SAFE GUARD YOU HEART: Maintaining A Pure Heart

Glory Givers

SUP With Me: Words of Inspiration

SAFE GUARD YOU HEART: Maintaining A Pure Heart

As a short recap of last week, we briefly discussed the dangers of impurities and the affects it can have on us spiritually if we do not safe guard our hearts. This week we would like to delve deeper into this understanding of how we are susceptible to temptation, but able to combat it with the word of God. This is a topic Glory Givers often speaks and writes about, and we desire to revisit this topic once more with more emphasis on Jesus’ experience in the wilderness. Let us all open our hearts as the Lord, through His spirit, guides us through His journey and victory of temptation. Enjoy!  

God’s desire for us as His children and people is to follow Him. In order to do this, we must be pure in heart, which is impossible to be without the divine intervention of Jesus Christ the refiner and purifier Himself!  

The purpose of this message today, is to encourage us that because Jesus did it, we can too. It is through His spirit that we are empowered to live a life pleasing to God in Holiness and Righteousness, not by force, but by personal choice. 

Diving In – Luke 4:1-13 will be our focus. This story may be new to some and familiar to others, nevertheless all of God’s word is profitable for us all! So let’s go!  

Jesus full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan where He had just been baptized by his cousin John the Baptist. (Luke 3:21-22) After being baptized, Jesus was praying and the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Following this Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit where He would be tempted for forty days by the devil. During this time, He ate nothing and the devil, who had been patiently waiting, tempted Jesus in His hungry and physically vulnerable state.  

Luke 4:3-4 

³ Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread. ⁴ ” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’” In moments like these the devil is always lurking around patiently waiting to enter in.  

Luke 4:3-4

Thank God that Jesus was sober and vigilant! The devil began to speak many things to Jesus and for every word spoken opposite of God’s word, Jesus stated the truth of God’s living word. This required sobriety, vigilance and relationship. Jesus, the son of God, knew what the Father’s voice sounded like and He knew the word of God in His heart. This was Jesus’ way of escape from the temptation that the devil was presenting.  

We are never alone in the face of temptation, not even Jesus was forsaken in the wilderness where He was tempted. God never allows the temptation to make us fall, but it is in fact to exercise the belief and hope in Holy Spirit’s power working within us. Do not forget that Jesus was led into the wilderness by Holy Spirit, so where ever you go and whatever you face He is able to keep you from falling if you depend on Him over yourself. However, in Jesus’ wilderness moment, Satan saw the opportunity of vulnerability and went in for the grabs with deceit with cunning words and deception; his very tools of destruction.  

Be careful not to be driven by things or people because it will always come at a price you cannot afford to pay if you really weigh the cost. In other words, are you willing to lose your soul for what Satan has to offer? He presents his attach through vanity, lustful ways, material objects and opportunities that have a spiritual death sentence attached; all these subtle in nature.  

Let’s check it out in Luke 4: 5-7:  

“The devil led him (Jesus) up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him (Jesus), I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will be yours.” 

Jesus was our example and did what we must do in the face of temptation, which is speak God’s truth to safe guard our heart from deception. We must align every word of man, discern to the word of God and discern if it is true. Jesus replied Luke 4:8 “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ ” 

This further supports why God urges us to submit our heart and minds to Him so that He alone may lead us and reveal to us the truth by His spirit. 

We must know and refuse to neglect the fact that the devil tried Jesus, therefore he will try those that follow Jesus (which is us). When we look at Luke 4:13, we can see where the enemy is persistent with his job of seeking whom he can devour and he will patiently wait to try again if not successful the first time. (“When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.”) 

This walk with Jesus is not absent from tests and trials, but it is very present with them. However, the great part is that victory is possessed by those who choose to believe in Jesus. He made it through so that we can too! Now, we must know it will take a heart of devotion just like Jesus. He was devoted to following the Father’s will at all cost and we must commit our mind and heart to the same standard of living. We were created and fashioned in the image of our Creator; therefore, our heart was fashioned to be committed, loyal, devoted through obedience, love, faithfulness, integrity, perseverance, self-control, temperance, goodness, patience, kindness and peace. 

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”  

Galatians 5:24

We must write the word of the Lord on our heart and as we read it, allow His truth to penetrate our minds. For God’s word is everlasting and the only substance that will exist for ever.  

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.”  

Proverb 3:3

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” 

Psalm 119:11