they're pulling this thing with that.

They're going to have permanent cables.

They're going to pull it back.

I saw a person go into their apartment and put a marble on the floor and it just ran right down Down the other side of the apartment.

I mean, you know, it's got to make you feel funny.

You know, when you're supposed to have a level floor and you're kind of tilted like this, even that 16 inches doesn't sound like much.

But when you're standing on a floor that ought to be level, you're just kind of discompobulated.

I don't know about you, but I would not spend the night there.

I would get out.

Of course they can't, because they got all their money tied up and who's going to buy it?

But anyway, they're going to try to ratchet the thing back, pull it back, and the maximum they can do it is four inches out of plumb.

They figure at four inches.

It'll be safe.

Well, maybe safe for them.

As for me, I want the plumb.

I want it vertical.

I'm up on the 50th floor.

I don't want to seem like I'm leaning.

Oh, my goodness.

So everything we have from God flows from our heart or our inner self, and everything we like is because of that gap.

I want to say this, I want you to listen Everything we lack is because of that gap in keeping and watching and guarding our heart.

Everything we lack.

What do you lack?

You're lacking anything.

You're lacking finances.

You're lacking happy marriage.

You're lacking children that obey you.

You're lacking favor.

Whatever it is that God said you could have, that you don't have is nothing more than a representative of the gap that you haven't closed.

And so when you own that, this is what people don't do.

In my experience and I do have some experience 33 years ministering, 40 years born again I started ministering right after I got saved.

I was ministering to people all the time, praying with them, helping them, giving them advice.

And so over those decades, what I've noticed?

That people tend to blame others.

They blame the devil, they blame everybody but themselves.

They don't.

And I'm not saying blame yourself, I'm saying hold yourself accountable.

And so when you own the fact that the lack is because of the gap you permitted, it closes the door on victimhood and on blaming others.

That's just a blind alley.

It's not going to solve anything, especially in a marriage.

You blame your wife, your wife blames the husband Blimey, blimey, blimey, blimey.

It never works.

There's gaps both places.

Let's close the gaps and get on Jesus' side, get on the side of the Word of God.

Quick spaking against the Word.

And so I'm talking about keeping your heart tonight.

Just a simple message fresh out of the ICU, I'm so glad to be home.

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to crawl in my bed on Monday night, man.

I mean it felt so good.

I didn't have anything.

I see, both arms were tied up.

This one had the blood pressure cuff on it that went off every five minutes all night long, and this one had an IV in it and a finger thing of a blood oxygen and I mean I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything.

I can't turn, I can't even.

I can't do anything, and I'm a guy that likes to do everything for myself.

I don't like people doing stuff for me, I like to do it myself.

Oh, thank you Jesus.

He worked again All right.

So three specific areas to keep.

If we're gonna talk about keeping your heart, these are some likely gaps that you can focus on.

And let's look at 1 Timothy, chapter six for the first one here.

Praise God, everybody, say this out loud.

I'm so glad for the Word of God.

I'm receiving everything that's coming out tonight.

It's going right into my inner self.

It's stored up in there for me to use.

All right, first Timothy, chapter six, verse 14.

Let's go to verse 13.

I give thee charge in the sight of God.

See, this is Paul charging his son Timothy.

In other words, he's putting him on notice as a father to the son.

I give thee charge, in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who before punches Pilate witness to good confession, that you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You keep this commandment.

Now, when you read some of the commentaries, they go on to talk about what that commandment is, and they may be right or they may be wrong.

I don't necessarily agree with them when I see that word commandment.

There's one commandment we have and that's the command of love.

The commandment of love.

He's talking about love.

I mean, if there's ever a person that can get outside of love, it's a minister, especially the one like this who's got churches under him.

He has to handle all kinds of betrayal.

He has to handle all kinds of difficult parties.

He's got to have people that are undermining him.

He's got to have people that are talking about him.

I mean, listen, it is hardest.

It's hardest for ministers to walk in love than anybody.

I'm speaking from experience.

But really, if we're going to guard our heart, we need to guard our love walk.

We need to protect it, we need to make sure that it's bullet-proof.

I mean, keep a tender heart and a thick skin.

What do I mean by that?

Well, tender heart means that you're tenderhearted toward people, that you can see their side of things, even when they differ with you, even when they're out of order.

You can kind of see their side and have mercy on them and realize that they're in that position because of years of dysfunction.

