Just over a week ago 12 people were killed in a movie theater that was showing a very violent, violent movie. I guess the killer was imitating one of the characters in the movie, and I thought that was rather bizarre. Of course, probably the man wasn’t fully mentally there, but you know it’s a tragedy when things like that happen.

A movie theater isn’t a place you would think would be a tomb, but in this case it was. You know, there is actually one thing that happens about every year that kills about 7.25 million a year. That is heart conditions, heart disease, problems with our physical heart. That is the leading cause of death in the world, especially in the United States.

I believe 30% of all deaths in the United Stated are due to heart conditions. Actually, the same is going to be the case in the future. Actually, in the age to come when we stand before Yahweh, 100% of those who are judged with everlasting shame and contempt and are cast into the lake of fire will be there because of their heart condition.

The heart is what Yahweh is ultimately after.

So a very important question for all of us is, What is our Heart Condition? Now I am not talking about the physical heart that beats in your chest, though one may affect the other. I’m talking about, Hebraically speaking, the heart is the inner man. The heart is the place from which everything flows. A person my look a certain way on the outside.

A person may act a certain way on the outside, but there is something within called the heart. We want to examine some Scriptures on this because the Bible says:

Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of Elohim [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

13 – And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things [are] naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we [must give] account.

The Word of Yahweh exposes the thoughts and intents of the heart. So not only thoughts, but why we think our thoughts. What is the intent behind the thoughts of our heart? We need to be willing to listen to what the Word of Elohim says.

If we are not receiving or listening to what the Word of Elohim says, we may just deceive ourselves into thinking our heart is doing just fine.

Because the Word of Elohim is not there to divide asunder soul and spirit, and discern the thoughts and intents of our heart.

So our heart is an important thing, a very serious topic, and sometimes there is a tendency, as men and women, to use our own perceptions of the condition of our heart as an excuse to continue in error or commit some kind of wrong.

And that is where the Word of Yahweh needs to come in and help us to discern the condition of our hearts, because the condition of our hearts has a lot to do with whether or not we are walking in salvation and what kinds of rewards and blessings we can expect to see in the age to come.

In light of our tendency to use our own perceptions of where we’ve told ourself our heart is, we need to make sure that the Word of Yahweh has fully illuminated things in our heart that need to be illuminated. Example: Sometimes when I share the truth about Yahweh’s Name, and I tell people, “He tells us to call upon His Name.

He tells us to praise His Name, to exalt His Name, to lift up His Name.

He tells us to glorify His Name, to bless His Name forever, and to proclaim His Name from the rising of the sun until the sun goes down.” A reply I often get is, “He knows my heart. He knows who I am talking to.”

Or if I share the truth that Yahweh is not pleased with Christmas holidays or Easter holidays or things that have their roots in idolatry, I often here a response something like this.

“He knows my heart, I’m not worshipping an idol.”

I’ll say they’re right that He knows their heart, but we need to be careful that we are not making excuses. He knows whether we are, in our heart, seeking to please Him, or seeking to please man, or seeking to please ourselves. He knows if we are seeking to please Him more than man or if we are seeking to please man more than Yahweh.

So we all, including myself, need to let the Word of Yahweh illuminate us, that Yahweh might search us and know us and see if there is any wrong way in us, if there is anything in our hearts that we need to change.

Now the word heart is found in the Scriptures over 1000 times. It is not possible for me to share all the Scriptures on what Yahweh has to say about it, but it goes to show just how important it is to Him. I came across some information years ago about something they discovered in the medical field.

There is something unusual about the actual heart organ in that it sort of has a mind of its own.

When the brain sends a message to any other part of the body, those parts immediately obey it, but when it sends a signal to our heart, the heart decides on its own what it is going to do, whether to obey or not. It seems to have its own mind or something.

They are not really sure what that is, but they attribute that ability to why they can do open heart surgery today.

We are looking today at technologies and abilities that man had to find and discover and here Scripture has already told us and made the allegory itself. Even on the surface thoughts that we have in our mind on a regular basis, there is something deeper than what is going on in the loudest part of our minds.

Sometimes there is something down, down deep in our hearts going on that our conscious mind doesn’t really notice. It is that deepest part of our heart that Yahweh is most concerned about because the reality is that it is those deep things that create the thoughts in our mind.

It is the thoughts in our mind that create the words that we speak. Sometimes we don’t even see that.

Yahweh is always interested in what our heart condition truly is.

Genesis 6:5 – Then YAHWEH saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every intent of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.

