Transcription
Hey, what's up YouTube family? It's Pastor KJ from Radiant Church, and I'm so excited for you to join us for today's sermon. We have such a powerful sermon and story. I believe it's going to strengthen you, challenge you, and encourage you. So get ready for this message.
Also, share this message with friends, family members, co-workers, everyone you know. I believe it would change their life. Get ready to jump into the word of God with us today. The title of my message is "Guard Your Heart." And I would say it this way: Guard your heart because your life depends on it. Guard your heart because your life depends on it. The most important thing you can do in this world is guard your heart. And I'm going to answer a couple questions today. The first big question I want to answer is, what is your heart? Then I want to answer, how do you guard it?
Guard your heart. But I got a question for you, Church. What kind of heart do you have? What kind of heart do you have? Do you have a problematic heart? Do you have a traumatic heart? Do you have a toxic heart, a bitter heart, a fearful heart, an unforgiving heart? Or do you have a heart of love, joy, peace? What kind of heart do you have? And if you don't have the kind of heart you want, it's because you haven't guarded it. Guard your heart. It's one of the most important things you can do. It's one of the most extravagant things you can do. And you have to guard it from everything. Your five senses is what the enemy uses to get inside of your heart. He's using your ears because he's giving you music. He's saying you hear things. He's putting you in rooms hearing conversations that's polluting your heart. You can't let anything in your ears. You have to guard your heart. You can't let anything before your eyes. Some of you guys are watching videos and funny reels and Facebook and Instagram stuff. You got to shut that thing down. You have to guard your heart.
How did God tell me? He said, "Pastor, I'm struggling watching porn." I say, "Really easy. What are you watching it on?" He said, "My phone." I said, "Throw it away." He said, "I can't throw my phone away." I said, "Why not?" Mankind has lived thousands of years without a phone. You don't need one because your phone ain't worth your soul. It's not worth your soul. You have to do whatever you have to do to get free. And if you keep watching things you shouldn't watch, you don't need a phone, you don't need TV, you don't need internet. Well, that's extreme. Sometimes you got to get extreme to get extremely free. Guard your heart.
So I'm careful about the environments I go. Well, I'm just going to the brother drink of friends. I can't go. I gotta guard my heart. I can't listen to that. I got to guard my heart. Can't be around those circles. I have to guard my heart because God didn't say he gonna guard your heart for you. You have to guard your heart.
And the reason why growing your heart is so important is because when God is anointing, when he's choosing, and when God is electing people, the Bible says, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the God looks at the heart." When God is picking his soldiers, he looks at the heart. When God is building his army, he looks at the heart. When God is anointing against people, he looks at the heart. When God is calling his people, he looks at the heart. When God looks at your heart, what does he see? Does he see freedom or does he see bondage? Does he see faith or does he see fear? Does he see doubt and worry or does he see breakthrough and love? What does he see?
And some of the worst advice you can ever get, and we all got it, is that's the dumbest thing someone could ever tell you because some of you guys followed your heart into an abusive relationship. Some of y'all followed your heart into drug addiction. You followed your heart out of the will of God into the world, worshiping idols and false gods. The worst thing you can do is follow your heart. And I would say, don't follow your heart until you inform your heart. Don't follow your heart until you feed your heart. Don't follow your heart until you fill your heart with God's word. It's about advice to follow your heart because your heart can lead you astray. Don't follow it unless it follows God. Let me say it again: Don't follow it unless it follows God. Come on, give us King a shot of praise right there!
If you have your Bibles, go to Proverbs chapter 27, verse 19. And it says, "As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart." As water reflects the face, so one's life reflects the heart. Let me explain this. Solomon is saying that if you want to see your face, see some of you guys are 50, 60, 20, 30, 10, 15. I don't know how old you are, but I know something. You've never saw your face as long as you've been on this planet. We've all seen your face. You've never saw your face before. You never saw you. You can see everyone but yourself. And back before there was mirrors, what you would have to do is go to clear water and you will look into the water to see a reflection of your face. If you wanted to know what your face looked like, you had to look into the water. And Solomon is saying it's the same with your heart. You've never seen your heart. You can't see inside your heart. You can't see inside your soul. If you want to know what your heart looks like, you have to see what your life looks like because your life reflects your heart. In other words, if you have a bitter life, you have a bitter heart. If you have a hateful life, you have a hateful heart. If you have a mean life, you have a mean heart. If you have an anxious life, you have an anxious heart. If you want to see what your heart looks like, see what your life looks like. In other words, you can't decide what kind of person you are. Your heart decides what kind of person you are. You can't say that you are full of God with a life that's full of sin. You can't say you're full of faith with a life with a heart that's full of doubt. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because whatever your life is, that's what your heart is. Your heart and your life are linked. Which means if I want to know the condition of my heart, I only have to look at the condition of my life. If my life is in disarray, so is my heart. If my life is always frustrated, towards my heart. If my life was full of trauma, so as my heart. If I'm walking around, I'm mad, and I'm frustrated, and I'm angry, and I'm bitter in my life, it's because I'm like that in my heart. So there's a relationship between your heart and your life.