You're here to add value.

You're here to help people, but at the same time, when they accuse you, when they lie about you, you've got to have thick skin so that you don't get offended and start coming against them.

Love is the great commandment.

There's no other commandment.

You know, if you love people, you won't steal from them.

If you love people, you won't covet what they have.

If you love people, you won't lie to them.

I mean, you know the 10 commandments are not really meant there for a thing to live by.

We live by love, faith, our faith works by love With.

There's no love.

Faith doesn't work.

In 1 Corinthians 13, 13, that great love chapter, paul says you know, and so there are by three faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love.

The greatest of these.

It's not optional, it's not easy.

You have to get your flesh under, you have to guard your heart, you have to guard your love walk.

You have to keep it so that it doesn't get assaulted and so that it doesn't get destroyed.

I've lived a long enough to see people get offended at all kinds of things.

Most of the time it's misunderstanding.

Most of the time they assumed something that wasn't true and they go off angry.

You know what?

They're opening the door for the devil to steal, kill and destroy.

So if I was having any gaps in my life or dysfunction in my marriage or my finances or my home, the first place I'd look is my love walk.

I'd start praying there.

I'd look right there.

I'd look there.

Now I'm not saying don't ask the Lord, because he'll eventually show you, but he expects you.

He expects you to do something.

He's not gonna tell you everything.

What kind of people would be be if we're just a bunch of robots going around and God tells us to do this and God tells us to do that.

He's already told us to do a whole bunch of stuff right here, so let's do it.

And so one of the things that says in first Corinthians 13, love bears no ill toward their neighbor.

I was reading that recently and I thought, man, that is so hard not to bear ill toward Democrats.

I mean, you know, you picture yourself hitting them upside the other two before.

I know you're much more spiritual than that, I know you are.

But I'm just speaking.

You know I'm speaking from the flesh side.

See, do I do it?

No, I'm not gonna do it and I'm not gonna entertain it.

I'm gonna put it down and I'm going to.

If I can pray for the person, I will.

In Biden's case, I don't pray for him, I pray against him.

I cry against what he's doing, I cry against if they're in office, I'm crying against them.

I'm not praying for them.

Well, the Bible says to pray for them.

Well, you know, I don't believe anybody.

I don't believe Jesus prayed for Pontius Pilate.

I don't believe the church prayed for Herod, you know I mean.

So let's get in the middle of the road about prayer.

We've got a whole bunch of people in this nation that have not yet heard the gospel.

We need to pray for them.

But people that have lived here all their life they've rejected.

I look at him, I look at what Kamala Harris is doing and what she's saying.

These people have totally rejected Jesus Christ and I can't pray for them like that.

I can't.

You can do what you want, but I'm not.

But I'm gonna cry against what they're doing.

But at the same time, I don't wish them ill.

I can't rejoice in anything that would happen to them negatively.

I can't, because why?

Because that is a violation of love.

That's a violation of love.

You know.

I have to bear in mind Jesus bore their sins on the same cross.

He bore mine on.

Their salvation is already been bought and paid for.

They just haven't received it.

How do you know?

You don't know that.

You don't know.

Because you buy their fruits, you know them.

No, they aren't safe.

Of course they're not.

Quit being religious.

Let's be.

Let's know what the Bible says and stick with the Bible.

And when you're judging them, I'm judging what they're doing, I'm judging what they're saying, I'm judging how they're acting and I'm saying if they don't repent, they won't go.

That's what I'm saying.

It's not sealed, anything's possible, god.

You know, God's got a record of saving improbable people.

Look at the apostle Paul.

Before he got saved, he was hailing Christians off to jail.

So nothing's impossible with God, all right.

So let's get our love walk and let's examine it.

If we've got a gap, look at that first.

And number two keep or guard the faith.

Let's look at first Timothy six, 20.

Oh, timothy, keep that which is committed to that trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings.

Sounds like the news media and oppositions of science, falsely so called.

Sounds like the CDC and Dr Fauci which some professing have aired.

Concerning the faith, faith, grace be with the Amen.

The faith, much of the church's faith is under attack.

They've chosen to believe corrupt government officials and political hacks instead of the Bible.

They've chosen to choose to close their doors instead of contend for the faith.

You know what?

I'm not down for that.

I'm not gonna do it.

The Bible charges us to keep the faith.

Keep the faith.

