Pastor Jacque and Brian Lother
Jacque: This is the air I breathe. Wow. That's beautiful song. Thank you, Brian. It's so weird I'm on the right side today. I don't quite know how to do this, but it's Mother's Day, so I get to speak and we get to share together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to take my bracelet off. It makes noise.
Brian: I'm in the copilot seat today.
Jacque: Yeah, it's kind of weird. I don't know. It's okay though. We can do it. We want to welcome any visitors today. If it's your first time here, make sure you get a gift. We want to welcome any visitors for the first time watching us and worshiping with us online. We appreciate you being here. Come back and see us again. You are supposed to try something a few times before you decide whether or not you like it or not. So come back again.
Brian: There are a couple of vegetables I only needed to try once. I'm sorry, but—
Jacque: Oh, that's awesome. I know I got you to eat broccoli though.
Brian: It was because you loaded it up with cheese. Cheese will make anything palatable. Don't you agree?
Jacque: That's good.
Brian: Yeah. Especially that manufactured cheese. That's not really cheese.
Jacque: The velvetta, the plastic cheese. That's the best.
Brian: It is.
Jacque: I don't make that anymore.
Brian: I don't eat broccoli anymore either.
Jacque: You are right. You don't. I need to work on that. It's so good to see you all here today. Thanks for being here. Happy Mother's Day to all of you. Today, we celebrate all women. We do. It is a wonderful day to celebrate women because women have a piece of God's heart in us. We do. We are naturally loving, compassionate, nurturing, creative, giving. Women are amazing. Can I hear an amen?
Brian: Yes. Amen.
Jacque: Pope John Paul, the second—
Brian: You should have said a woman, not amen.
Jacque: You are really funny today. A woman. We will leave men there. Pope John has a teaching that he calls the Feminine Genius. I just love that. He also has a masculine genius about men, but we are just talking about the feminine today, the feminine genius, and he wrote a beautiful letter to women. I just want to read one paragraph.
Thank you, every woman for the simple fact of being a woman. Through the insight, which is so much a part of your womanhood, you enrich the world's understanding and help to make human relations, more honest and authentic. Way to go girls. So let's applaud the women of Hope here and at home. Here is a picture of my mom and me. I want to honor my mama today. This is about 1971. My mom is 96 now and she is just as beautiful. She is wonderful.
Brian: You look the same.
Jacque: Anyway. One of the—
Brian: I think she looks the same.
Jacque: Okay. Okay. My mom is in a care center now. She needs 24 hour nursing care. One of the nurses called me yesterday and said, "I need to help your mom be able to watch you live. She says you are speaking tomorrow." So thank you, Lana. Mom is watching live. So she is worshiping with us today. Usually she watches a little later in the week, but it's good. I love you, mom. I'm so grateful for you and I'm wearing pink in honor of you today, your favorite color.
My mom's heart of love has shaped my life and the future generations. The love she planted in me is planted and growing strong in my boys, and now it's being planted in the next generation: our grandkids. And it will never, ever end, that love that she put in me. My mom always talks about her mom, my grandma, and what a loving mom she was. I'm so grateful for my mom's love. I always didn't understand the depth of God's love for me. I remember when I started to really think about the way my mom loves me so unconditionally all through the years, because sometimes I was a brat. She loved me. She loved me all the way through and she is so supportive and so kind. I began to really see my mom in her human love could love me so deeply, how much must God's love be for me. I really started to see God's love through my mom's love, but that's not true everyone. I know that some people don't have that story to tell about their mom. Pastor Jeff spoke about it so good today, so well, but it makes me stop and think about what kind of a mom did your mom have? How hurt was her heart?
Brian: Hurting people, hurt people.
Jacque: Hurting people, hurt people.
Brian: Usually if a person is hurting, it's because they were hurt, and if a person hurts someone else it's because they are hurting themselves.
Jacque: It goes down the generations.
Brian: I think only Jesus has the power to really break it.
Absolutely, absolutely, but a wounded heart— I just started thinking of my mom's heart, and I started thinking about wounded hearts and I just could not get away from the word heart all week. I spent time just searching out the word heart in my Bible. I got so inspired that I want to talk about our hearts today.
Brian: It's a good topic.
Jacque: Yep. You know that the Bible talks about the heart over 900 times.