And the Bible even says it this way: The Bible says, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." In other words, the Bible is saying whatever you're overflowing in in your heart will spill out of your mouth. Whatever you're overflowing in in your heart will spill out of your mouth. If you want to know what's in your heart, listen to what's on your mouth because your mouth and your heart is closely related. So out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, I actually had this quote on my wall and when I first got saved, and this quote changed my life. It says, "As a man speaks, so he thinks. As a man thinks, so is he." As a man speaks, so he thinks. As a man thinks, so is he. What does that mean? That means if you listen to a person speaking, you can locate their thinking because your thinking is indicative of your speaking. In other words, if you speak negative, you think negative. And if you think negative, you are negative. If you speak bitterness, you think bitterness. And if you think bitterness, you are bitterness. So I don't understand why you're so confused. Some of you guys are dating people and I didn't know he was. I didn't know he wasn't a man of God. How not? He said he wasn't a man of God with what he watched, with where he went, with what he listened to, with what came out of his mouth. But the reason you can identify he wasn't a man of God is because you was listening with ears of desperation instead of ears of discernment. See, the sermon would have told you that. No, no, no. He said what he meant. But because you were so desperate, you cut off discernment. And you have to listen to a person because if I know what you say, I know who you are. Because as you speak, you think, and as you think, so is you. To the point where Jesus said, "What goes into a man's mouth doesn't defile him. What comes out of a man's mouth defiles him." What's coming out of your mouth, Radiant Church? What are you saying? Are some of you guys using profanity? Are you using cuss words? Are you cursing? Are you blessing those babies? Are you cursing those babies? What are you speaking? Because what you're speaking is an indicator of what you're thinking. And what you're thinking is an indicator of who you are. Be careful when you speak. Be careful when you speak because when you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are. When you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are. That's why the Bible says, "Even a fool can appear wise when they're quiet." Because when you start talking, we know who you are. Be careful what you say. Be careful what you speak because what comes out of you defiles you. Because what comes out of your mouth came from your heart. Oh, come on, somebody.
So the Bible says, the Bible says, "As a man thinking in his heart, so is he." See, I used to think the Bible says, "As a man thinks, so is he." It says, "As a man thinks in his heart." In other words, you are what you think in your heart. But here's why you can't understand this: is because you thought you think with your mind. I got news for you. Your heart thinks too. Your heart thinks too. But here's the problem: your mind gets to decide what it thinks. Your heart doesn't. Your heart thinks whatever the mind told it to. And before I can tell you what your heart is, I first have to tell you what your mind is. So I'm gonna break this down. Can I break this down? Okay. I'm gonna break this word down. We finna cut. We finna cut deep. You're going to walk out and understanding that we're gonna break it down.
The first thing, what is the mind? When the Bible refers to the mind, it refers to the conscious mind. Everyone say, "The conscious mind." What is the conscious mind? The conscious mind is your aware mind. It's your alert mind. So your conscious mind is what you're listening to me with right now. And so where is conscious? It knows what's going on. That's your conscious mind. It's your aware mind. Your subconscious is your unaware mind or your unconscious mind. Let me show it to you right quick. I want to show you something. What is your favorite food? Now, before I ask you that question, you wasn't thinking about the answer. The moment I asked you that question, your subconscious mind sent that up to your conscious mind and said, "Pizza." Check this out. If I ask you, "Hey, what is your favorite movie?" You wasn't thinking about your favorite movie. But the moment I asked you, your subconscious mind sent it up to your conscious mind, and now you're thinking about your favorite movie. It's because your subconscious mind is your storage, and your conscious mind is your aware mind. It's what's active and aware. And you have to know the difference because your subconscious mind is where everything is stored. That's where your trauma stored, your emotions is stored, your habits are stored. Everything you've ever been through is stored in your subconscious mind. It actually comes from the word Thesaurus. It stores everything you've ever been through. When you think about when you were five in your favorite dress, it's stored in your subconscious mind. And your subconscious mind is what the Bible calls your heart. So your conscious mind is what you reason with. Your subconscious mind is what you respond with.
Now check this out, Church. Check this out. When you do something long enough, or you meditate long enough, or you practice something long enough consciously, it becomes subconsciously. Let me give you an example. Some of you guys are in here right now, and you just done something in the last minute. You didn't realize you did. Pastor, what? You blinked. You blinked. Now, some of you guys are going to start blinking now. You're gonna be like, "Oh my gosh, I just thought the blink. Oh my gosh, I'm thinking about blinking." You're blinking out. You just thought about it. What if I told you the whole time you blink, you thought about it? Do you know you cannot blink without thinking about blinking? Well, if I cannot blink without thinking about blinking, and if I did not think about blinking, how am I blinking? I'm going to teach him. When you were a baby, and you came into this Earth, your eyes would be open, they would dry out, and then it would cause you to cry, and you would close your eyes. And you kept doing that, and then over time, you formed a pattern, and you formed a habit. So naturally, whenever your eyes get dried, they just close and open back up subconsciously because you did it consciously for so long. Or think about walking. Like, like think about this. Some of you guys got out your bed, walked to the bathroom, brushed your teeth, walked out your house, walked to the car, parked at church, walked in the church. Did anyone today think, "Left foot, right foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot"? That's what you would have had to do to walk in here. But you never thought about it because you've done it subconsciously. Your subconscious mind is your habits. It's your instinctive mind. It's the part of your mind that just responds without thinking. You're thinking about it, but you can't decide how you think. That's why you walk the same way every time because when you were a baby, and you started walking, you were disturbing your steps, how far it would go, and how you would walk. And then it became habitual. And now you're walking without even thinking about it because it's instinctive. It's habitual. It just flows out of you. And I'm gonna tell you something. That's good news when you're walking. But that could be bad news with your living because some of you guys got an attitude, instinctive. You got a habitual attitude. You didn't even think they had an attitude. Those people looked at you, you just started rolling your eyes, you started popping your neck, you started going off, you started gossiping, you started being bitter. You didn't even think about it. It was instinctive, like blinking, because you've been negative for so long, you don't even have to think to be negative. It just happens. Your heart just responds.
So your subconscious mind is the part of your mind that's responsive. It doesn't get to decide. It just responds. It just follows. Your conscious mind is where you get to decide. That's why some of you guys are like, "I hate drugs. I don't want to do drugs." And you just do drugs. And you're like, "What happened?" "I hate porn. I don't want to watch porn." You just watching. You like, "What happened?" "I don't want to be mean to my kids and my family. I just went off. I don't know what happened." I'm gonna tell you what happened. It came from your heart.