6 – And YAHWEH was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Interesting. So Yahweh Himself can grieve. As a result of this, the entire human race was destroyed except for 8 souls because the thoughts and intents of the hearts of man were only evil. The intent of his heart was evil, so it grieved Yahweh in His heart. Yahweh can grieve.

The Holy Spirit can grieve. I officiated a funeral this week, and it was a very grievous thing.

It was a time of painfulness. Yahushua Himself wept over the death of one of His beloved friends, Lazarus. So Yahweh grieves over the condition of men’s hearts. We look at the world today and all the things that are going on and all the evil happening, and it grieves us. Now imagine Yahweh.

He sees the hearts. He sees the hearts of every man, woman, and child on this planet.

What restraint, what patience, what long-suffering He shows.

Genesis 8:20 – Then Noah built an altar to YAHWEH, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21 – And YAHWEH smelled a soothing aroma. Then YAHWEH said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart [is] evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

Even from the very beginning, Yahweh knew the imagination of man’s heart is evil even from his youth, and He said He would not again curse the ground and send a flood because he knew this was something that is a childhood problem. It starts in childhood and is a nature that we inherited fro Adam.

Psalms 58:3 – The wicked are estranged from the womb; They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

You never have to teach a child to lie. Somehow they figure that out quit well on their own. At some point in childhood they figure the benefit of that, in their mind. We have that heart condition that we were born with, so we are instructed, as those who seek to have a pleasing heart to Yahweh to be very diligent.

Proverbs 4:23 – Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it [spring] the issues of life.

Keep it. That means to watch over it. Shamar. Guard it because the imagination of our heart would otherwise be evil from our youth. Everything that flows out comes from the heart, so we need to get to the source. We need to get to the root of it. How can we address the problem.

How can we come against the evil that our hearts are inclined to do?

Psalms 119:11 – Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You!

12 – Blessed [are] You, O YAHWEH! Teach me Your statutes!

There it is. In order to keep our hearts from going astray, in order to keep ourselves from sinning, we need to place Yahweh’s Word in our hearts. That is what happens when Yahweh writes His Word on our hearts. That has been the whole problem with man, is the heart.

And that is why when Yahweh gave the new covenant He chose to place His word there so that we would have a new heart.

And with the wisdom of Yahweh’s Word in us, our heart can be purified. Some people like to say the law of Yahweh is in their heart, but then they will use that as an excuse to disobey the law of Yahweh. For instance, they might say, “Well, the law is in my heart now, I don’t keep the Sabbath day.”

Does that make any sense when the law itself says keep the Sabbath day?

It doesn’t make any sense. If the Word is in our hearts, then shouldn’t obedience to that Word reflect on our outer layer? If that is what the new covenant is, which we know it is. That is why in the Scriptures it says the following.

1John 3:4 – Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

What does the law say about the Sabbath day? It says to keep it, to remember it, to keep it holy. So you can’t say the law is in my heart, so now I can disobey the Sabbath. If the law is in your heart, as the new covenant says, then you won’t sin against Him, you won’t transgress against the law. It all ties in together.

Every thought and intent of man’s heart is to do evil, to transgress the law, to disobey Yahweh.

We are born with that, but when the Word of Yahweh which is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, comes in, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and pierces us even to the joints and marrow and the division of soul and spirit, it roots out the evil.

It roots out the wrongdoing because the Torah comes in and takes residence there.

This is no different than Messiah Himself who is the living Word of Elohim that was made flesh and dwelt among us. When you ask Messiah into your heart, you are asking that the Word of Yahweh, the Torah of Yahweh, would come into your heart. He is not just Torah in the book of Matthew or in the book of I Corinthians.

He is also Torah in the book of Deuteronomy and in the book of Exodus.

That is what His presence is there for, and it happens by His Spirit, and if the Spirit is here then it will cleanse us and make us righteous, but it will also lead us to righteousness. If the Torah is there then we won’t turn away, if our hearts are yielded to it.

Matthew 15:18 – But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.

19 – For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

Since the heart is the place form which these things proceed and defile us, as they come out of our mouth, let’s beware. Yahushua also taught us:

Matthew 6:21 – For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Is our heart in His Word? Is His Word our treasure? Are we laying up for ourselves treasures in this age, or are we laying up for ourselves treasures in the age to come? I would venture to say where our time is, there our heart is also. where do we spend our time willingly?

Where do we spend our free time? Where is our heart? Yahushua said the following.

Matthew 12:34 – Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

35 – A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

36 – But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.

Every idle word, thoughtless word. That’s a pretty serious, serious statement by our Savior. We talk a lot about how we need to control our tongue and what a poison it is, and it’s a fire that consumes like a forest, but it all starts with one thing.