Brian: It's probably trying to get a point across.
Jacque: I would say it's kind of important.
Brian: Maybe we could say you are repeating yourself, God.
Jacque: I have several verses to share, but this one is a key verse. You go ahead and read it.
Brian: Proverbs 4:23 in the NIV, above all else—I mean, that's a clue there, right? Above all else, guard your heart. Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Jacque: King Solomon wrote this. He was the wisest man who ever lived. Do you know why he was wise?
Brian: He had a hundred thousand wives. I don't know.
Jacque: I don't think that was wise.
Brian: It's Mother's Day. So I was trying to—
Jacque: You are going to make us laugh.
Brian: At least I'm not getting in trouble for that answer.
Jacque: You are going to make us laugh a lot today.
Brian: Okay, maybe so.
Jacque: That's good. That's good.
Brian: He was wise because he asked God for wisdom.
Jacque: God said, "What do you want?"
Brian: He said, "What do you want? I'll give you all these things."
Jacque: And he asked for wisdom.
Brian: And he said, "I want wisdom above all of else."
Jacque: He wrote three books in the Bible and you know what he said? Above all else, forget everything else that I said, you have to remember this: guard your heart, for everything you do comes out of it. So let's define the word heart. There are lots of different meanings, a few different meetings of the word heart. One is just the heart is like the international symbol of love. I have so many hearts around our house. I have jewelry hearts. I have hearts everywhere. One thing I remembered is I have this collection of stones that I found that are heart shaped. I really love hearts. I found one when I was going through my jewelry today. I have to tell you this story.
Last time that we were on the beach, it was now a couple of years ago. I think I was just walking down the beach alone and talking to the Lord, and I said, "God, would you help me find out a little stone that is in the shape of a heart and that will just be a little sign from you, your love." Within like 15 minutes, I found 15. It was like crazy. I've got a big stone collection of hearts. I love hearts
Brian: You asked for one; God gave you 15.
Jacque: He gave me so many. I'm going to make some kind of an art piece out of that. I don't know what. Another meaning of the word heart is our physical heart, the organ, our heart. It pumps life giving blood to all parts of our body, providing the oxygen and the nutrients we need to survive. When your heart stops, your life stops. Everything stops. Heart also means the essential or most vital part of something, the central or inner most part. The Bible uses the word heart in this way: the ruling center of the whole person, the wellspring, which means a source of. It never stops; it continues always. All of our desires come from our heart.
The heart is seen as the center of the will, the intellect and the emotions or the feelings. We just read that the heart is the center of not only spiritual activity, but all of our life choices come out of our heart. My thoughts, intentions, conscience, values, ambitions, decisions, reactions, responses, the words I speak, the choices I make, my purposes, my plans, they all come from what is in my heart.
Brian: I can see why the Lord says for us to guard it. I was even thinking about our physical heart. Our physical heart is protected. It's guarded in a sense by the strongest ribs that we have. There is a great principle to learn from just where our heart is placed in our body and how it's protected by the strongest ribs and the biggest ribs.
Jacque: That brings me to my next point. Our physical heart is a great illustration of our spiritual heart because blockages can form in our heart that caused strokes, a lot of pain, heart attacks.
Brian: Even death.
Jacque: Even death, and can damage our heart permanently. So we eat right; we exercise; some people take medication, anything we can do to keep our heart healthy and the blood flowing freely and blockages not forming. Likewise, spiritually speaking, our hearts— hurts and disappointments and grudges and sin that we are part of, bad choices, all are stored in our heart. So we protect ourselves and then we put walls up around our heart thinking we are protecting, but we are really hurting and we are holding those blockages in, aren't we? When we don't treat the blockage, like forgive, repent, ask God to forgive us and release, when we don't stop the wrong, the things we know are wrong that we keep doing, that life of God can't flow freely and help us be healthy spiritually.
This week I read so many verses about the heart. I read descriptions of like hearts in good condition and hearts and bad conditions. I want to read some of those descriptions to you. Some of these negative words, like an idolatrous heart, a hard heart, a bitter heart, a stubborn heart, a deceived heart, a divided heart and a cold heart, I don't want to be listed. I don't want my heart on that list.
Brian: I don't want to be defined as cold-hearted.