Why is that?

Well, because faith is up the heart, it's in there, you know.

Out of it are the issues of life, out of it are the streams of life.

If I let this current attitude prevail in my life, my faith will be affected negatively, and not only that, the faith of all the people that I'm ministering to.

I believe the church is more crippled right now than it's been since I've been alive.

I don't.

That's why God told me to wake the church up.

I'm waking it up as best I can.

I'm not responsible for the results, I'm just responsible to let my alarm sound.

Praise God.

So keep the faith.

You know the door to the supernatural swings on two hinges believing and speaking.

Picture a door with two hinges.

The doorway into the supernatural swings on two hinges believing and receiving.

So guard what you hear.

You know faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

Well, if you're not hearing the word of God, your faith is being corrupted.

Millions of Christians are allowing their faith to be corrupted by this constant.

You know going on about vaccinations and COVID-19 and mask and social distance, and on and on.

And they're trying to come around and redo everything that we just got through with.

They wanna do it again Because that's really, frankly, the only way that Democrats can win that's the only way they can win is just demoralize the population.

I believe population's about to rise up and show them a thing or two.

You may not agree, if you're free to have your own opinions, but I believe God is still on the throne, I believe the true church is still here doing what it should do.

It doesn't take millions of people to do the word and have God move.

So believing see our believer can be affected by what we hear and what we watch.

When our eye gate takes in, our ear gate takes in.

And then, of course, the second thing is speaking.

What we speak, you know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The more you allow this garbage to come in, the more you're gonna agree with it.

The more you're gonna talk it, the more you're gonna say well, maybe I oughta wear a mask.

Well, maybe, see, I'm not talking about a mask or an oughta mask, I'm talking about faith in God.

I had to wear a mask.

They put a mask.

They said Mr Grindel, would you like to take a stroll?

I said, absolutely, get me out of this woo.

The last time I took a stroll in it, I said you, I couldn't breathe, I was almost collapsed.

But this time, buddy, I was taking off.

I had this cart, I had my oxygen, I had my monitor on it, had handlebars on it and then I was shoving it down the hallway and I got halfway down the hallway.

Well, mr Grindel, you gotta put your mask on.

Oh, I hated that.

I cut my whole thing short.

I was so aggravated because it just, you know, after coming off short of breath, and then it makes you feel short of breath, breathe through one of those things.

So you have to guard what you hear.

You have to guard and keep, keep it.

You have to guard what you say.

Don't let your mouth run off.

We were laughing in the hospital because sometimes I'd get off on a tangent and hear what my blood pressure go up, go up, go up.

Claire would say, oh, angel wings and rainbows.

And let me know that I was going off on a tangent.

So you know, we have to be vigilant to reject the ideas of communism.

Critical race theory, black lives matter, lgbtq, all of those things.

They're all a communist conspiracy to take down our country.

They're anti-Christ at their root and their core.

These people are completely devoid of morality.

You know, what makes me don't understand LGBTQ people is that there aren't any LGBTQ people in China and in Russia.

You can't do that.

You can't live like that there.

They will throw you in the water.

You can't live like that there.

They will throw you in the brig or, in China's case, take you off in a concentration camp somewhere, never to be seen again.

They don't see.

So what are you doing?

Why are you aligning up with this whole thing?

Ignorance, no.

Let's take the faith of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Keep it before your eyes, let it come out of your mouth.

Don't drink the kool-aid on your lips.

Don't drink the kool-aid.

Don't drink the kool-aid.

You know, if your church has done that, get out of there.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Staying in a dead church like that?

That would get up in the pulpit and accuse everybody there of being a racist.

Well, you're just white supremacists.

No, I'm not either, and I'm not gonna put up with anybody telling me I am.

So I know what I am.

I'm a believer.

I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus.

All right, I hope you're getting something out of this.

I'm having a fun time.

I've waited a long time to get to preach.

I was all right.

The third one is found over on the next page 2 Timothy, chapter two, and verse 14, one 14,.

Excuse me, 2 Timothy, one 14.

That good thing which was committed unto thee.

Keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us, our guard see.

The word keep there means to guard that good thing.

What's he talking about that good thing?

We was talking about the anointing, because we're back up here to verse six, wherefore I put thee in remembrance that you stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

The Amplified talks about stirring it up.

Keep the embers burning, keep the fire burning on the inside, the fire of the Holy Ghost.

