Day 1 — Getting Your Heart Right

Whenever we go out to do something, we have to prepare ourselves. It may be a simple preparation, or in-depth preparation, but preparation nonetheless. We are preparing to go fish. But we aren’t just line fishing, we’re setting out on a journey that’s more akin to fly fishing. We have a specific goal and target: disciples. We are fishing for disciples. So we got to get our tools, minds, and hearts straight.

The theme for week one is making disciples and a right theology produces good practice. What does this mean to you? A central theme to this is to examine our heart. Read 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and focus on verse 2. The verse speaks about becoming an epistle. An epistle is a letter sent to a group of people to encourage them in the Lord. How does this chapter speak to a right theology and making disciples?

God Desires to Write Upon Your Heart

• This word is a living word, and isn’t meant to be idle words of ink on paper. The word becomes alive in your testimony as God’s Spirit works in and through your life, sometimes miraculously.
• God does this for two reasons: the first is because of his promise to redeem and restore us, the second is so we may be a witness of the power of his cross to those we interact with daily.

Sow a Character, Reap a Destiny

• Stan Gleason says in his book “Follow to Lead,” “’when we sow a thought we reap a behavior, when we sow a character we reap a destiny.’ A blessed destiny begins with a biblically correct thought.”
• How we think about God is important. It is not a matter of splitting hairs or “semantics.” If we only think of prayer as transactional, “God I need you to take care of my need and I’ll worship you more,” then we are essentially in a pagan relationship with God.
• If we are in a faith-relationship with God, he takes care of our needs out of love. Incorrect thinking of God and our relationship to and with him will create unhealthy actions. Correct thinking of God creates healthy relationship and action.  Over the next few months we are going to challenge and push each other in our thinking in radical new ways so that we become the living word and our testimony becomes as an epistle to others.

Consider the following and write it down in your prayer journals

• What is the driving force of your thoughts and how are they moving to your heart, actions and character?  Are they moving you to share the witness of your testimony?
• On a scale of 1-10 how much have you allowed God to write upon your heart? What would need to happen in your life in order to bring that to a 9 or 10?
• On a scale of 1-10 how much are you allowing God to use your testimony as an epistle to others? What would you need to do in your life in order to increase that to a 9 or 10?

Biblical Devotion

2 Corinthians 3:1-18  Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?  (2)  Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:  (3)  Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.  (4)  And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:  (5)  Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;  (6)  Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.  (7)  But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:  (8)  How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?  (9)  For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.  (10)  For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.  (11)  For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.  (12)  Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:  (13)  And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:  (14)  But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.  (15)  But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.  (16)  Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.  (17)  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  (18)  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Proverbs 7:1-3  My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with you.  (2)  Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.  (3)  Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. (Deut. 6:8, Prov. 6:21)

Proverbs 3:1-7  My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:  (2)  For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to you.  (3)  Let not mercy and truth forsake you: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:  (4)  So shalt you find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.  (5)  Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  (6)  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  (7)  Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.

Romans 8:5-6  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  (6)  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.