Give your heart to God every day! Why not? He loves you! If you promise to love and serve Him, by His power, and ask Him to bless you in witnessing to others of His love, He will be happy with you! Even though we are cautioned by Jesus not to vow, because we cannot turn one hair of our head white or black, He is talking about any promises that we make in our own strength. “Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black.” Matthew 5:36 NASB. See also Ecclesiastes 5:4-5, and Deuteronomy 23:21. The key here is that we cannot keep an oath that we made ‘by our head,’ or by ourselves. But we can vow by the mighty power of God! “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,” Hebrews 6:13 NASB. See also Galatians 6:14, and 2 Corinthians 10:1.
Jesus also taught this vital truth that we should pray for God’s will, which implies it’s by His power, since He is God. Praying 'for God’s will to be done' is similar to when you make a vow to God, by His power, for things that are His will. Jesus taught this when He said, “Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’” Matthew 6:9-10 NASB. A prayer like this is a vow to let God’s will be done in your life by His power, as it is in Heaven, because when you pray like Jesus did in ‘the Lord’s Prayer’, as it is known, you are praying for God’s will to be done in your life. Now the Apostle Peter says, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 KJV. So if you pray for your own salvation, it is always God’s will! If your heart wants to make a vow to God to give your heart to Him completely by His power, this is always His will! He is unwilling that any should perish. This is the only way any of us can be saved, by His will and power. So it is clear, that you can give your heart to God, and ask Him to keep this vow by His mighty, unfailing power! If you pray according to God’s will, you are guaranteed that He will listen to your prayer and grant it to you. He is unwilling that any should perish! If you were never under any circumstances to make a vow to God, then Moses need not have said, “If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” Numbers 30:2 NASB, because Moses would have said, ‘do not make any vows, for they are all sin.’ But this is not the case!
Jesus is cautioning His people to not be quick to make a vow to God, because none of us have the ability to keep our vows! Only God can offer that kind of a rock-solid assurance, because only God cannot fail. We cannot fail, if we put our trust in God to help us keep our promise to be His peculiar treasure! Notice that in the original covenant between God and His people at Sinai, that He made a vow to His people that if they would obey His voice, that they would be His own peculiar treasure above all people, for all the earth is His. Exodus 19:5. Notice that God made no reference here to His people making a promise to Him, even though they did in Exodus 19:8, but the promise is in God’s power to save alone. He will help His people obey them, if they would only listen to Him and want to obey Him in all things, and keep their heart clean by confession. So when we make a vow to God by His power, we are really vowing what was already promised to us in Exodus 19:5, which is really God’s vow to make us His people!Some may say this vow by God was just for the Israelites, but Paul says, “And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29 KJV. So this promise in Exodus 19:5 is for Christians too!
When you make a vow like this to God, you must make sure that you don’t have any unconfessed sins in your heart, or the Lord will not hear your prayer! “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:” Psalm 66:18 KJV. If you are willingly turning away from hearing or wanting to do any of His commandments, God will not hear your prayers, for then they will be an abomination to Him, until you ask Him for forgiveness and repent. “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.” Proverbs 28:9 KJV. You cannot have this deep love for God and desire to serve Him all the way, if your heart is stained with iniquity that has not been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. But ‘if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 KJV. So there is no reason for anyone to have any stain of sin in their heart, for God has promised to forgive us all of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, if we would just confess them.
So you know now that it is God’s will for you to give your heart to Him! It’s what He’s been waiting for! But if you love Jesus and His Father, you can’t help but want make a vow to them. You have nothing to lose if you break your vow to Him, because you are lost without Him, and can do nothing without Him. But if God’s love is making you happy, why not commit your life to God all the way now? You can only promise your heart to God by His power, because none of us have this power within ourselves to keep our word. But God has the power to help you keep His word, so if you promise your heart to God by His power, you cannot ultimately fail, as long as you keep promising your heart to God by His power every day! His power will be in you a well of water springing up unto eternal life! John 4:14.
Why not promise your heart to God every day, by His power? Nothing can make your soul happier than doing this. If God’s love is in your heart, it will be your greatest desire to serve Him, and you won’t be able to help yourself! You will then be flooded with love, joy and peace!
