Reflecting God - Embrace Holy Living - The Nazarene Publishing House [The Foundry Publishing House] in Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene "Matters of the Heart" by Norma Lee Hyde for Monday, 26 June 2017 - Matthew 6:19-34

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"Matters of the Heart" by Norma Lee Hyde for Monday, 26 June 2017 - Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves wealth here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up for yourselves wealth in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and burglars do not break in or steal. 21 For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also. 22 ‘The eye is the lamp of the body.’ So if you have a ‘good eye’ [that is, if you are generous] your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if you have an ‘evil eye’ [if you are stingy] your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first. You can’t be a slave to both God and money. 25 “Therefore, I tell you, don’t worry about your life — what you will eat or drink; or about your body — what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds flying about! They neither plant nor harvest, nor do they gather food into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they are? 27 Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why be anxious about clothing? Think about the fields of wild irises, and how they grow. They neither work nor spin thread, 29 yet I tell you that not even Shlomo in all his glory was clothed as beautifully as one of these. 30 If this is how God clothes grass in the field — which is here today and gone tomorrow, thrown in an oven — won’t he much more clothe you? What little trust you have! 31 “So don’t be anxious, asking, ‘What will we eat?,’ ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘How will we be clothed?’ 32 For it is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. 33 But seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Don’t worry about tomorrow — tomorrow will worry about itself! Today has enough tsuris already! ------- “Seek first God’s kingdom.” This is the heart of the Sermon on the Mount; it draws us deeply into Jesus’ intensive instruction of His disciples, His concern for them and, by extension, for us. There on the mountainside, His voice carried to those who were waiting attentively to hear His spoken Word, as He taught them the essentials of life lived in simplicity, sincerity, and singleness of heart. In The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a’ Kempis wrote, “We must diligently search into, and set in order both the outward and inward man, because both of them are of importance to our progress in godliness.” This is true for us as well. Our need is to find that quiet place with Jesus, the place of the heart, whereby we can find that beautiful singleness of devotion leading us into God's glorious light. It is there that we will be in the presence of our Lord and Savior, as He teaches us His ways. Psalm 32:8 speaks clearly into our souls: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” -------

"Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart" by George Croly
1. Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart, 
wean it from sin, through all its pulses move. 
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as you are, 
and make me love you as I ought to love. 
2. I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, 
no sudden rending of the veil of clay, 
no angel visitant, no opening skies; 
but take the dimness of my soul away. 
3. Did you not bid us love you, God and King, 
love you with all our heart and strength and mind? 
I see the cross there teach my heart to cling. 
O let me seek you and O let me find! 
4. Teach me to feel that you are always nigh; 
teach me the struggles of the soul to bear, 
to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; 
teach me the patience of unceasing prayer. 
5. Teach me to love you as your angels love, 
one holy passion filling all my frame: 
the fullness of the heaven-descended Dove; 

my heart an altar, and your love the flame. 
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Thought for Today:
Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love.[1 John 4:8]
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Please pray:
For the development of Christian leaders in Ghana.
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