Jacque: No, no, but then I read scriptures of a beautiful hearts, a clean heart, a new heart. God says, “I'll give you a new heart, a contrite heart, repentant heart, a tender heart, a steadfast heart, a joyful heart, a peaceful heart, an upright heart.”
Brian: A merry heart doth good like a medicine.
Jacque: A merry heart doth good like a medicine. That's a good one.
Brian: It's a joyful hearts bring about better health than bitter hearts.
Jacque: That's right. There are physical consequences. And finally, a heart after God's own heart, a heart like God's. Let's consider, what condition is my heart in? This is something we can stop and consider because we need to be intentional. We need to be intentional about what's most important about our life, about the very core of our life. I think that this last year has been very hard on all of our hearts. Don't you?
Brian: Or it has at least revealed what has been in our hearts?
Jacque: Well, it has been hard on us and it's shown us what's in our hearts. That's a very good point. I should have had that in my notes. Thanks for bringing it up. Very good. I know my heart has been affected and I have seen what's in my heart too. First of all, so much isolation has been hard on us. We were not created to be so alone. It's so hard to not hug each other and express our connection with each other. Sometimes even when we get back together, it's kind of hard to know how to relate sometimes in the very beginning.
Also, new levels of fear have taken root in people's hearts like never before. We have a whole new thing in the world to be afraid of, if you choose to. And then I have to say so much arguing and judging and polarization has happened in our country. It has even happened in our Christian world, in the church and our attitudes and actions. My attitudes and actions have not always been right this year. I think at times we've hurt each other. How can we know the condition of our hearts? That's our next question, so read Proverbs 27:19.
Brian: This is really an interesting verse where it says, Proverbs 27, 19 says as water reflects the face or like a mirror would reflect a face, so one's life reflects the heart. So a person's life actually reflects what's actually in their heart.
Jacque: So one way we can know the condition of our heart is just looking at the fruit of our lives, like what's happening. Are there broken relationships? I do have hurt feelings, unresolved issues. Is there anger popping out of you over the silliest things? Is there no joy in your life? Do you feel apathetic or indifferent to the things that matter to God? I think that's all signs that God wants to do something new and needs to do something new in your heart.
Brian: I think apathy to the things that are important to God is like a warning light on your dashboard. Like the other night we were driving home and that check-engine light went on my dashboard, and we were just real close to home, so I drove all the way home.
Jacque: The car was sputtering.
Brian: Sputtering home and whatever, and now it won't start, so I have to have a mechanic look at it. But it's like that warning light was a reflection of what was happening with the car and apathy towards the things that are important to God is also like a warning light that will give us indication that I need a transformation here in my heart, because we don't find ourselves in a place of blessing if we aren't following hard after the things that are important to God.
Jacque: Absolutely. So that's one way, to just look at the fruit of our lives and then read Matthew 12:34.
Brian: This is from the New Living Translations: for whatever is in your heart, determines what you say. So out of the abundance of the mouth speaks. That's the King James Version of this, but whatever's in your heart determines what you say.
Jacque: So here is another question to ask yourself, what am I talking about? That reveals what we are thinking about. That reveals what's in our heart. Sometimes when I'm really struggling with something, I can just go to the negative so quickly. That is another warning.
Brian: It's a warning light that we don't trust.
Jacque: Yes, yes. It's a warning light that we don't trust or that I haven't released something that I should, or I've taken something too personal or that God wants to do a healing restoring work in my hearts, right? Here is another: sometimes we don't even know what is in our hearts though, because we can fool ourselves. We are good at ignoring things.
Brian: We can deceive ourselves.
Jacque: God knows though, and we can ask him and he'll tell us. God, what condition is my heart in? I just want to tell you a little story that happened to me. I remember once going through a difficult time and I think I taught about the heart in an encounter or something. I just said, God, please show me the condition of my heart. Most of the time, God answers me with a picture in my imagination. I don't always hear things about, I hear, I see pictures and I just instantly saw like my, the organ of my heart, and on the top of it, there was freezer burn, like when you've left a piece of chicken in the freezer, way too long, and it's so ugly and white. There was freezer burn at around the top of my heart and I felt so bad. I had let that place of my heart stay cold too long. I hadn't taken care of what I needed to and it affected me. Well, then I said, "Oh God, forgive me. Forgive me and heal my heart." I saw his is beautiful and dripping with oil, just massaging those areas of my heart, bringing life back to my heart. He is the healer. He is the healer of broken hearts. He is the healer of frozen hearts. We all find ourselves in those places sometimes where this is human. We are human being. We are living in a fallen world.