Amen!
By John Foll.
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#Give #Heart #Every #Day #Happy #God #Jesus #Faith #Loves #You #Love #Sweet #Surrender #Commitment #Pray #Will #Be #Done #Promise #Vow #How #To #Happiness
Originally posted 2016-11-21 10:16:00.
Since faith is the depending upon the word of God only, for what that word says, being justified by faith is simply being accounted righteous by depending upon the word only. And since the word is the word of God, dependence upon the word only is dependence upon God only, in the word. Justification by faith, then, is justification -- being accounted righteous by dependence upon God only, and upon him only because he has promised.
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:39-40 NASB. “And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.’” John 6:65 NASB. Wow! It’s the Father’s will, if you will give your heart to Him, that He will give you to Jesus, and Jesus will raise you up on the last day! Whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life! How do you know that the Father has given or will give you to Jesus? If you behold Jesus and believe in Him, you will be given to Jesus as the text says, and He will raise you up on the last day. You cannot lose if you do this. How do we know this? Because Jesus said here that He will lose none of those who have been given to Him. The condition again? To behold Jesus, God’s Son, and believe in Him.
The Gifts of the Spirit are not gone from among those who have given themselves completely to God. For over 100 years, God’s church as a whole, not as individuals, has been in a lukewarm state as Jesus predicted it would be in Revelation 3:14-22, before the Judgement. To answer the question proposed on Disqus.com: ‘Did the gifts die with the Apostles?’ No! It should be clear to all that there is something wrong with a lot of God’s church today, since they are not bearing the Christian fruits of the Spirit of peace, love, joy, faith, hope, self-control, etc. How do we know this? By their fruits shall you know them. Matthew 7:16-20. There is unkindness, lack of love, lack of peace, addictions, falsehoods, worldliness, strife, and wickedness, yes, even among those professing to know God and His Son Jesus. But many seek to excuse themselves and there are many false teachers that teach people to excuse their lack of love and godliness in their life. Jesus clearly promised the Gift of the Holy Spirit to all of His disciples, which should be all Christians, since all Christians should want to be Jesus’ disciple, and they should all be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave no end date when the gifts should be taken back. If they really loved Jesus, they would be His disciple. Jesus never gave a date that these gifts should be gone from the church, but they are dependent on people in God's c
“At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him […]
"The tongue," says James, "is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell." James 3: 5, 6. This is said of an unsanctified tongue, and shows that though the tongue is a small member yet it exerts a mighty influence. It sustains a relation to and exerts an influence over the whole body. The tongue, as an instrument of speech, is one of those prerogatives which exalt man above the beast, and was designed by the Creator to express holy and virtuous thoughts. It is an index to the heart; "for out of the abundance of the heart," says our Saviour, "the mouth speaketh." Matt. 12:35 KJV. The use that is made of the tongue indicates the moral condition of the heart, and consequently the character of the whole man; and there are as many ways in which men sin with their tongues as there are in which they sin with their thoughts, tempers and actions.
Jesus said, “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.” Luke 6:40 NASB. Are you Jesus’ student? Have you been trained by Him? Are you still in training by Him? Be patient, if He is your teacher, and if you are a diligent student, you will be fully trained and will become like Him. He will take care of that for you, if you continue to let Him be your Master!
My prayer is that your love would abound more and more and that your love for God would grow stronger and stronger. God's love for you is the key on how you can have a happy life, full of love, joy and peace and hope for the future and have the faith to please Him. His love for you is the key on how you can give up destructive sinful habits, and treat others with love and kindness, and to love and forgive yourself. God will help you to gain the knowledge of the important matters in this life and to gain wisdom and discernment, in order to make the right decisions and choices in this life of perplexity and trouble.
How to keep the faith? The promises of God Are very important, Now I see!
"To HIM that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Rom. 4:5. This is the only way that anybody in this world can ever become righteous. But the truth is that everybody, in everything, has come short of being like God. Then, as there is not one on earth who is not ungodly, and as God justifies the ungodly, this on God's part makes justification -- righteousness, salvation -- full, free, and sure to every soul on earth.