Because at some point, you felt bullied. And every time you felt bullied, you told yourself, "I'm gonna show them something. I'm gonna show them how I feel. I'm gonna let them have it." And then now you're letting them have it without even thinking about letting them have it because it's instinctive. And the problem with your heart is it has no intellect. It's impulsive, instinctive, habitual. It just responds.
So let me show you a couple things. I'm gonna show you a couple things. The average person thinks 3,000 words a minute. Three thousand words. Now, the problem with that is you're only consciously aware of 300 of them. So 90% of what you think, you don't know you're thinking it. Because 300 words come from your conscious mind. 2,700 words come from your heart, your subconscious mind. So could it be the reason why you're anxious is because while you're consciously trying to tell yourself, "It's okay," 2,700 other thoughts are saying, "It's not." While you're consciously saying, "I'm gonna be alright," you got 2,700 other thoughts saying, "You're not gonna be okay." And could it be that it's the 2,700 that's dictating your mood, not the 300? So what you have to do is you regulate the 2,700 words with the 300. You use the word of God. You quote scripture. You cast down imaginations. You take every thought captive with the 300. It would regulate the 2,700. The 3,000 things you're thinking. Ten percent of it is your conscious mind. You have to use your conscious mind to bring your subconscious mind into obedience. This is why people the way they are. That's why your uncle, he can't help but lie. You're just like, "Why he lying again?" Instinctive. You know that person that always talk about themselves, no matter where you take the topic, you're like, "Yeah, and God is doing this over here again. Me and I and me and..." And you like, "Can we have the conversation without it coming back to you?" No, because 2,700 words is saying, "Me, me, me, me, me." Because they have selfishness stored in their heart. Oh, come on, somebody.
So your heart is where your trauma lives. Your pain lives. Your bitterness lives. So let's just say you went through something abusive. When you consciously meditate and focus on that, it was stored in your heart. And now subconsciously, without thinking, you respond to abuse. You don't even have to think. I remember, I remember I took in this dog, and it had been abused by its previous owner. And I will walk up on a dog, and they will go, and it would just start bending down, and it wouldn't even think, instinctively, it just flinched because it was used to getting hit. And they got hit so much that being beat got in his heart. And now every time it looked like it was going to get beat, it flowed and responded. Now, every time you look like someone's gonna leave you, you pull away. Now, every time it looked like someone can't properly love you, you pull away. Anything that looks like you're a trauma, you run from because it's instinctive.
I'ma tell you how to fix this. So you have to guard your heart. Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. You guys enjoying this so far? Verse 23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." So it's saying, "Above all else, guard your heart, because everything you do flows from it." I'm gonna read it one more time. "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." The Bible is saying, "Above all else." This is a very rare statement in the Bible. You do not see this much. He's saying, "Simply, before you do anything else, guard your heart." Above all else. After you get salvation. Above everything. He's saying, "Hey, above your prayer time, above your worship time, above everything else, above you, I'll reach. Above all your service, above everything you will do, above guarding your kids, above guarding your finances, above guarding your car, above all else, guard your heart." Why is he saying that? He's saying because everything in life flows from this place. If you allow the enemy to attack this, he's attacking everything else in your life. Your marriage can be attacked. Your kids can be attacked. Your faith can be attacked. Your prayer can be attacked. Everything can be attacked coming through your heart. It is the point. It is the point that the devil wants. He wants your heart. And the Bible said, "Above all else, guard your heart." In other words, God is saying, "Be careful what you allow in your heart. Be careful what you allow in your spirit. Be careful what you allow to take root inside of you. Guard your heart."
And the Hebrew word for guarding our heart is "natár," and it means to protect like a guard. It means like a guard that's sitting in front of a castle, guarding it, making sure no unwanted guest is coming in. "Who are you? Are you trying to see the king?" "Hey, King, do you want to see him?" "No, you don't. You can't come in." And he's guarding the castle. That soldier is guarding the castle with his life. And God saying, "You got to guard your heart with your life." You got to get in front of your heart. You got to take depression. You can't get in here. Fear. You can't get in here. Where you can't get in here. Anxiety. You can't get in here. Bitterness. You can't get in here. Unforgiveness. You can't get in here. I'm guarding my heart, and I'm standing prisoner like a soldier, and I'm not letting nothing in my heart that God didn't say can be here. If God didn't say it can be here, I'm not letting it in my heart. You have to be careful and make sure you guard your heart.
It's because when God showed you your heart in the physical, it was an analogy of what it is. An emotional. Physically, your heart is the center of your life. Your heart is what pumps blood throughout your whole body. Your heart causes blood to flow throughout all your body. Before you had a brain, you had a heart. And that heart would beat, and it would pump blood into all of your body. It would be the center of life. And if something happens to that heart, you're done. Because all the blood, which is required to live, is pumping from the heart. And God is saying the same way in the physical, it's like that in the emotional. He's saying your whole soul depends on your heart. Because the same way your physical heart pumps blood, your soul heart pumps thoughts. It pumps thoughts through your emotions. It pumps thoughts through your marriage. It pumps thoughts to your parenting. It pumps thoughts through your ministry. It's pumping thoughts out of your life. And it's saying your whole life is flowing from your heart. Everything is pumping out of your heart. So when you look at your whole life, everything is traced back to your heart. Well, I'm just anxious all the time, Pastor. I'm anxious. I have no peace. It's because you have an anxious heart. I'm frustrated. I get mad so quick. I'm so frustrated. I get frustrated easy. It's because you have a frustrated heart.