It is not the 2 ounce piece of muscle in our mouth that causes all the trouble, really. It is because of what is in our hearts.

If we want to have a tongue that does not speak idle words, then we need to guard our hearts. Let good things be our meditation. Let pure things, lovely things, things that are of good report, things that are praiseworthy be what enters the heart because garbage, in garbage out, right?

If we let all kinds of evil things pour into our hearts and minds, through a television set, through an internet connection, through a movie, it is going to be more to control that in a righteous way. So we can’t allow any enemy and the yuck therein to enter our hearts and mind.

I think it is very wise to surround our hearts with a wall, a guard, a watchman, that would forbid that which is evil from entering in and taking residence. Look, we live in an evil world. We are surround by wickedness, but those things are not our meditation.

Those are not the things that should get our attention. We want to focus on the good. We recognize the evil for what it is.

We respond to it and think of it in Biblical terms, but we are not entertained by it. We are NOT entertained by it. So let’s beware of any influence that might lead us to wrong thoughts, a world view that is contrary to the Word of Elohim, a culture that is fundamentally at war with Elohim.

It says there are purveyors and spiritual forces in high places which are seeking, through unclean thoughts, to influence the hearts of men.

2Corinthians 10:2 – But I beg [you] that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.

3 – For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

4 – For the weapons of our warfare [are] not carnal but mighty in Elohim for pulling down strongholds,

2Corinthians 10:5 – casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Elohim, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Messiah,

6 – and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Think about that. Every thought that enters your mind, you’re going to bring into captivity and say, is this a good thought, according to the Word of Elohim that dwells in my heart? Is that a thought that I want to let take residence in me?

And if that thought is not according to the obedience of Messiah, what do we do with it? We cast it out.

We cast down every thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of Elohim, bringing every thought into captivity. And by His Spirit, by the Word of Elohim, because the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. they are spiritual, and the Word of Elohim is spiritual, so we don’t look at things in terms of the natural.

We look at things in terms of the spiritual, and we nip evil in the bud by casting down those thought before they even take residence because the day is going to come when we actually punish all disobedience because we will judge and kings on the earth reigning with Messiah.

So we have to realize there is a battle going on in this world today, and our hearts are the booty. Our hearts are the spoil.

Yahweh is after our hearts. Satan is after our hearts. We have to realize there is a battle going on, and everybody is in it. It is not a battle of the flesh. It is a battle that occurs every day inside of us, in our hearts. No carnal sword will defeat the enemy in this battle.

We have to make a decision which side we will be on. We are not bystanders in this war.

We are not spectators, like at a football game, everyone watching two sides battle it out. You are in it. Whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, you are in it. You’ve just chosen sides. That’s all. We are born into the battle. The adversary and his servants have already chosen their side.

They want to come against us and advance the kingdom of darkness.

Yahweh wants us to advance His kingdom, His kingdom of light, His kingdom of love, His kingdom of Messiah. The battleground is within our hearts because out of it are the issues of life. The enemy seeks to take ground away from Yahweh, and we, brothers, have a choice of who we want to give ground to.

Every minute of every day we have that choice.

So will our decisions advance the kingdom of Yahweh, or will our decisions advance the kingdom of darkness? Which side are we on. Every time we choose to sin, we are choosing to advance the kingdom of darkness. Have you ever thought about that? They get a little more ground every time we yield to temptation.

We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to give them more ground, do we?

Sometimes, if we think about that long enough, it can become a source of strength in the middle of temptation. Do I want to give the enemy ground today? Do I want to give him fodder against me? No, I don’t think so. When we choose to overcome and conquer that sin in our hearts, we are choosing to advance the kingdom of light.

We are showing Yahweh that we are choosing His side.

We are joining forces with Him and not with the enemy. So what side are we going to be on? Will we destroy the enemy before he even gets a chance to cross the line, or do we give him a little place to take residence and then really have to fight him later to get him out? You know, we do have authority over him.

We don’t have to just let him into our homes, our camps, our minds, and then try to fight. If we take captive any thought and bring under subjection to the Messiah and treat any sinful thought as Yahweh’s enemy, and therefore our enemy, we are less likely to be deceived into thinking we are doing something right when we are not.

Sometimes it is hard to recognize those thoughts that are not good.

That is why we need the Word to take residence in our heart, to expose that which is wrong, to be that living, powerful force that can pierce right through the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discern those thoughts and intents of the heart. Yahweh is 100% after your heart and my heart. That is what He is really looking at.

Psalms 44:20 – If we had forgotten the name of our Elohim, Or stretched out our hands to a foreign god,

21 – Would not Elohim search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart.

