Guard your heart— Open hearted

Guard your heart, or open-hearted???

Is it Christ-like to "love from afar?” Is it a necessary evil? Can we fulfill the great commission with walls around our hearts??

Self-preservation versus self-sacrifice. I know that's tough, so give real thought.

If we are supposed to go to every nation and preach the gospel, how can we do so with our hearts walled off? The Bible also tells us to "guard our hearts." The answer is not quite so simple. It has to do with seasons, maturity, and temporal stasis (is it necessary for things to be temporary, or permanent based on circumstances, we slow [pay attention to details, speed excess time...] the things that need to be slowed, and rush through the others).

The season of your life will dictate how open you are to be toward people. If you are young in the word, then you are more susceptible to negative influences and therefore you should not be very open. This however, does not exempt you from fulfilling the great commission. It only means that you are in a season of preparation, education, and equipping. That season can last 5 days, 5 years, or 50 years. That’s up to the Father, and how long it takes us to “get it”.

The next season, step in maturity, is the season of battle, Also known as harvest. If you never enter a season of harvest you have not nurtured the seeds sown into you. In this season you actually put to work the things that you have learned. This is where your faith is tested and grows, the initial season of planting is where your faith was sown.

So, as it says in the book of James, faith without works is DEAD. Without this season of harvest, battle, the faith that was sown into you dies. This is why we enter negative cycles, and also why generational curses are allowed to take root. Once we are saved, according to 1st Peter we are adopted into a new bloodline with an "incorruptible seed". This does not stop the enemy from trying to attack.... but, hallelujah NO weapon formed against me shall prosper.

We love you, and we are praying with you.

Dr. McGinty and Sis Pinky

~SALT

Sis. Pinky’s Prayer: Thank you God for giving us discernment so that we’ll know which season we’re in, and we can act accordingly. We love and praise you.

In Jesus’s Name,

Amen.

Trust God for the Transition

Trust God for the Transition pt.2

When it is time for a change, trusting in the Lord is absolutely paramount to the success of the transition. The story of Abraham (at that time named Abram) is always remarkable to me. God told him to go. No direction... not "go to the east as far as the sun rises". No, “travel south for three days with a herd of migratory camels…”, or, “walk west until you’re too tired to travel on.” Not even a, “go down the mountainside and take a left at the Wal*Mart and wait next to the Olive Garden until you hear from me”... nothing like that. God only said, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you.” Gen 12:1  and Abraham went.
We even struggle with simple changes to our regular routine. It can be difficult for us to alter our route to work if we feel God instructing us to go a different way. Or, if on our way to the collection basket at church we feel the Lord saying to give a different amount other than what we’ve already planned. We question if it’s really God.

We struggle with these small things. So naturally, a bigger change will create more anxiety. Whether large or small, they require the same key ingredient for success; Trust in God.

We must learn to 1) trust God through the transition, 2) trust that He has prepared the destination for our arrival, and 3) trust that He is preparing us (hearts and minds) while on the journey, to be ready for the destination. Our hearts must be ready for the transition, AND the destination! We can only achieve that by trusting in God.

We love you, and we are praying with you.

~Dr.  McGinty

SALT (Saved, Anchored, Living, Transformed)

Sis. Pinky’s Prayer:

Thank you God, for being sovereign! You know the plans you have for us; plans for us to prosper and not fail. Thank you for increasing our measures of faith and trust in you. Help us Great Jehovah to trust you with every aspect of our lives. We thank you in advance,

Amen