Brian: It's an on-going journey.
Jacque: We live in a fallen and sinful world and there is a battle for our hearts. The enemy is after us, and his job is to steal, kill, and destroy everything that is good and that is of God in us. The scriptures have that picture of him as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but it tells us that we have to be on guard. That same versus we have to be vigilant. We have to be alert and be intentional to not allow him to steal from us. Let's talk about guarding our hearts. You have some good thoughts on guarding.
Brian: Well, I was thinking of like in the military when someone is posted as a guard. If they are guarding, let's say, the Gates of a Fort or the Gates of compound, you don't just guard it for two hours a day and then leave. The guard is there 24 hours a day. Now they may not be the same guard that may obviously they will rotate, but it's not something that is just guarded just a few hours a day and then it's left unguarded.
As I thought about this whole concept, even like the tomb of Jesus, where pilot says you have your guard, you know, go place a guard there. They weren't just there for the first two hours of the watch and then left. They were there through the whole night and they were there in the early morning when Jesus rose from the dead and they became frightened and became as dead men. A guarding of our hearts is not just something we need to attend to occasionally or in other words, just on Sunday mornings. But guarding our hearts 24 hours a day, seven days a week challenge that we have to guard our hearts to keep it in that place that's not freezer burned and so forth, but it's pliable in the master's hands.
Jacque: The other thing you said when you were talking about guarding was when the enemy is near, like there is double guards, so like during really difficult times of our life.
Brian: There are different levels of alertness, shall we say, death-con five or four, or what have you. When the enemy is at work in your vicinity, then you increase the people who are on watch or on guard, a higher level. Obviously, there are seasons. We can probably reflect back on our life, where there were seasons where the enemy is really scheming and has a greater intensity than others in our lives. It's at those times that we have to add a double guard, shall we say, on our heart to make sure that we don't fall into doubt and unbelief and anger, bitterness, and coldness and things like that.
Jacque: It's really good.
Brian: Yeah. It is intentional.
Jacque: It's intentional. So the next question is, how do we guard our hearts? There is a portion of scripture in Philippians that has six different things in three verses that tell us how to guard our hearts.
Brian: Sure. Philippians 4 beginning at verse 6, this is the Passion translation: don't be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing.
Jacque: Stop there. I was waiting to do that. You always stopped me when I'm reading. It's okay because it's good, but stop there.
Brian: Stop in the name of love.
Jacque: There you go. We have to keep believing the truth and you know what, it's so easy for that. We bring up all those doubtful thoughts and then the enemy likes to feed them into our brain too, but we can't think doubt. I can think doubt so easy, especially like about myself. I just can think doubt so easy.
Brian: It's so easier to doubt than as to believe.
Jacque: God is always with us, so we've got to keep believing the truth.
Brian: I was thinking about the scriptures we looked at even like the last couple of weeks where the angels came and gave these messages to Abraham or Zachariah, and of course the initial response of these people were that they didn't believe. It was like, these angels got offended, like, I'm Gabriel or I'm in God's presence. I mean, how could you not believe? As you think about the angels and you think about what heaven is like, doubt is not even remotely there. Doubt is here in this fallen world, but in heaven, it's like, well, that just only makes sense is that we would believe.
Jacque: They probably scratch their heads when they watch us.
Brian: They marvel. Jesus did that even in Nazareth; he marveled at their unbelief. He scratched his head. So I think, wouldn't it be great if our relationship with Christ was so really deep and more real than maybe what our relationship with him is at the present time that we would be shocked by unbelief rather than by belief? Wouldn't that be a great goal for us to shoot for, to come to a place where we would be shocked by unbelief rather than shocked by believing?
Jacque: So good. Okay. Continue.
Brian: Okay. Thank you. I will. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-field requests before God with overflowing gratitude.