That is what has happened today. People have forgotten His name. He knows, and He is not pleased when we forget His name. He wants you to call on His name, even if He knows your heart by using a different name. So we resist those thoughts that would cause us to forget His name.

Should we not? Are we going to resist the enemy, or are we going to entertain him? Give him a place to sit down?

Give him something to put his feet on? Have him over for dinner? Or say, ‘No, i don’t want to be deceived. Your Word Yahweh.’

And His Word has His name in 7000 times. That is all I needed to know.

Proverbs 14:12 – There is a way [that seems] right to a man, But its end [is] the way of death.

Yes, He will.

Proverbs 5:21 – For the ways of man [are] before the eyes of YAHWEH, And He ponders all his paths.

You can’t hide it from Him. You might be ale to hide it from your conscience mind because every way of a man is right in his own eyes.

Proverbs 21:2 – Every way of a man [is] right in his own eyes, But YAHWEH weighs the hearts.

That’s a scary one, huh? Yahweh help us. There are many times we think we are doing right and we’re not. Yahweh help us. I have failed many times. More times than I can count. Yahweh was choosing a king in this next verse.

1Samuel 16:7 – But YAHWEH said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For [YAHWEH does] not [see] as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but YAHWEH looks at the heart.

So He knows.

Jeremiah 20:12 – But, O YAHWEH of hosts, You who test the righteous, [And] see the mind and heart, Let me see Your vengeance on them; For I have pleaded my cause before You.

He is looking at the hearts.

Deuteronomy 8:2 – And you shall remember that YAHWEH your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you [and] test you, to know what [was] in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

That is interesting. That is the reason we go through trials. Yahweh is doing an investigation. He wants to know what is in your heart. He knows already, but He is proving it through His investigation.

Deuteronomy 8:3 – So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every [word] that proceeds from the mouth of YAHWEH.

I think we are in that wilderness, brothers. We are in that strange land where Yahweh humbles us. And Yahweh wants to know in our hearts whether we will keep His commandments or not. Will we trust in Yahweh, will we trust in ourselves, or will we trust in man?

Jeremiah 17:5 – Thus says YAHWEH: Cursed [is] the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from YAHWEH.

Our heart departs from Yahweh when we trust in man and make that our strength.

Jeremiah 17:6 – For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, And shall not see when good comes, But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, [In] a salt land [which is] not inhabited.

Brothers and sisters, I want to tell you, if you put your trust and confidence in man, any man, and your heart departs from Yahweh, man will fail you, every time. Yahweh says when we put our trust and confidence in man, we are cursed. Pretty serious words. Cursed! I don’t want to be cursed. Anybody want to be cursed?

Put your trust in man, and you will be cursed. I didn’t write the mail here.

Thus says Yahweh. Man will fail you. Yahweh will not. Put your trust in Yahweh. Don’t put your trust in me. Don’t put your trust in your spouse, who will also ultimately fail you at some point, in some way. Put your trust in Yahweh. What do i mean by that?

There are husband and wife relationships, and a real danger for us is putting our confidence and faith in our spouse that they won’t fail us.

We have these high expectations, and when they fail us, we are caused to spiritually stumble. We might get angry. We might choose to say words that are unkind. But if we put our trust in Yahweh when we realize the frailty of men, when our spouse fails us, or when man fails us, we will look at them and say, ‘Well, that’s their issue.

I’ve got my issues, too. I’ll pray for them that they will overcome theirs.

Hopefully, they will pray for me, too. ‘ We all have issues. We all have things we may be failing in or getting weak in. But Yahweh, oh no, He will not fail us. Yahushua knew this. Yahushua recognized the frailty of men.

John 2:23 – Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.

24 – But Yahushua did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all [men],

25 – and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

He knew people are fickle. They love Him now, but they will be shouting ‘crucify Him’ later. And He guarded His heart, and He trusted in Yahweh. Yahweh was His source of strength. If we knew what was in man, as Yahushua does, which is a propensity to make mistakes and to fail us, we won’t get so upset and angry when they do.

We will be more apt to forgive them when they do because our hope and trust is not in man anyway. We are refusing the curse to be trusting in man, and we are embracing the blessing instead.

Jeremiah 17:7 – Blessed [is] the man who trusts in YAHWEH, And whose hope is YAHWEH.

Don’t put your hope in man. Put your hope in Yahweh

Jeremiah 17:8 – For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

We cease from bearing the fruits of His Spirit when we are not getting our water, when the Word of Yahweh isn’t feeding us, and the Spirit of Yahweh isn’t leading us.

