Speaker 1: 0:15

So today we're going to talk about the significance of the heart according to God, and I'm going to pull up some of my verses that I have here. But as I was doing some of my research and kind of studying a little bit, one of the things that I found I actually heard somebody say a statement recently and they said that the heart is mentioned more in the Bible than even salvation, and it's mentioned over so many things. And so I did a little bit of preliminary study on this and according to some sources and I've looked up every single instance myself but the heart, which is the heart of a person, is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible, in the Old Testament and New Testament the references to the heart. And I was really blown away by that because the heart really is so important in so many ways, and I recently was really starting to get turned on to this subject because I have a book that I read and I'm going to read it again, but it's called Wild at Heart by John Eldridge. I highly recommend this for the men. This is a book for men. I highly recommend it. Go right over to Amazon, grab it. If you have not read this book. If you have read it, do me a favor and comment and let me know. I'd love to know that you've read it. And for the ladies, there is a book called Captivating and it's the same concept of this book, but it's for the woman. And this book really has opened my eyes to the heart and really understanding the importance and significance of the heart.

Speaker 1: 1:56

And all throughout the Bible, god talks about the heart. He talks about it's part of the 10 commandments. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. You shall have no other gods before me, all those things God is searching for the heart. A lot of people think that God is looking at us based on our actions and as soon as we decide to make Jesus Lord of our life, our actions are not what's going to determine God's love for us. God loves us regardless of our actions. He loves us regardless. You know he loves us and he wants us, to our heart, to be with Him. Now, of course, our actions matter. Okay, I'm not going to say they don't. However, the most important thing God wants is our heart, and he understands that we are not perfect beings. He understands that we're going to make mistakes, but if we can keep our heart in alignment with him, especially in our day-to-day life. And for us entrepreneurs, which I am, god wants to be a part of your business. He wants to be a part of what it is that you are doing each and every day, and he wants to be a part of your major and minor decisions. You just have to give him that opportunity, and so one of the things that I've been doing really over this past week now again, I read this book and I signed up. In this last weekend I went to a three day no, excuse me, a four day men's retreat here in Ohio that was basically based around this book and it was amazing. It was an awesome time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved every second of it. It was a great blessing and I definitely want to go back and do some of the other ones that they have as well, but it was a great time to get away and really start to focus on restoring the heart.

Speaker 1: 3:50

And this world is nutty. Okay, it is crazy. You don't have to look hard to find out what's going on in the world. Hop on social media.

Speaker 1: 3:58

The information that we have in today's culture and world is we get information at a lightning pace. It's like something happens on the other side of the world, and immediately we get a ding on our phone about what it's all about, and we know things that are going on the other side of the world in a heartbeat. And when you bombard your mind with all of that kind of information, it will affect your heart. It makes you weary, it makes you. We just went through an election. We have half the country is jubilant, half the country is depressed. So when it gets right down to it, what side are you going to choose? All I know is I want joy, I want to be able to live my life, regardless of who the president is, and I know for me, if I can stay focused on him, I'm going to have that peace, and so God is always looking at the heart. God wants the heart.

Speaker 1: 4:59

There's a verse in the Old Testament that says man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart, so man is always looking on the outside. What are you doing? What actions have you taken? How you look, how you act, the things you do, the things you don't do, all those things Men is looking at that. God is looking at your heart, though, and the heart is really the most important part of what we're looking at and speaking to my entrepreneur friends, one of the most important things when it comes to being an entrepreneur is I see a question here from Robin I want God to take control over my business. How do I give it up, full control of it and still take action? Look, I'll tell you right now for me, one of the things that is so important for me, and I know when I do this and when I don't. I know that if I don't spend every day with some time with God, I feel it. I feel it Every day.

Speaker 1: 6:03

I've gotten in the habit of I'm here in my basement, which is my office Also, I have a couch over here, and every morning I've been building the habit of before I even hop on my computer right here, I sit there and I go through the Bible. I listen to and I read the Proverbs. I like to read other sections of the Bible. I've been going through a lot of the words of Jesus lately, and there is a prayer specifically that I've been really going through every single day. That has helped me, and it's helped me to turn my heart more toward God. It's a daily battle, it's not like a one-time thing.