Jacque: There are two things in there, There is pray, pray, and then pray some more. Keep talking to God, keep requesting, saturated, and pray for yourself. Pray for your heart. Pray. I'll get into that later. David prayed and prayed for his heart, so pray. Our hearts are changed in his presence. Our hearts are softened in his presence. I love all the prayer time we have here at hope and we are doing it all on Zoom, and I'm telling you, my prayer life has grown. Thanks to Zoom during this wonderful time. More people can be a part because people come to pray from farther out and they can't maybe drive to church, but we gather on Zoom to pray. It's so wonderful.
I've been, especially loving the praying for more time every night at 6:45 to 7. Some of us just get on a Zoom link and we all just adore God. We just adore him. We should call it adoration. On Friday, I think, as we were just there together, when may close to Jeff said he had seen a picture where all of our hearts began to just beat together in the same rhythm. And then we realized that our heart was beating the same rhythm as God's. That's like we may be one as our father. Jesus said, as you and I, father are one, that our hearts would beat with God's heart. Oh, it's beautiful. So pray.
And then the second thing that you just read was be thankful. I'll tell you it is much easier to be positive, to be faith filled when we are thankful and we are recounting all the faithfulness of God and all he has done for us and all the ways he has answered our prayers. So we've got to keep being faithful. Continue on.
Brian: All right. Tell him every detail of your life. That kind of seems strange because you would think God knows every detail of her life, which he does, but he wants us to be honest and open with him. So tell him every detail of your life. Then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will guard your heart. His wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus.
Jacque: We need to keep recounting all the positive things that God's done. We keep beauty in beauty, out that whole sewing and reaping works here. We've got to remember the good and even speaking it to God is another way for us. It just to get cemented in our hearts and our minds, all that God has done for us. We have to discipline ourselves to keep our thoughts centered on the Lord and all that is good and beautiful. We do. Okay.
Brian: Going on. Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy merciful and kind.
Jacque: That was the verse that went with what I just said. Beauty, think beauty; beauty in, beauty out.
Brian: Garbage in, garbage out.
Jacque: Yeah. Good in, good out. Yes, absolutely. We have to be so intentional about our thoughts. Choose our thoughts wisely. It's so easy for our emotions to kick in, and then all of a sudden we can just go down, but to think of the good and the beautiful.
Brian: To captive our thoughts. We have to take captive our thoughts, not let our minds run away. Sometimes the only thing you can do is say, God, help me here. I feel like my mind is on a runaway train here. Just help me garner my thoughts. Help me, Jesus to not give in to all of the pressure that that feeling internally with all of this.
Jacque: I have to just tell this. Last night, that happened to me because I could not find you in Sam's Club. Isn't it frustrating when you are shopping and you can't find each other? I just wanted to get going and so did you, and you got frustrated because you couldn't find me. So we had to call each other.
Brian: I saw you walk into the dairy section and then I didn't see you walk out. I thought the rapture took place. I couldn't find you.
Jacque: Anyway. I was going get a little frustrated here. You are shopping with me helping me, and you know what? I just prayed. Jesus, help me right now. This is ridiculous. I have the most wonderful husband on earth.
Brian: Can I hear that again?
Jacque: I have the most wonderful husband on earth. Come on. This is ridiculous. I walked through the chocolate aisle and prayed for me and I was so happy to see you right there. It was like gone. Come on. Years ago, we could have left that store not talking, years ago. But I'm just saying instantly pray. Instantly pray. I was the one that actually got lost, not you. Okay, so next one.
Brian: And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God praising him always.
Jacque: Keep thinking and praising God.
Brian: Fasten your thoughts. Grab hold of your thoughts on every glorious work of God. Sometimes we need to start making lists of all the great things God has done for us. Wouldn't it be good just to make that list?
Jacque: Thankfulness brings joy and joy brings strength. It's the truth; the joy of the Lord is our strength and thankfulness brings joy and joy brings strength. It's true. Let's just close reading some of the prayers that David prayed for his heart.
Brian: Psalm 139, 23 and 24. Again, this is from the Passion translation. God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through and find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares and see if there is any path of pain that I'm walking on and lead me back to your glorious everlasting way, the path that brings me back to you. Isn't that a great verse?
