GET
TO THE ROOT OF THE ROT
BREAD
9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who
can understand it?
10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)
10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 (NIV)
20 My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my
words. 21 Do not let them out of
your sight, keep them within your heart; 22 for
they are life to those who find them and health to a man's whole body. 23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is
the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:20-23 (NIV)
26 Therefore I do not run like a man running
aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my
slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be
disqualified for the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 (NIV)
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of
the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But
his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He
is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and
whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm
1:1-3 (NIV)
3 “Why do you look at
the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in
your own eye? 4 How can you say to your
brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a
plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take
the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the
speck from your brother's eye.” Matthew 7:3-5
(NIV)
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees,
you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are
full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind
Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also
will be clean. 27 Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are
full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on
the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of
hypocrisy and wickedness.” Matthew 23:25-28 (NIV)
30 A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the
bones. Proverbs 14:30 (NIV)
33 “Make
a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will
be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything
good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good man brings good things out of
the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil
stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day
of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted,
and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:33-37
(NIV)
18 “Listen
then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not
understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is
the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since he has no root, he lasts
only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he
quickly falls away. 22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is
the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness
of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
23 But the one who received the seed that
fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces
a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Matthew
13:18-23 (NIV)
7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. 8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that
sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves
are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to
bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NIV)
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Christians
are rapidly losing sight of sin as the root of all human woes. And many
Christians are explicitly denying that their own sin can be the cause of
personal anguish. More and more are attempting to explain the human dilemma in
wholly unbiblical terms: temperament, addiction, dysfunctional families, the
child within, codependency, and a host of other irresponsible escape mechanisms
promoted by secular psychology. The potential impact of such a drift is
frightening. Remove the reality of sin, and you take away the possibility of
repentance. Abolish the doctrine of human depravity and you void the divine plan
of salvation. Erase the notion of personal guilt and you eliminate the need for
a Savior.” John
MacArthur
“The conviction of
the Holy Spirit is always precise: He
identifies root causes of sin, and He moves the heart to specific acts of
repentance and obedience. All those who
trust God sufficiently to desire to obey Him, and who are patient in waiting
upon Him, will find unfailingly that HE gives clear guidance. ‘In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will
direct your paths’, promises Proverbs 3:6.
For those who love God everything is aboveboard. To know Him is to know what He requires and
more than that, it is to have the power to carry it out. In fact these two—enlightenment and
empowering—go hand in hand, and where they do not, then the Lord is not in it.” Mike
Mason
“Moralism, whether
it takes the form of denunciation or pep talks, can ultimately only create
awareness of sin and guilt or manufactured virtues built on will power. A ministry which leads to genuine
sanctification and growth, on the other hand, avoids moralism, first by making
clear the deep rootage of sin-problems in the flesh so that the congregation is
not battling these in the dark, and then by showing that every victory over the
flesh is won by faith in Christ, laying hold of union with Him in death and
resurrection and relying on His Spirit for the power over sin. Presented in this context, even the demand
for sanctification becomes part of the Good News…Ministries which attack only
the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer’s union
with Christ produces either self-righteousness or despair, and both of these
conditions are inimical to spiritual life.”
Richard Lovelace
“Since we are made
to worship, we are always centering our lives on something whether we realize
it or not. It is like a fire hose that
is stuck in the ‘on’ position and shooting water out endlessly with great force.
We must decide where we aim the hose as the focus of our worship. The idols of
our modern world are not necessarily the hand-carved statues of the ancient
world. In our autonomous self-seeking
ways, people have instead come to serve or worship the self-erected idols of
approval, comfort, and security. We must
ruthlessly inspect the sin in our heart for these idols… so it is vital that
[we] get to the heart. As Tim Keller puts it, ‘The solution to our sin problem
is not simply to change our behavior, but to reorient and center our entire
heart and life on God.’ Therefore, we
must go after the nature of the sin by going after its root and not just the
fruit of the sin. Oftentimes people repent of sin that is simply the fruit of
the idols in their hearts. We must find out the why of the behavior and not
just the what”.
Tom
Wood & Scott Thomas
“Want of
trust is at the root of almost all our sins and all our weaknesses, and how
shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness. The man who holds God’s faithfulness will not
be foolhardy or reckless, but will be ready for every emergency.” Hudson Taylor
“Luther was right: the root behind all
other manifestations of sin is compulsive unbelief—our voluntary darkness
concerning God, ourselves, his relationship to the fallen world and his
redemption purpose… If the fall occurred through embracing lies, the recovery
process of salvation must center on faith in truth, reversing this condition.” Richard
Lovelace
“Many
aspects of the flesh are disarmed and eliminated by a deep apprehension of our
justification by faith. Faith in Christ cures unbelief, anxiety, and
insecurity, and in so doing it cuts the roots of envy, jealousy and a host of
related egocentric fleshly patterns.” Richard
Lovelace
HEART
SAVOR
- · Through the power of the Holy Spirit I am to guard my heart with all diligence seeking to root up that which leads to rot (death).
- · My heart will deceive me. I am easily deluded. I must trust in the One who will lead me. Who will never leave me nor forsake me. My confidence is to be in Him. He leads me by streams of living water.
- · The life that produces fruit that will last is one that hears and heeds God’s Word.