And the danger of what your heart is, the narrative of your heart will determine the story of your life. The narrative of your heart determines the story of your life. Which means that if the negative, if the narrative of your heart is, "Nobody loves me," guess what? You will live a life not loved. If the narrative of your heart is, "I will never be in a relationship because I'm not good enough," you'll live your life single. If the narrative of your heart is, "No one picks me, no one chooses me, even back in sports, I was always the last one to get picked, and sometimes I wouldn't get picked to play." If that's the narrative of your heart, that will be the story of your life. So everything comes from your heart.
And the reason why you can't trust your heart is because the Bible says, "The heart is wicked, who can know it?" The heart is wicked, who can know it? Why is he calling the heart wicked? He's saying the heart is wicked because the heart is like a garden. It can reproduce anything. Your heart can reproduce anything. Sometimes you look into this world and you'll see some of the sick things that people would do, like shooting kids out of school, pedophilia. You got some of the sick things that people would do in this earth, and you will look and say, "How could a person do something like that?" And you would judge them. "What would they do? Who would kill somebody? Who would murder somebody? Who could do that to their child? Why would anyone do something this sick?" Is because if you sow sick season your heart, you will have sick behaviors come out your life. If you sow hate and anger in your heart, hate and anger will come out of your life. What are you sowing? Because whatever you are sowing will start growing. The heart is wicked, who can know it? And before you say, "I'll never do that," you better be careful because no one ever got on drugs wanting to be an addict. When you got on drugs, you was hanging out with your friends, having a good time, a little stressed out, trying to blow off some steam, and then the next thing you know, you're a slave to drugs. No woman ever, no woman ever became a woman that was promiscuous, just sleeping around with everybody. It started off with a guy she really cared about, and then all of a sudden, she started sleeping around. Maybe she was abused. No one ever decided to be this way. The trauma, the bad things, the ugly things in your life, you did not decide them. It just flowed out of your heart. It flowed, it flowed, it flowed. And here's the thing: if you meditate on anything, it will take root in your heart, and it will reproduce itself in your life. That's why you're like, "How could they murder somebody?" Because most people that murder people were not sick. They were normal people that kept watching murder, kept listening to murder, kept idealizing murder. And when they had an opportunity, murder flowed. No, no one with pedophilia ever just decided, "Hey, I want to touch kids." No, no. They started looking at kids a little too long, and their arrogance made them think they can look and not touch. But if you look at something long enough, you meditate on something long enough, you let that thing in your heart long enough, it will reproduce itself in your life. You can't play with your heart. The Bible says it's wicked, who can know it? I don't play with my heart. I don't look at things I shouldn't look at. If I look this way, I'm gonna look this way. If I walk this way, I'm gonna walk that way because I ain't playing with my heart. The problem with some of you guys is you play with your heart too much, and you don't know your heart has no intellect. Which means your heart can't say, "Murder's bad. I'm not going to do that." If you put murder in your heart, murder comes out your life. You put bitterness in there, bitterness will sprout. The Bible says, "Be wary of having a root of bitterness." It'll sprout up in your life. You have to guard your heart. Some of you guys, when it comes to porn, you watch this stuff your whole life, and now you're in a real marriage having a real tough time because your wife don't do it. Because you have rid yourself of intimacy watching things, sowing things in your heart, and now you're reproducing that. You're hurting your marriage. And some of you guys are watching that, you're not married right now. I want to tell you, you're hurting your marriage that's coming in 10 years, a decade from now. You'll have kids, and you're hurting your relationship with them by what you're watching right now. So don't play with your heart. Everyone say, "Don't play with your heart." The Bible says it's wicked, who can know it?
Now, you have to guard your heart. You have to guard your heart. The reason why you have to guard your heart is because your heart, I know it's going to sound a little condescending, y'all, I'm sorry. Your heart's stupid. Your heart is a very, very stupid thing. It has no reason, no intellect. It just responds. It's impulsive. It's stupid. Let me prove to you your heart is stupid. Do you know your heart can love anything? Think about that ex. And I know you don't want to think about them in church. I'm trying to be delivered from them. You thought that that was a good deal. You brought them to the cookout, to the federal reunion. Some of you married them. What were you thinking? You wasn't. That was your dumb heart. Everybody can see this dude is short of a serial killer. But you, because your dumb heart. And what your dumb heart starts doing is lying to you. "They didn't mean that. They didn't try to do that. They're going to do better. They're going to get to know God. They're gonna pray. They're gonna get it together." Lying, dumb heart. Your heart is dumb, and it can love anything. Some of you guys love drugs that's killing you. That's a dumb heart. Some of you guys love eating things that's tearing up your body. Don't hurt. Some of you guys, some of you women love attention from guys that's degrading you. Dumb heart. Your heart is dumb. So God said, "You have to guard your dumb heart." That's my version of the Bible. It shouldn't say guard your heart. It should say guard your dumb heart.
Now we know what the heart is. So the heart is the subconscious mind. So if it says guard your heart, or as I would say, dumb heart, your heart is the part of your mind that responds. It's impulsive. All your habits are there. Your patterns are there. Your movements are there. Everything you do unconsciously, without thinking, through instinct or habit, is in your heart. So God said, "Guard your heart." How do you guard your heart? How? Look at your neighbor and say, "How do we guard our heart?" Look at your neighbor you don't like as much because you can't in them. Second, and say, "How do we guard our heart?" That's an awkward moment right there.
Do you know that God gave you something to guard your heart with? God gave you your head to guard your heart. Let me say it again. God gave you your head to guard your heart. Because your head could actually be educated. It can actually reason. It can actually be smart. It can have sense. It can have discernment. It can identify that this guy is with you for the wrong reasons. Your head can be educated. Your heart can't. So God gave you your head to guard your heart. Translation: God gave you your conscious mind to guard your unconscious mind. In other words, you can consciously guard.
