Freedom နမူနာ

Day Two - The Little Things

‘Ships don’t sink because of the water around them, but the water that gets into them’.

It’s the little holes in our boats that end up sinking us. The same can be true of our lives, it’s the little things that weigh us down & threaten to sink us. 

The Bible teaches us that above all else we must guard our hearts. The most important thing for our freedom is the state of our hearts – what flows in and what comes out. God is looking at the state of our hearts, and his desire is that we would have a heart that is free.

Today, let’s do some heart maintenance. Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate things in our hearts that needs to be removed, things that are blocking us and keeping us bound rather than free. 

This passage in Proverbs 4 gives us a pathway to keep our hearts free from blockage.  

1. Our Words:

‘Keep your mouth free from perversity & keep corrupt talk far from your lips’

Our words shape our world. Jesus said in Luke 6:45 that ‘what you say flows from what is in your heart.’

The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. What direction are you going? Are you declaring good things? Are you blessing your life, speaking words of faith over your future and your children’s future? Or are you prone to saying negative things?

Maybe you’ve had people speak negative, destructive words over you. We can break the power of negative words and negative speech by choosing to believe the truth of God’s word, to declare what God says about us – we can reverse any curse spoken over us. 

2. Our Eyes 

‘Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.’

What we are looking at and fixing our attention on affects our soul. Evil thoughts come from a person’s heart, and if we are not paying attention to what we are letting into our lives, through our eyes, this will affect what comes out of our heart. 

What’s in your heart is everything that you’ve allowed in you – all the movies, the stuff, the Netflix, the music, all the content you’ve consumed online – all these things become an issue for your life. 

A great prayer to pray over your life as you do some heart maintenance today is Psalm 139:23-24 ‘Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.’

3. Our Habits

‘Pay careful attention to your steps, be steadfast in all your ways.’

What habits are leading you in the wrong direction? Are there any that are leading you away from Jesus? 

Sin can be like a little monster in our cupboard – it seems cute to start, but you start feeding it and it gets bigger and bigger until one day you realise you have a BIG UGLY HAIRY MONSTER in your cupboard, and you can’t seem to shut the door. 

Living in freedom means it’s time to stop feeding the monsters – it’s time to break the unhealthy habits and the addictions in our lives. 

The first step to breaking that habit is not necessarily to start behaving correctly but start believing correctly. Let’s start to believe the truth of who God says we are, let’s cleanse out the junk in our world and fill ourselves with God’s Word. 

As you read these key verses today, ask the Holy Spirit to put his finger on any areas in either your words, your eyes or your habits that might be blocking you and stopping you from living in the freedom Jesus has for you.