You know, a lot of people just let their fire go out.

They just they kind of gave up.

I don't know when they gave up, I don't know when.

They just decided to be normal.

We're not supposed to be normal, we're supposed to be supernatural.

We're supposed to be supernatural and the only thing that makes us supernatural is the Holy Ghost.

So we've got to keep his presence, we have to practice his presence and always, in everything that we do lean not under our own understanding, everything.

Acknowledge him.

He will direct your paths.

I mean the Holy Ghost.

Stir up the anointing.

You know, flies can't light on a hot stove.

I mean, stir it up.

How do I stir it.

Pray in tongues, start praising God, start thanking God, start going around your house, do a Jericho march.

Leap a little bit, do a little leaping, a little dancing, do something, but don't let your fire go out.

I like practicing the presence of God.

That's a good one.

Live by the witness of the spirit and quit looking for shortcuts.

One of the things, one of the marks that I've seen in Christians is that they don't wanna trust the simple witness of the spirit in their daily life.

They want a sign, they want a prophecy, they want God to ride it across the sky.

What they're supposed to do, they're looking for, and so then, since they don't have that, they don't do anything but the witness of the spirit.

When you stir yourself up, when you pray in other tongues, when you read your Bible, you're gonna have the witness of the spirit operating more and more and more.

Well, pastor, I just don't know what that means.

Well, that's because you've never exercised it.

You know we teach a lot on that and I'm not teaching on that tonight, but we've got series after series on how to be led by the spirit of God, and you need to avail yourself of those teachings so that you can begin to act and live as a normal, mature Christian.

It's time to grow up.

It's time to wake up.

Grow up, amen, and live by the witness of the spirit.

You know, the witness of the spirit sometimes is like a red light to stop you.

A green light says go.

A yellow light says okay, slow down, caution.

Many times.

I mean you know, the witness of the spirit can regulate what your decisions are and you quit making decisions based on circumstances.

You make your decisions based on the Holy Ghost.

Think about Jesus.

You know, and Lazarus was.

And he said Lazarus sick unto death.

He waited where he was for four more days and they said oh, when are we gonna go to Lazarus?

You know, I can't go at night.

I've gotta go when it's daytime.

We stumble at the night.

What he was talking about was waiting for the witness.

God didn't open heaven and say go to Lazarus.

No, he just waited for the witness of the spirit.

He shows us how to live.

And when he got there, lazarus was dead.

And it didn't make one bit of difference because Jesus was right on time and raised him up.

You know, you can't beat the witness of the spirit.

What's it like to run a red light?

I was watching the news the other night for about that long just to see the weather because I don't know if something's happened and we're in the monsoon season.

But I saw a video news flash of a guy running a red light and hitting another car in the intersection and it killed him.

He died running through.

He died running through a red light.

So if God gives you a red light in your witness and you run through it, you might not die in a crash.

You might not even know that there's anything wrong.

But what you have done is you've opened the door to Satan to steal, kill and destroy and there's gonna be a penalty to pay because God is trying to regulate your behavior or your decision and you're not listening.

You're not.

When I say listen, it sounds like a voice.

It's not a voice.

It's that knowing down in your knower, and the only way to get that is to practice it.

I'm talking about practicing the presence of God.

When you spend time in prayer, you're gonna know what he wants without him speaking.

I mean, when Gladys and I were courting, you know, we were separated.

I was at A&M, she was in Refurio, it was Saturday night and I was so lonesome and I'd call her on a pay phone back.

Then they had no cell phone, they had pay phones.

I'd go to the MSC at A&M and I'd get about $5 worth of quarters and we'd arrange for it ahead of time.

She'd be home that way I knew she wasn't out messing around on me.

No, I'm just joking.

I put the quarters in there, man, four at a time, you know, and we'd just get on the phone and sigh oh, I miss you, I love you.

Do we're communicating?

Yeah, we were communicating, but just not with words.

You know, most of it was silent, and that's the way God is.

He will communicate with your spirit, and so you were told to guard the gift that was given us, guarded as a precious prize.

Keep in your heart.

I trust this was a blessing to you.

Why don't you lift your hand?

Heavenly Father, we thank you, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.

It pierces even to the dividing asunder soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and with that we're able to discover the thoughts and intents of our heart.

And thank you for the Word of God.

Thank you tonight, in Jesus' name.

You know, one message like this can change your life.