So here's how you consciously guard it. You're walking through the day, and you start feeling sad. The moment you consciously realize, you say, "You're like, 'Oh, hold up. Wait a minute. Let me put some Jesus in. We ain't finna be sad.' I'm telling you. I'm gonna put on my worship songs. Speak the name. I'm going to call my happy friends. I'm gonna dance. My praise is a weapon. Like, I'm feeling like I'm not gonna sit here and wallow in my pity." But some of you guys, like pity. Quit playing with your heart because if you sit and wallow in your pity, seeds are taking root. This is dangerous. This is dangerous. This is day to sit and and let these thoughts, you know, "Nobody cares about me." Don't play with that because most of you are the result of what you play with. You play with that thing. You set up anxious, feeling sorry for yourself, and now anxiety is just responding out of you. And had you known you were spend the next 20 years of your life raining and anxiety off of impulse, you wouldn't have said in a room for two weeks thinking those thoughts. You got broke up with by Zumba because you said it never dated. And you set up and cry for two weeks, and 10 years later, you're still crying because you planted that in your heart. And Junebug ain't worth a dollar.
You use your conscious mind to guard your subconscious mind. So you have to be aware. Everyone say, "Aware." What am I thinking? What am I thinking? I got to be aware of what I'm thinking. Am I thinking negative? Am I thinking bitter, frustration, anxiety? I have to be aware because if I'm not aware, those 2,700 words are going to take over my thinking, not the 300. And all of a sudden, I'm walking in places I never wanted to be.
Let me show you some things, guys. I'm gonna break this down to you. You have to guard your conscious mind to protect your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is your, your mind that reasons and thinks. Your subconscious mind is your heart. And whatever's in your heart flows into your life. Now, y'all look like y'all don't understand me, so I gotta help y'all out. We're gonna break it down. Someone say, "Break it down, Pastor." We're gonna break this thing down. So we're gonna break it all the way. So this funnel is your mind. This tank, or or this, this container is your heart. And this bucket right here, or this little tank at the bottom, this bucket is your life. So what you got to understand is this: you have to guard this because whatever you meditate on here gets in here. So right here, we have fear. And fear is being paraded against you. "You should be afraid. You're not enough. You're going to fail like your family fell. That business is NFL. You're not going to get it off the ground. Your marriage is going to fail. You're never going to be enough. You're going to fall short like everyone else." And fear is parading itself before you. And what fear wants to do is get in your head. And the reason why the enemy wants fear in your head because if he gets it in your head, he can get it in your heart. And if he gets it in your heart, he can get it in your life. So now all of a sudden, you're walking around playing with fear. And the thing is, fear is here, but I don't have to let fear interfere in my mind. But so many times, we sit back and we let fear interfere. And all of a sudden, we start pouring fear into our mind. And the problem with pouring fear into our mind is, look where it's going. Directly in our heart. And now you put fear in your mind, and you're sitting here being afraid, and you're feeling sad, and you're wallowing in your pity. And you don't know you just put fear in your heart. And now you're walking around looking crazy because fear is in your life. And now all in your life, you're afraid. You're afraid to be married. You're afraid to try a new job. You're afraid to try a new church. You're afraid to serve. You're afraid to be a member. You're afraid to have kids. You're afraid to get married. You're afraid to meet people. You're afraid. And because fear came in your mind, and it went in your heart, now fear is in your life. Because the Bible says, "Guard your heart, because out of it flows the issues of life."
So now all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, somebody did something, and they wronged you. And in this life, you will be wronged. You will be offended. And now there's an opportunity to have bitterness. But you didn't cast down bitterness. No, no, no. You allowed bitterness to come in your mind. You meditated it on bitterness. And then all of a sudden, bitterness started flowing inside of your heart, polluting your heart, perverting your heart, damaging your heart, making your heart toxic. And all of a sudden, you respond bitter. "Why don't they pick me? Why did they call me? Why don't they come to my function? Why didn't they do this?" And all of a sudden, that's flowing in your life. You're pushing everyone away because you let bitterness in your mind, then it went to your heart, now bitterness is bleeding and flowing in your life. So now you have bitterness in your life. And then there's anxiety. There's anxiety. And then there's anger. Now anxiety and anger is trying to comfort you. And you have to understand something, Church. You have to be careful letting this stuff flow because if this comes in your head, it's going to your heart. So now we have anxiety. "I don't know how this is going to end. I feel like the worst case scenario is going to happen. I feel like I'm gonna fail. I feel like everything's gonna fall apart. I don't know my calling. I don't know what to do in life. I don't know where to go. I'm scared to do something for God. What if I start ministering and then all of a sudden I fall into sin and everyone just mocks me?" And then all this flows in your mind, and you've meditated on it, and now it's all in your heart. So now you have a heart full of bitterness. You have a heart full of fear. You have a heart full of anxiety. And this is all flowing in your life. And Church, this is what many of your lives look like. And the problem is, you're trying to fix your life from the wrong part. You have to understand that your life is the symptoms of a much, much deeper problem. And many of you are trying to fight the devil in your own strength. You're trying to fight in your life. "I'm not going back to this place. I'm dating those people. I ain't dealing with this." And you're trying to fight down here while the devil is pouring up here. So now you're fighting the devil from the wrong place. You're fighting from the wrong vantage point. The Bible says, "Guard your heart." And you guard your heart by guarding your funnel. See, if you close off this funnel, the devil can't pour in your heart. So when you're guarding your heart, you're sitting in front of your funnel, you're saying, "I'm not letting nothing be poured in here that's not God. I'm not letting none be poured in here that's not the word. I'm not letting none be poured in here that's not the Holy Spirit." Because what comes through your funnel flows into your life. And you can't fight from this point. You have to fight from this point. Now, if some of you guys would quit letting the devil pour in your life and you start letting the Holy Spirit pour in your life, you start letting the word of God pour in your life, all of a sudden, that anxiety has to leave. That fear has to leave. I'm not going to let the enemy pour in my life. I'm not going to let fear pour in my life. I'm gonna let God pour