Then we will be like we are in a desert land with nothing to drink, not inhabited, but when we have our trust in Yahweh, we will not stop yielding fruit, because our fruit will come from His Spirit.

So where are, genuinely, down deep in the deepest parts of our hearts? Where are we really putting our trust? Even in ourselves is dangerous. Where are we putting our trust, really? Very important question, and it is so overlooked today. Yahweh wants to know where we are putting our trust because He wants to be the one we are trusting?

So which one is it?

Let’s keep reading, just in case you think it is Yahweh. Be very careful.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

10 – I, YAHWEH, search the heart, [I] test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

Many people today , brothers and sisters, are following and trusting in man to give them the truth they need for salvation.

They’ve got their Bible up on the shelf, and they are highly impressed with some man who appears to many things about the Bible, so they attend ‘services’ where the pastor does the reading and studying for the people, tells them what it means. And they get paid quite well to do that.

Don’t trust them. Don’t even trust me. I don’t ask for money for anything. You’re not paying me, I don’t put it in my pocket. What is for ministry is for ministry, but don’t trust me. trust Yahweh. Don’t listen to me unless what I say is in agreement with Yahweh, but you will never know that unless you study yourself.

Don’t do what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it.

Find out if Yahweh approves first. We need to look to Him. Man will fail us, Yahweh will not. Yahweh can use men to teach us, and He has set men in the body of Messiah, some to be teachers, and that’s fine, but we have to know, we have to know ourselves. Yahweh can reveal things to anyone, to the most simple minded men.

Yahweh can reveal and make wise the simple by His law.

Psalms 19:7 – The law of YAHWEH [is] perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of YAHWEH [is] sure, making wise the simple;

Who is #1? Is there any strange elohim before Him? Don’t let any man separate you from Yahweh. That includes your own spouse, your own children, any member of your extended family, because they are not #1. Yahweh already is in the #1 place. We need to live our lives as if we believe that.

So let’s have that pure heart in the eyes of Yahweh and put Him first in every aspect of our lives.

That is the only thing that really matters in the end. Yahushua said, “if you love anyone more than me, you’re not worthy of me.” He has to be first, and that is a good thing because if we put him first, then we are going to live like Him, and we’re going to love one another.

So let’s set aside our personal goals, and let’s establish a personal relationship with Him.

Let’s seek toilet Him be our trust that we might receive a blessing. A lot of times we say something in our hearts, like ‘That person did wrong to me, therefore I’ll do wrong to him.’ We may not say that directly. We might say, ‘Well, I was going to do the right thing, but look at that person over there.’

A husband might say, ‘Ii would love my wife, but she’s not submissive. She doesn’t respect me.’

A wife might say, ‘I would respect my husband, but he doesn’t love me.’ They an’t blame each other on the day of judgment. Yahweh won’t look at you and say, Oh, well, since your husband didn’t really love you, you didn’t have to respect him.’ No, He doesn’t say that.

He’s not going to come the husband and say, ‘Since your wife didn’t respect you, you didn’t have to love her.’

What I thought i read in Scripture was that Messiah loved us before we respected HIm. We have to stop blaming each other for our own wrongs and face the fact that we will bear the responsibility. We live in a blaming society. We want to blame everybody for what we’ve gone through.

We blame our parents. We blame companies. We blame governments.

We can’t fall into that pattern ourselves because in the final day it is only going to matter what Yahweh says. So when someone wrongs you, don’t do wrong in return. You love in return. That is what Messiah did for you. If you always have someone to blame, you can’t really get anywhere.

Because you are quick to blame, your heart deceives itself. I hear this, “Someone over there made me angry.”

No, they didn’t. It is impossible for one person to make another person angry. The reality is, someone did something wrong, and you chose the response of anger. They did something and became a stumbling block to where you tripped, and you were tempted to become angry. You yielded to temptation and chose anger. Everyone chooses their own path.

Even if someone put a gun to your head, and said, ‘Be angry and sin against Yahweh,’ we have to be able to say, ‘I will not sin against Yahweh.’ They shoot us, and we die, and we go to the kingdom. Halleluyah. Or we say, ‘They knew I’d be angry if they did that to me.

They squeeze the toothpaste, and of course toothpaste came out. Ok.

Someone squeezed the toothpaste, and knew if they squeezed the toothpaste or pushed your buttons causing pressure, that sin would come out. they knew that. The fact remains, though, that you have that sin your heart. It needs to come out of there. It needs to go. There needs to not be any toothpaste in there.

It needs to be rooted out by the Word of Yahweh.