Jacque: It is. It's so good. I love the Passion translation. When our hearts get anxious, I mean, the life is so fast and furious. Doesn't it seem like it's going faster all the time? It's so easy to get anxious, but when we get anxious, we can stop and pray that prayer with David. Our anxious thoughts, those unhealthy emotions that rise up, show us that we need God to do a transforming work in our hearts. When our thoughts become so anxious, we can receive his peace. His peace heals our hearts. Another time years ago, I remember just praying for peace. I was so anxious the way I was even praying for peace. I was going, "I need your peace, God. I need your peace," in the car. I remember. I was so anxious about trying to get peace and I just heard God simply whisper in my ear: “Just take it.”
Brian: Receive it.
Jacque: And I just, oh God, I receive your peace. In that quiet moment, his peace comes. When we ask him for that peace, that's guarding our hearts. Because we can't change ourselves from the outside in; we can't. We are only changed from the inside out. I remember when I was younger I would think I'm changing. I'm going to be better.
Brian: I'm going to change myself.
Jacque: I would try to will myself to change, and I finally learned; God does the changing. I just have to be willing. I just have to want him to change me.
Brian: That's right. That's right. Psalm 51: 10 says keep creating in me a clean heart. I like that keep creating. Like King James says "Create in me a clean heart," and we kind of think that that's a one-time thing, but it's actually an ongoing process with God. Keep creating in me a clean heart, fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please you and let my passion for life be restored. Our hardness of hearts can steal our passion even for life. So let my passion for life be restored, tasting joy in every breakthrough that you bring to me and hold me close to you with a willing spirit that obeys, whatever you say.
Jacque: That's a real key: praying for our hearts, listening and then doing what God says. Sometimes it's a path of repentance. You always used to say this: repentance is our friend because it breaks the blockages. Repentance is the path to freedom. When you are facing something that you need to overcome, it's just a step-by-step process, and God will lead us one step at a time. We just have to do the next right thing and just have a heart that wants to be right with God and does whatever he is saying. But it's not a one and done prayer. We need to continually pray for our hearts, pray for ourselves because this fallen world is full of distractions and life brings disappointments. It's so easy to fill our mind with the problem instead of the answer: Jesus. That lowers the guard and protection on our heart.
Finally, just to close, this is kind of a takeaway. This is just kind of the first thought I had when I thought about my heart. You know, one thing I love about the younger generation, they have taught me and I'm trying to learn and I'm getting better, but I have farther to learn, farther to go, to live simply to have less, to do less.
Brian: Less is more.
Jacque: Less is more. One thing about Kelly that I always would tell her, "You always just find the simplest way to do something. Teach me how to do that because I could usually complicate everything." I learned a lot from her that way and my daughter-in-laws; they just, this simple life. Jessica and I are always talking about ways we can do life better and simpler. You know what, guarding our hearts, praying for our hearts, growing healthy spiritual hearts seems like the very simplest way to live.
We don't have to— haven't we all wasted too much time in fear and frustration and struggle when if we just went right to the root and just strengthened our hearts, how much easier the right response would come out, not a reaction. The right answer would flow out of the wisdom that God would give us. It just seems like a simpler, simpler way to live. His peace would be the first thing. We would remember even quicker to go find his peace when life comes in and steals our peace. This is how I want to live out this one life that I have, with a strong, strong heart.
God called David a man after his own heart. Even after he had really failed later in his life, lying and adultery and murder, he still is thought of as a man after God's own heart. He repented and he prayed for his heart so beautifully. I just want us to keep doing that, Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. We want to remember, I'll say it again to pray for ourselves, pray for our hearts and stay in a place where our heart does not condemn us. Stay in a place, have a heart that is sensitive to the Holy Spirit and his guiding and his conviction. When our heart does condemn us because we fail, take care of it. Take care of it. All things right between me and God, between me and others, to the best of my ability. God will help us. One more verse.
Brian: Matthew 22:27
Jacque: So the Pharisees asked Jesus, what is the greatest commandment? What did he say?
Brian: It's interesting. You don't really think of this as a commandment. You think of a commandment as thou shalt not. That's how you kind of think of commandments. Though shall not do this or that or what have you. Jesus said that this was the greatest commandment and it states this: love the Lord, your God, with every passion of your heart. Love the Lord, your God, with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being and with every thought that is within you. Let's try and love God with every thought that is within us. Obviously, we have thoughts that aren't pleasing to God. When we do, we need to ask God to cleanse us of that. But he says if we do this, this is the great and supreme command.