in my life. I'm gonna let the word of God pour in my life. I'm gonna let peace pour in my life. I'm gonna let love pour in my life. And when I let the things of God pour in my life, oh, it's pouring in my head. Now it's run through my heart, and I was getting in my life. I'm gonna meditate on the word day and night so that word can get in my heart. Lord, I'm gonna hide your word in my heart. And when I let that word in my heart, that word now is getting in my life. So many of you guys, you gotta quit allowing the anxiety in your mind. You have to let the word in your mind. Because when a word gets in your mind, look what it does. It purifies your heart. And your life may still look a little junky. You may still be struggling. But look, that color's changing. Yeah, it may have been black, but it's getting lighter now. It's getting better now. I'm saved now. I'm sanctified now. The power of God is on me now. I'm anointed now. His spirit's in me now. I'm telling you, I'm breaking generational curses by letting the word of God get in my heart. I'm breaking chains by letting the word in my heart. I'm breaking fear by letting the word in my heart. And the longer I let the word flow through me, the more it purifies me. Evil has to leave. Bondage has to leave. Fornication has to leave. Lust has to leave. Because the word is flowing in my heart. So if you have a toxic heart, a bitter heart, a fearful heart, you have to guard your heart against the things of the enemy and allow the word of God to come in your heart. So when the word of God comes in your heart, the word of God goes in your life. I can't try to to fix my life down here because that's what we call behavior modification. God wants to bring you heart transformation. The Bible says he'll put a new heart in you. But though he gave you a new heart, you have to renew all the bad, bitter things out of your heart so you can have a new experience. So what you're dealing with in your life is rooted in what you're allowing yourself to think in your mind. Because "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he."
Let's explain that. See, your heart is just a conduit. Your heart doesn't get to decide what flows. It has no choice. If you put anxiety in here, it flows. Fear in here, it flows. Worry in here, it flows. You put the word of God in here, it flows. Faith, it flows. Joy, it flows. Peace, it flows. It doesn't get to decide. So God is saying, "Guard this, because whatever gets in this gets in this." And see, your life is your marriage. See, you, you, you marry. You love your husband here. Your parents, your kids here. You work at your job here. Your friendships are here. Your life is all here. And if that is trauma for everyone around you, it's because it's coming from here. And if it's coming from here, it's because it came from here. If I want to protect my heart, I have to do what the Bible says. And last week, we talked about the Bible. The Bible says, "Take every thought captive." Translation: Be careful what you allow to come through your funnel. Because right here is where we fight the devil. Right here is the battle. Because once it gets down here in your heart, it just flows in your life. So your life doesn't get to decide what it is. Some of you guys like, "I'm a good person." That's not decided here. That's decided here. You cannot be a good person with bad thinking. You cannot be a faith-filled person with a doubtful heart. You cannot be a person full of God down here and full of anxiety and fear and porn up here. You have to be full of God up here to be full of God down there. Can we give our King a shot of praise?
So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, I'm going to read something to you. Go to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew 13. Are you guys enjoying this? I hope it's blessing you. Matthew chapter 13, verse 18. Y'all look at that like somebody got a new life down there. Come on, somebody. Man, somebody had a whole black life and now it's purified. My God. Shout out to somebody. Matthew 13, verse 18 says, "Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path." So it's saying, "Hey, anyone that hears the message of the kingdom of God and does it understand it, or if it doesn't take root, if it doesn't show up in their life, it's once nested out of their heart." Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So right here, the Bible is likening your heart to a garden. It's saying, "What was sown in your heart, you sow in a garden." So he said, "What was sown in your heart, the devil's coming to steal it." Why is the devil coming to steal something from your heart? Is because he doesn't want it in your life. He wants to steal the kingdom of God out of your heart so the kingdom doesn't manifest in your life. He wants to steal faith out of your heart so faith doesn't manifest in your life. He wants to steal joy out of your heart so joy doesn't manifest. So right here, the Bible is saying that your heart is a garden. It said the enemy wants to steal what was sown in your heart. Your heart is a garden. In other words, your heart is soil, and the enemy wants to steal what was planted in your heart because he knows it would reproduce 30, 60, and 100 fold. Now, Luke 6, chapter 4, uh, Luke chapter 6, verse 45 says, "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his."
The heart for the for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. So again, it's saying that a good man brings good things out of what's stored in his heart. Then it says, an evil man brings evil things out of what's stored in his heart. Church, guess this: the good man was only called a good man because he had good things stored. The evil man was only called an evil man because he had evil things stored. Which means your stories determine what kind of person you are. Your storage, not what you say you are, not what you want to be, not what you try to be. What is stored in you, that's who you are. So, in other words, the Bible is simply saying a good man has good planted on his heart so he can bring good fruit and good produce out of his heart. An evil man has evil weeds planted on his heart so he brings evil out of his heart. Y'all like how much stuff you got up here? You just, you got stuff everywhere. Anger. Everyone say anger. Anger, anger is dangerous. Anger, anger. And this is why anger is dangerous. Is the Bible says your heart is soil. Your heart's a garden. It reproduces. Your heart is soil. So if you have anger, if you have seeds of anger, what is the seed of anger? A seed is just a thought. A seed is a thought. So if you have seeds of anger, if you have thoughts of anger, the Bible says, "Be angry but sin not." Then the Bible says, "Don't let anger go down." He said, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." Why did the Bible say, "Don't let the sun go down in your anger?" The Bible said it's okay to hold anger. People are going to make you mad. Things are going to frustrate you. It's okay to hold anger. But the Bible says, "Don't let anger go down with the sun." Because if you let the sun go down and you're still holding anger, what you begin to do is you plant anger. And the problem with planting anger, if you let the sun go down, you keep meditating on anger. Anger gets planted. And if anger is planted in your life, and we're reproducing your life. So it's okay to be angry. But if you let the sun go down, you keep meditating on this anger, you keep thinking about it, anger gets planted on your heart.