Speaker 1: 6:42

So to answer that question, part of giving God over your business isn't necessarily like it's not surrendering your ideas. Let me rephrase that it's not surrendering all the work that you do, because your goal is to use the talents that God's given you, because he's given us all talents and things that we excel at. But it's using that and when you take actions, also start asking God for the guidance in order to do that, and you can do that by praying. Now I will tell you, I have never been like a huge, strong prayer or a prayer warrior. I'm really working hard to change that. That has been something that I have not always been strong at. But I will tell you, the more time I spend asking God to help me, to guide me, to help me see the decisions that I need to make in my business, the more I get answers. So how do you surrender it to him? Spend time with him every day. Make sure that you don't let that get stolen from you. Now, a couple of days ago, I had a busy morning and I got up a little later than I normally do and I found myself getting busy in the things of life and I did not spend my time on the couch doing my prayer, doing the things that I know I needed to do, and I felt it during the day. I just felt it. I didn't feel like I had filled my cup yet and that affected me that day. And so, in order to surrender to God, it means spending time with him, reading the Bible, reading the scriptures, even if you don't think you understand it or you don't get it.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Read a version of the Bible, that a newer version of the Bible, and there's a lot of debate about what versions are good and bad. I got news for you. They all got errors in them. Just pick one and read it and let God speak to you. Okay, I'm not suggesting that it's not important to understand verses, it's not important, I'm not suggesting that at all and not to study it more in depth. I like to have a reading Bible where it's just a reading version. I'm a big fan of the English standard version, the ESV. I like to just sit and read and go through it.

Speaker 1: 9:03

I also am a big audio learner. I love to listen to the audio Bible. I found a really cool app lately called Dwell D-W-E-L-L. I got that. It's 40 bucks a year. They have daily devotionals, they have audio readings of the Bible. So I'm doing a plan every day.

Speaker 1: 9:21

I've been listening to the audio of a book in Proverbs every single day. My goal is to listen to Proverbs every single day. It's the book of wisdom, and every day we need wisdom. Just cycle through that book over and over and over and over again and that has been a huge help for me. So that is an important part of setting your heart toward God. It's very important to do that, and for entrepreneurs it's even more important, because I don't want to be making the decisions all the time. I want God to be able to guide me and show me what it is that I really need to be doing and which steps that I need to take. And I'm just learning to do that more and more. I'm not perfect at it, but I'm trying, and I do want to share some verses with you here, just to make it official, but here's some verses that I pulled up Proverbs 4, 23,.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flows, flow, the springs of life. So the heart we're to keep our heart with all diligence. This is what the Bible says vigilance, diligent diligence. There's different translations, but our heart is so important and we're to keep that heart. We're to guard our heart Now, not guarded in the sense that we want to keep people out. We want to guard it from what we allow into our heart. So part of that is also being very careful about what we let into our mind, because what we let into our mind eventually makes its way to the heart. So we have to be very careful about what we're filling our heads with, because we're. We have to be careful because out of the heart flows everything we do in life. This is why it's so important that when you are in business, it's very important to understand the purpose of the heart, because what we fill the heart with eventually comes out and it shows in pretty much everything we do. It shows when you show up on a video to create for your business. It shows when you write an on a video to create for your business. It shows when you write an email to your email list. It shows when you post a curiosity post on Facebook to try to drum up people or prospecting or whatever in your bid drum up leads for your business. It shows up in every single way that you do it. So it's very important that we fill our heads every single day.

Speaker 1: 11:47

Now, I am a big proponent of personal development books. Also, I love books, I love, I love personal development. Okay, I believe personal development books can give you insight and expand your awareness on biblical principle, but I always take those books and filter it through the Bible first. That's just that's me. That's how I do it. If you're not a faith-based person and you want to do it differently, go for it. It's your life. You can do it however you want.