Jacque: This is not advice. This is what God expects of us because he knows this is how we are going to live our best life. With every passion of your heart— these are a hundred percent terms, every passion, all of your energy and every thought. That's something to shoot for.
Brian: That's right. This is a great supreme command.
Jacque: That's the greatest supreme commandment. That would be our mission statements. Lord, help me to live you.
Brian: Help me to love you with every passion of my heart.
Jacque: It's so beautiful to take the scriptures and turn them around as prayers. Dai taught us that at one of our retreats. That would be a beautiful prayer. Lord, help me to love you with every passion of my heart. With all of my energy, help me to love you God and with every thought helped me to love you, God. That would be a wonderful prayer to pray for ourselves.
I'm sure there are some people here at Hope today and some people online that are thinking that's all good for you, Jacque, but I've really blown it, and I am so far away from God so much so that I kind of really don't care. I don't care about him. I don't care about what he is doing and I know that I should pray to change, but it's just kind of too much for me and I'm not really sure that I care that much. It's just sounds like you've probably lost your hope and your vision and your faith, but God finds us no matter where we are. He loves us no matter where we are and you know, the final way to describe a heart is you just have to ask him to help you have a willing heart.
We have a friend, Kelly Willard, that wrote the most beautiful song. And she said in that song, if you don't have a willing heart, if it just seems too hard, ask God to give you one. If you can't seem to make a start trust in his power to help you, For the Lord above is watching you and he sees all you are going through and he will make a way if you want him to. If you want him to then just tell him, so tell him you want to change, but you don't know how and you haven't got the strength. Ask him to help you be willing. Sometimes we even have to help God to even begin to begin. Help me to even begin to begin the process. Would you read James 4:8?
Brian: Move your heart closer and closer to God and he will come even closer to you.
Jacque: Let's keep moving our hearts closer to God.
Brian: It's never too late.
Jacque: No, no. And there is always more. We never run out of his love, his care, his presence, his blessing in our lives. We just have to keep moving closer. Ask God, how can I move closer today, God? I want to move closer. He is waiting with open arms to help us and to heal us.
Brian: If you don't have a willing heart, just ask him to give you one.
Jacque: Just ask him to give you one.
Brian: This has been really good, Jacque.
Jacque: Thank you. It's been— I grew a lot this week, searching my heart and preparation, spending time in God's word. I encourage you to go to your— I love these apps on our phone. They are so fantastic. You just sticking the word heart and you've got like every verse that's in the Bible on it. And then you can look at it and then you can go, ‘Oh, I'm going to try this translation. I'm going to try that translation.' It's such an easy way to study the word of God. I would encourage you to do your own study on the word heart this week, and you will be inspired as I was.
Brian: Let us pray with you here today. Father, I thank you that God, we can come to you. When we have freezer burn on our heart, Lord, our thoughts have caused us to grow cold and our hearts haven't been what you want it to be, Lord, I thank you that God, you still welcome us with open arms and you invite us to come. I pray that all of us, Lord, if there is any part of our hearts today that has freezer burn on it, that's cold, that God I pray as just Jacque had that vision years ago that the oil of your presence would just come and start to massage that cold part of our heart. We ask, God for you to heal us. Jesus, heal our hearts; heal our brokenness. It's never too late. It's never, ever too late with you.
We just thank you that your love is higher than the heavens. I thank you, Jesus, that it's broader than the East is from the West. And I just praise you today, Lord, that we can ask you to keep creating in us a clean heart, that you can take our hardheartedness and you can soften it and make it moldable and pliable in your hands. And that Lord, I do pray that we would learn how to guard our hearts because so much of our lives, everything comes out of our hearts and we want our hearts to be pleasing to you, pleasing to you. We pray this, Jesus, in your name. Let's raise our hands together. Shall we?
Now may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you, and give you his peace and may your heart be soft in the hands of the Lord. This we pray in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
We thank all of you who are here today for being with us. If you would like to have communion after the service, Dave will be over here serving communion for those of you who are here. Thank you for those of you who are watching online to all of our friends at Michigan and Florida and Arizona, and even in Norway and Israel. Thank you for watching. Thank you for staying in touch with us. We love you. God bless you. Have a wonderful Mother's Day. Thank God for our mothers. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 5-9-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.