Perhaps you have, perhaps you have unforgiveness. Somebody wronged you. They did you wrong. They hurt you. They broke your heart. They broke your heart. Your mom left you. She abandoned you. They weren't there for you. Your dad wasn't in your life. And you don't want to forgive these people. Your ex-husband, he cheated on you. He left you and the kids. And you're angry. You're frustrated. Don't allow unforgiveness to sin. Don't meditate on forgiveness. Because if you do, you go and you plant unforgiveness in your heart.
Or perhaps, perhaps strife. And now you got strife and you got frustration with a person. And you're aggravating. You're angry at a person. And they hurt you. And all of a sudden, the devil's saying, "Be offended. Be offended. Be offended. Get strife. Get strife. Bring division. Bring division. Talk to everybody about it. Get frustrated about it. Strife, strife, strife." So strife can be planted in your heart.
And then lastly, he wants to plant all those so he can get bitterness in your heart. And this is toxic. These are toxic feelings in your heart. Now you're bitter. And bitter means nasty. It don't taste right. Some of y'all just nasty. I'm frustrated. I don't like them. They better not say nothing to me. I ain't saying nothing. And you better now. And nobody wants to taste something bitter. Some of you guys are bitter in your marriage. Your wife don't want to. She don't want to be around you because you're bitter. Your husband don't even want to call you when he, when he's at work, because you're bitter. And he don't want that bitter energy around him. Your kids are afraid to come around you because you are bitter. And you gotta quit being bitter. And you have to get better. And allow God to break the chains, break the yolks, break the strongholds, break the fear off your life. You can't walk in bitterness because that God has died for you to be better. So now all of a sudden, bitterness is planted in your heart.
And I'm not a farmer. But I got a chance to eat with one this past week. But I'm not a farmer. But guess what? Soil doesn't discriminate. It will plant trees. And it will plant weeds. Soil doesn't discriminate. So if you plant strife, if you plant unforgiveness, anger, and bitterness, guess what's going to happen? This ground is going to yield and produce trees. The Bible talks about seed time and harvest. If you give this seed time, it's going to produce a harvest. And then you're going to look up and you're going to see strife walking in your life. You're going to see unforgiveness walking in your life. You're going to see anger walking in your life. You're going to see bitterness walking in your life. And the reason why it's walking in your life is what was a seed became a tree. And what you didn't understand is seeds of strife became forces of strife. Seeds of anger became trees of anger. Seeds of bitterness became forces of bitterness. Seeds of unforgiveness became trees of unforgiveness. You allowed this to be a seed. You played with it. And now instead of fighting against these seeds and casting them down, now you got stronghold trees. And had you dealt with it in seed form, you wouldn't have to fight with it in tree form. Said, if you dealt with it in a seed form, you wouldn't have to fight with it in tree form. And now many of you guys are walking around fighting these trees in your life because you didn't deal with the seeds in your life. And these, these trees are here. And all of a sudden, you got strife. And this is a tree in your life. Now you don't even got to think no more. This is instinctive. Soon as somebody disagree with you, strife. As soon as someone don't like your idea, strife. As soon as someone rebukes you, strife. Anything you're dealing with is strife because now it's a tree.
And then you have anger. Nobody can't say nothing to you. Your wife, "Hey, where you going?" "Don't, don't worry about where I'm going." Because this is a tree in your life. And now whenever you're corrected, whenever someone prays over you, whenever someone reproves you, what you do? You get mad. You always get mad. It's a manipulation mechanism. Now, now I'm just mad. Don't say nothing to me. I'm mad. Your husband walking around the house tiptoeing because he like Barney, because he's scared to make you mad because you're a hothead. Now man walking in the house like this because you got trees of anger everywhere.
And now unforgiveness. You can't forgive your family, your parents, your co-workers. "No, when I was six years ago, they did this to me. And they don't know what they did to me." And you know. And now you're just bitter. You're bitter instead of better. You're always bitter. You're always negative. Every time someone asks you how you doing, "Man, let me tell you how I'm doing. Well, let me tell you how it's going." Well, well, well. Can we hear the word of God? Well, can we hear some good news? Well, can we hear some peace? Well, can we hear some breakthrough? Well, can we hear the Spirit of God is alive? Well, can we hear he's breaking strongholds? Well, well. And now you're walking in bitterness. Thank you guys. And now these are trees in your heart. And if you knew alcoholism would be a tree, you would have never picked up that drink. If you knew meth would be a tree, you would have never touched it. If you knew when you watched that video and looked at those magazines your friend gave you, porn, if you knew it would be a force upon you, you would have never loved. If you knew just walking around ancients when you were a little kid and you're walking around scared of everything, if you knew you would be scared the rest of your life, you would have cast down the seed. The Bible says, "God is not mocked. A man will reap what he sows." If you sow this, you're gonna reap this. You put this seed down, you gonna get a tree.
And here's the danger of life. It's actually easier to grow weeds than trees. I don't know why, but for some reason, default is decline. It's just easy. Like it's hard to make your hair look good, but it's real easy to make you look bad. It's hard to make your breath smell good, but it's really easy to make it smell bad. It's like it's hard to stay in shape, six pack. What? But it's easy to get a one pack. Huh? Because decline is default. It's the law of entropy. What can't go wrong does go wrong. What can get worse does get worse. To get better is actually uphill. You got to press towards the mark. You got to trust Jesus. You got to pray and fast and intercede. Take up your cross. This ain't further, but God is with you. And if he's for you, and if God be for you, who could be against you?