Speaker 1: 12:20

For me, as a faith-based person, I always filter what I read in a personal development book through the scripture, and I've seen plenty of things that I know don't line up with the Bible, and I'm going to stick with what God says because I believe the creator of the universe, the heavens and the earth has way more insight than I do or any other person. So, for me, I get great information from personal development books, but I use the Bible to filter it so that whatever goes into my heart, the heart, the believing seed of my heart, like where the heart is when, the things that you're passionate about, the things that you absolutely love, if you're super passionate about health and wellness. If you're super passionate about that, it's because God gave you that passion. He gave you that ability to be passionate about that, okay, and he wants you to walk in that. He wants you to be super focused on the things that you have a passionate about. There's other people that they want to be healthy, but they're not super passionate about that topic, and that's okay. But maybe they're passionate about something else. So they step into that because God is the one that gave that to them and put that in their heart and that's where their abilities and the things that they do, that's where they live from. So nurture that heart and you'll really be stepping into what you're supposed to and what God has done for you.

Speaker 1: 13:54

Let me give you another couple of these. Psalm 5110, create in me a clean heart, o God, and renew a right spirit within me. So how do we get a clean heart? Okay, same thing I just said a minute ago you have to spend time with God and you have to fill your mind with the things of God. A lot of people they're like how do I hear from God? How do I hear from God? I want to hear from God more the best way for you to hear from God, first and foremost, is to pick up a Bible and start reading. That's the best way to hear and guess what. God will give you additional insights and bring things from the scripture to mind when you need it. That's one of the greatest ways that you can learn to hear from God. Just start reading. It's the greatest personal development book ever created. It's the number one selling book in all the world. It's probably worth looking into.

Speaker 1: 14:58

I'm just saying All right, ezekiel 36, 26. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Only God can truly soften a person's heart. Only God. I've seen it. A heart of stone, that's a hard heart. That's somebody who's it's a what's up, nicole, good to see you. What's up, guys? But ultimately it's God that can soften the heart and he, because he knows our innermost thoughts, he knows that he knows the things we need in life more than we need our, more than we know ourselves, and that's so important to him and he wants to be that for you. But he will soften your heart and give you a heart of flesh so that you can live from the heart. That's really, ultimately what we want.

Speaker 1: 15:53

And I, this men's retreat weekend. I was just at last weekend. Man, I saw some big, burly dudes there, but man, I could see they were living out of their heart. They just wore their heart on their sleeve. And there's this one dude. He was a big boy, his name was Solomon, big boy, but man, I'll tell you what a great dude, what a great guy, just a big guy, but man. And one of those guys. You look at him you're like whoa, I don't want to cross him, but he was great, he was awesome. And so you really get to see that.

Speaker 1: 16:25

And never judge a book by its cover is the point of that one. Let's see here Proverbs 3.5, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. So when you trust in God with all your heart, that means that is the ability to be able to push all fear, anxiety, doubt, worry, all those things, to push them aside and say, god, look, I don't have all the answers. All I know is I'm going to keep doing what I know to do best and I'm going to let you bring the results. And I find that when I shift my brain and shift my heart and posture my heart in that way brain and shift my heart and posture my heart in that way what I find is that God always comes through in a bigger way than I could have imagined, and so I believe that is one of the ways that we can do that is, we do our best.

Speaker 1: 17:17

Remember God gave you, he gave you all these abilities. He put these talents within you and you all have, we all have talents, every one of us. God gave us talents in our lives the ability to do certain things that will bring him glory, and that's ultimately what it comes down to. God gives those to us. So when we step into those things that we're passionate about and that we love, just know that you're doing those things that please God. Okay, and that's the important thing, step into your talents. If you're really good at health and wellness, then man, dive full into it. Share the information you get with people, let that passion show and let it come from the heart and it'll have an impact. Let's see Psalm 37, 4,. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So this is a huge one.

Speaker 1: 18:14

A lot of people ask a lot of times like how do I get an answer to prayer? And there is I don't know the verse right off the top of my head, but there's a verse that says the Bible says when we pray according to his will, if we pray according to his will, so the first part is if we pray according to his will. So the question is how do we know his will? Go back to the scripture. Go back to the Bible. The Bible is also the will of God. Go back to the scripture. Go back to the Bible. The Bible is also the will of God. If we pray according to his will, he hears us. That is a really profound verse. I don't know what I'm thinking of, it off the top of my head, but that's a very profound verse. If we pray according to his will, he hears us, and so that's a big. That's a big one. That's a big deal to think about. But in this verse it says delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. So the desires of your heart, if they are in alignment with God's, will guess what. He hears you and he will answer. And that's pretty awesome. I love that.