So if they squeeze the toothpaste, nothing comes out. What if they squeezed the toothpaste and what came out was love and not anger? How about if nothing came out except Yahushua the Messiah? Anger comes out of hurt. It is a response to being hurt.

While the hurt may be very real, we can’t allow the hurt to be in control. We need to let Yahushua be in control.

Sometimes it’s not really ourselves being hurt as much as our pride getting hurt, which is an even deeper issue.

We see how deep we can dig ourselves in a hole. Little things like that go on all the time. And pride is very evasive. I speak for myself because for the last 22 years, about every time I think I’m doing better with the pride issue, Yahweh shows me something else.

The Word of Yahweh , yes, there it is. We need to live a life that recognizes and believes and says, “It is no longer we who live, it is Messiah who lives in me.” So when someone squeezes the toothpaste, the only thing that is going to come out is a Messiah-like reaction.

If He’s not dwelling there on the throne, then there is a problem. The Word of Yahweh, the Messiah of Yahweh needs to be here, deep within.Then no matter what happens, it is just going to be Him that comes out. Yahweh wants to bring Messiah into every part of our hearts, so that we can learn how to love. David wrote the following.

2 – You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.

We can pray to Him. Yahweh, since You understand my thought from afar off, and you have searched me and known me, reveal to me my own wickedness within. Help me to love those who don’t love me. Help me to be perfect as You are.

Matthew 5:46 – For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

47 – And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more [than others]? Do not even the tax collectors do so?

Tax collectors were the despised members of society of that day.

Matthew 5:48 – Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

So when someone wrongs you, don’t be like the tax collectors here, and the publicans and the heathens and the sinners by only loving those who love you. Love those who don’t love you. Then you shall be perfect as Your heavenly Father is perfect because we know He loves even those who don’t love HIm.

All you have to do is mention Yahushua the Messiah.

The very definition of what He was was those who didn’t love Him. That’s the one thing, brothers and sisters, that really sets apart our faith from every religion in the world. Loving those who don’t love us. That is why the Father was so great.

Any sin in our life that we think only we know about, haven’t told anybody, think no one else knows about. We’re wrong. Yahweh knows about it.

Sometimes if we’re not careful, We can become afraid to approach Yahweh with the confession of our sin. We may be afraid to say to Yahweh, ‘I have done wrong.’ Maybe we even stop praying because we know we’ve got some kind of sin in our life and we are afraid to bring it up to Him.

Listen, He knows already. Talk to Him about it. Tell Him why it is so hard to overcome.

Talk to Him about what struggles you have as would to a compassionate, understanding friend. He already knows about it. Confess it. He wants to help. He wants to help you overcome. He wants to be our Savior, our strength, our guide, or everything.

Psalms 32:1 – <> Blessed [is he whose] transgression [is] forgiven, [Whose] sin [is] covered.

2 – Blessed [is] the man to whom YAHWEH does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit [there is] no deceit.

3 – When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long.

Talking about his sin here.

Psalms 32:4 – For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah

5 – I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to YAHWEH, And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

That is what we need to do. We don’t need Yahweh’s heavy hands upon us. Let’s be honest and straightforward with Him. Confess and acknowledge our sin before Him.

Proverbs 28:13 – He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes [them] will have mercy.

1John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

What an awesome promise that is. Confession. It doesn’t mean we have to tell the whole world what our wrongs are, but we do need to tell Him, and confess it to Him. Admit it. Acknowledge it. Seek His forgiveness. He says He is faithful and just to forgive us.

Sometimes we feel guilty and feel that His hand is heavy upon us. We feel condemned. We are trying to run away from our wrongs.

We’re trying to run away like they don’t exist, and Yahweh’s hand is heavy upon us, but if we confess it, we can believe what He says. He will forgive. He is very willing. We have to be humble in our hearts and choose to confess, rather than make excuses. Beware of excuses. Excuses come out of pride and hardness of heart.

Proverbs 16:5 – Everyone proud in heart [is] an abomination to YAHWEH; [Though they join] forces, none will go unpunished.

Pride keeps us from accepting Yahushua and acknowledging our wrongs. Pride keeps Yahweh from accepting us.

James 4:6 – But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: Elohim resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.

The last thing we need in our life is for Yahweh to resist us. We won’t win. We need to be on His side. Humility that separated Moshe and David and the disciples of Yahushua from all the other men that Yahushua rejected. Moshe and David were humble men. The disciples of Yahushua were humble men.

A proud heart is what kept the leaders in Yahushua’s day from really accepting Him.

They did not get the pride out of their hearts. Our hearts also need to be guarded against other sins. For example, lusts.