And I got news for the devil. Devil, the same way bitterness was planted, anger was planted, unforgiveness was planted, strife was planted, love can be planted. And now I'm gonna have a force of love. And all of a sudden, I'm going to look up and love is going to be walking in my life. Joy is going to be walking in my life. Peace is going to be walking in my life. Breakthrough is going to be walking in my life. Love is going to walk up now because I have planted love. And when you plant it, love. And when you plant seeds of love, you're going to get trees of love.
Now all of a sudden, I'm able to bless those that curse me. All of a sudden, I'm able to do well to those that do wrong against me. Now all of a sudden, if you hit me, I could turn the other cheek. Now all of a sudden, I got the Shalom of God, the peace that passes understanding. I shouldn't have this kind of peace. I don't have a kind of kind of peace. I don't have a good time kind of peace. I don't have a hearing maybe kind of peace. I got eternal peace. Peace in the storm. Peace in the valley. Peace under fire. Because I have a forest of love. And here's the beautiful thing about having a tree of love is when you have a tree of love, the Tree of Love doesn't come empty-handed. The Tree of Love actually has fruit. Now you have the fruit of the spirits. Galatians 5. Now I got gentleness. Now I got patience. I got some fruit. Praise God. I'm telling you, I got some fruit packed down on the inside of me. I got the fruit of God, the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Lord is speaking with me. He's walking with me. He's talking to me. I don't just have a tree of love. I have fruit of love. The fruit of the spirit. Now I got patience. Now I got gentleness. Now I got kindness. Now I got long suffering. I can suffer a long while cause I got that fruit.
But you cannot get the fruit of the spirit without having seeds of love. If you plant love, I'm telling you, it's going to reproduce trees of love. And the Tree of Love will produce the fruit of love. If you want the fruit of the spirit, you first have to have the seeds of love. And how do you get seeds? What are seeds in the Bible? The Bible says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing what? The word of God is the seed." The word of God is the seed. And after you hear the word, and you meditate on the word, you plant the word. And when you plant the word, you reproduce the word.
See, let me simply put it this way. And my keyboard player come up. I'm gonna close. Let me put it this way: If I sow a thought, I reap a deed. If I sow a deed, I reap a habit. If I sow a habit, I reap a destiny. And if I sow a destiny, there's your life. Friends, there is your life. So if you want to change your life, you have to change your seeds. Because if you change your seeds, it would change your deeds. And if you change your deeds, it will change your habits. And if you change your habits, it will change your character. And if you change your character, it'll change your destiny. And if you change your destiny, you change your life. Oh, come on somebody, give our King a shout of praise.
So as I'm getting ready to close, so what is depression? Depression is when you're no longer aware of all the seeds on your garden. You're just looking. Depression is when you are surrounded by trees of bitterness, anger, frustration, no self-worth. "I can't get through this. I can't do it. I can't make it." That's depression. It means that you no longer have a choice. See, you have a choice to reject and accept seeds. But when it's a tree, you no longer have choice because it's rooted. It's rooted. And that's why God says, "I need you to allow me to be planted in you. Allow me to be rooted in you." And now I'm going to prune you because you're a tree. And I'm going to prune you so you can bear fruit. And I'm going to prune you so you can bear more fruit. And I'm gonna prune you and cut you so I can reproduce better fruit out of you. But how can God prune a tree if you never even had the seed? That's why the Bible says, "When the word of God is preached, the kingdom of God is preached, the devil comes to steal it out of your heart." Because he don't want this to be a tree. Because when this is a tree, that's when you crush the devil's neck. He don't want this. So the Bible says the devil, now because the word is a seed, the scripture says the devil comes to steal the word immediately. He's running around like Swiper from Dora the Explorer, trying to come and swipe all these seeds of love and joy and faithful. Some of you guys got to stand on top of your garden and you got to say, "Therefore, I got news for you. Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! Devil, you can't take this! Devil, you can't touch this! Devil, you can't have this! I will walk into the things of God. I will be a part of the kingdom of God. I will guard my heart. You can't have me. Swiper, no swiper!" Someone say, "Devil, no swiping!" "Devil, no swiping!" One more time, "Devil, no swiping!" Sorry, I broke your problem.
So as I get ready to play praying, I'm sorry, I that's a curator. Pray. I simply want to say that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. The most important part of my message, don't forget this, is you don't have to guard your heart in the flesh. God will strengthen you to guard your heart. He will empower you to guard your heart. He will enable you to guard your heart. The Holy Spirit will guide you into guarding your heart. You have to guard it. But God will do the heavy pulling. God is with you. You don't have to do this yourself. If you say, "God, I want to guard my heart," God will bring to your mind every negative emotion. He will bring trauma from your past. He will bring all roots of bitterness stored inside of you. He will start to clean you and purify you and to wash you with the water of his word. He will mold you and shape you and cleanse you. And when you're tired of fighting a good fight of faith, he will strengthen you for the battle. He won't forsake you. He won't leave you. He is with you in the storm. Everyone give our King a shout of praise. Wow. I pray he was blessed by that message. I pray it spoke to you and encouraged you, challenged you, and stressed you. Share with your friends, family members, co-workers, share with everyone you know. And I pray their life will be impacted as well. If you would like to be a part of Radiant Ministry, a part of Radiant Global, or get more information about our church, text 903-201-0606. Take some more information. We will tell you all about our ministry. And also, if you would like to partner with Radiant financially, you can do that at radiantchurchstk.com and hit the give tab. It is your generosity that fuels our mission and it empowers us to be able to do ministry all around the world. Thank you so much for your generosity and have a blessed day.