Speaker 1: 19:26

Psalm 73, 26, the Psalms and the Proverbs. There's so much about the heart and Psalms and Proverbs so much. That's why those books are so important to read continually, like never stop reading them. They're that important. But listen to this one Psalm 73, 26,. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So my flesh and my heart may fail, and they will. Our heart and our flesh, they will fail, but God is the strength of my heart and that my portion, forever. So just remember, you don't have to be perfect. God is not asking you to be perfect. He's asking you to try, but he knows you're never going to get there. He is asking you to try to do your best. But the important thing is that when we recognize that we are not perfect when we are, we're going to make mistakes All God says is hey, just move forward, repent, ask for forgiveness and just don't try not to do it again. Ultimately, that's really what it comes down to.

Speaker 1: 20:32

I like when my daughter was growing up as a dad um, growing up my daughter there were times she did things that we didn't like and we would say hey, honey, look, here's what, why you shouldn't do that, and here's what you should do. And it would be like she'd say, sorry daddy, and then maybe a week or two later, she'd do it again Sorry daddy, sorry daddy. And it was like that's okay, I still love you. I never stopped loving her. It's so important. Our flesh and our heart will fail, but God is our strength.

Speaker 1: 21:04

All right, so let me look at a couple of verses here too. Matthew 5, 8, just as Jesus, blessed are the pure in spirit, for they shall see God. And that's such a big one. Let me read another one here. The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good, and the evil person, out of the evil treasure, produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

Speaker 1: 21:32

This verse is so crucially key to understanding the heart, I believe. So the good person, in other words, like none of us are good, so to speak, without Jesus. We need Jesus, that's for sure. But here's the thing. What it's getting at, if I take this verse and I break it down, is that the things we fill our head with okay, the things you fill your head with make its way down to the heart, which is. It becomes the center of who you are and what you believe. So it's very important that what we listen to and what we feed our brain with because the more we listen to it, the more we take it in, the more it becomes a part of the believing part of our life. So it proceeds out of our heart and what happens is what this verse is saying is for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This is why what we put into our heart, eventually it makes it from the brain down to the heart and then out the mouth.

Speaker 1: 22:38

So if you want to know where your heart is, what are you talking about every single day? Are you totally enamored by politics? All the time, all you're talking about is politics, this and this. Maybe you should spend a little less time in that and actually go spend a little time with God. So that I'm not suggesting not talking about politics Okay, that's fine, know the time, the place, whatever but we also do need to spend time with God so that the idea of the things that are going on in the world are not consuming us to the point where God can't get in there, because if all we're doing is filling our head with all the negativity that's going on in the world. Guess what's going to happen. What, eventually, is going to come out your mouth? The negativity of the world period. And that's how it works. It goes from here to here. It's that simple.

Speaker 1: 23:34

James 4.8, and we'll get ready to finish up here. And the peace of God. No, excuse me, wrong one James 4.8, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded. So it's a little bit of a little confrontation. But when you recognize the heart of God, it's draw near to God. He's saying draw near to him. When you recognize the heart of God, it's draw near to God. He's saying draw near to him and you won't be so double-minded. Your life will have so much more stability. Really cleanse your hands. I'd love to study that a little more and see what hands means in the Bible. That'd be a great thing to understand. That's really what it is. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. So if you really want to surrender your business, if you really want to know God, what he wants for your life, draw near to him.

Speaker 1: 24:26

Open up your Bible, read it, get in there, check it out, really work to spend time with him. Let him speak to you. One of the key things is in the Bible Jesus oftentimes in the morning, in the early part of the morning, he would go off and be by himself and that's what he would do. He would spend time with the father. So that was that is a key thing there. If we're not doing that, get up an hour earlier.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Maybe, if it works better for you at night in bed, do it at night in bed, find I get I'm more focused in the morning. At night when I lay my head down I'm pretty tired. But anyway, the heart, the significance of the heart, is so important. If you really want to see some verses and really understand that more, just go to the Bible and search up some ways to understand the heart. But I'm telling you, the significance of the heart is so important to everything we do and for us entrepreneurs, everything we do, because the Bible says that out of the heart are the issues of life. Everything flows out from the heart. So if we don't fix the heart, we're not going to show up in our business in a way. That is the best, that will bring the greatest impact.