2Timothy 2:22 – Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on YAHWEH out of a pure heart.

While you’re running away from all those lusts, pursue something else. Pursue righteousness, faith. Don’t those words sound so much better? Love, peace with those who call on Yahweh out of a pure heart. We have to guard our hearts. The internet, brothers. I’m talking a lot to brothers here.

The internet is a very dangerous place for a lustful heart.

If you are a regular user, pornography, at some point, will inevitably show up somewhere, sometime. I read a few years ago that 20% of the average teenager’s time is spent on the internet looking for pornography. 20% of their internet time on average. That is scary.

What will this generation being raised on internet be like? It is going to be a scary place. Perversion.

We are approaching Sodom and Gomorrah levels of perversion in the age to come. Maybe we’re past it already. Years ago adult book shops used to be in a raunchy corner of town, and people would go in with their faces covered up, but now the world’s largest source is accessible in your own home.

So I really think the internet is probably going to be the biggest tool of the adversary to tear apart families, to draw them into fornication and dissatisfaction with their wives. Everything goes on from there, so we have to be on guard against these things. Many brothers have fallen into these traps.

For us to overcome we are going to need to be stronger than Samson, wiser than Solomon, and more committed to a pure heart than David because every one of them fell into the traps. So let’s not open the door. If you don’t open the door, the enemy can’t get his foot in there and keep you from closing it. We have to guard our hearts.

We don’t want to do anything in our minds that we wouldn’t really do because it is a sin. Look at the video game aisle today. I was at Walmart yesterday waiting for my daughter to use the restroom, and they have the video games right there, and I was looking at them.

The vast majority of them had to do with killing another human being. Why would someone want to kill another human being?

I think the enemy is training people with these video games to mercilessly get in the habit of kill, kill, kill, so that when the day comes, brothers, and we are the target, they won’t even think twice. The world consumes its violence and its lust, and it never gets enough.

So we don’t participate in a video game in doing anything you wouldn’t do in real life.

Yahushua taught us that, didn’t He? If you’ve done it in your heart, you’ve done it already. When you kill somebody, you are ending their opportunity to serve Yahweh.

Even the wars and the battles we have gone through, World War II and so on, did you know many American soldiers came upon an enemy and shot him, then looked in his shirt pocket, and there’s a New Testament in there.

What’s wrong with that picture? No matter what we don’t want to imitate those things. If Yahweh sent us on a war, like He David, like He did the children of Israel, He was trying to establish a kingdom on the earth, and go and fight the battles of Yahweh, that is His judgment. Vengeance is His. He will repay.

We don’t do that. It needs to be Yahweh’s wars. We are a part of a different army now.

We’re ambassadors of a different kingdom. We have another battle we are primarily concerned about. It’s not a battle of seeing who can kill each other. It is a battle of the heart.

Ephesians 4:17 – This I say, therefore, and testify in Yahweh, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind,

18 – having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of Elohim, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;

Ephesians 4:19 – who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

20 – But you have not so learned Messiah,

We don’t walk that way. We want the light of Messiah. We want the light of Yahweh’s Word to shine in our hearts. He is the living Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. Let Him in. Let Him walk around our heart and uncover every dark place. Many just say, ‘Oh, I’ll just follow my heart, but don’t let Messiah uncover what’s there.

Rather than listening to our hearts, let’s listen to the Spirit of Yahweh. Rather than following our hearts, let’s follow the leading of Yahweh’s Spirit which leads us to obedience to His Word. It is the Spirit we need to follow.

Ephesians 4:20 – But you have not so learned Messiah,

21 – if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Yahushua:

It isn’t what we are about. If we want the Spirit of Yahweh to rest upon us, we need to let His Word flow into our lives.

John 6:63 – It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and [they] are life.

Do not say, He knows my heart. I’ll just follow my heart. No, no, do not do that. The truth is, yes, He does know your heart, but some you, some of us, ought to be shaking in our shoes because He knows our heart, not taking confidence in that. We need to let the Word in and not let our heart be a substitute for His word.

Proverbs 13:13 – He who despises the word will be destroyed, But he who fears the commandment will be rewarded.

Let’s invite the entirety of Yahweh’s Word into our hearts, all of it – Old Testament, New Testament, all of it, and willingly allow it to expose and chase away every dark place. Let’s have the right attitude.

Hebrews 8:10 – For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says YAHWEH: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim, and they shall be My people.

If His commandments are there, we can’t despise them, we can’t substitute them. We can’t put a different there, can we? Yahweh give us the right attitude when we are exposed. I speak for myself, too. Yahweh help us all. So what does He want?

Isaiah 66:1 – Thus says YAHWEH: Heaven [is] My throne, And earth [is] My footstool. Where [is] the house that you will build Me? And where [is] the place of My rest?

2 – For all those [things] My hand has made, And all those [things] exist, Says YAHWEH. But on this [one] will I look: On [him who is] poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.

That is the attitude He wants. Humbleness. Sensitivity to His Word. He doesn’t want us to look at His Word and say, ‘Oh, I’ll decide whether it matters or not according to my heart.’ No, He wrote those words on our heart so we would know how to live for Him and love Him. That is what it is all about.

To love HIm. To love one another. David cried out to Yahweh:

Psalms 139:23 – Search me, O Elohim, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;

24 – And see if [there is any] wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

David was a man after Yahweh’s own heart, but we know Yahweh found a few things in his heart that weren’t right, don’t we? He died a blessed man, a humble man, but a blessed man.

Brothers, there is not anything in this world worth hanging onto. Let’s open our heart to Yahweh, and let Him reveal our heart to us, and when Yahweh shows some thing to us like He did to David, we can cry out like David.

Psalms 51:10 – Create in me a clean heart, O Elohim, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

He asked Yahweh to give him the clean heart. He wanted it. He longed for it. He wanted to have that right spirit within him. He asked Yahweh to create that in him. May Yahweh create that in all of us. A clean heart, a right spirit. He can do it because we are born with this heart that needs that.

It has foolishness in it, and the foolishness needs to be driven out.

If our parents didn’t do it for us, we need to let Yahweh do it for us. Our parents can do a lot to get the foolishness out, but Yahweh is ultimately the only one who fully can. Because foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.

Yahweh can cleanse our hearts. We can’t cleanse ourselves.

Proverbs 20:9 – Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?

Nobody. Only Yahweh can make our hearts clean.So don’t look to this world. If we think we can purify ourselves, if we think we can cleanse our own selves, we are deceiving ourselves. If we think we can make it with him, we are deceiving ourselves. He needs to cleanse it. And one of His promises is that He will.

Ezekiel 36:25 – Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

26 – I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

27 – I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do [them].

Amein. Halleluyah. When His Spirit is in us, we can get that new heart, the same thing David cried out for. He will do it, but we need to seek the heart cleansing, so the Sprit can freely guide us.

2Corinthians 4:6 – For it is the Elohim who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of Elohim in the face of Yahushua Messiah.

Have you ever thought about this Scripture and meditated on it? Elohim said, “Let there be light.” The same Elohim who commanded light to shine out of darkness, at the very beginning of creation, has also done this same creative work in us. He has shown. Where did He shine?

In our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of Elohim. What is this knowledge of the glory of Elohim?

We failed to live up to the image and glory of Elohim. We have all fallen short of the glory of Elohim, and it is only through Yahushua haMashiach that we can be restored to the image and glory of Elohim that we are created to be. This all happens through the face of Messiah.

It says, “Yahweh, make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, and give you peace.” Peace in Elohim.

Matthew 5:8 – Blessed [are] the pure in heart, For they shall see Elohim.

The more pure we are, the more we will see who He is, the more we will reflect His image, and therefore, the more we will recognize the things that are of Him. So how do we get there from here? We get there form here through a choice to love.

Deuteronomy 6:5 – You shall love YAHWEH your Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

6 – And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

So you show the love for Yahweh, and Yahweh will place those commands in your heart. So give it to Him. Your heart belongs to Him anyway, actually. He created it. He’s the owner of it, you might as well give it to Him.

And these commands being placed in your heart will enable you to love Him how He defines love, not how you define love, but how He defines love in His Word.

Psalms 90:12 – So teach [us] to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Our days are not forever. We only have a certain number of days on this earth. We only have a certain days we will be alive. We don’t know if we’ll die of heart disease o cancer. Something could happen any minute. It could 5 minutes from now. Five weeks, 5 days, 5 years.

We don’t know. We all have an appointment with death. We don’t know what day that will be, but I can assure you, you won’t be late.

So we realize how short our lives are, and we take the time and make sure that we have chosen to apply our hearts to wisdom that we might gain that wisdom from Yahweh. The only way we are going to get it is from Yahweh because we’ve given Him that heart, we’ve loved Him with all of our hearts.

He will make wise the simple when the law of Yahweh takes residence there. Psalm 19.

Wisdom and humility will teach us that we must have a tender heart toward others when they sin, knowing that we also have been forgiven many things.

Ephesians 4:32 – And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as Elohim in Messiah forgave you.

Our hearts need to be tender. We are all on the same walk. We are all trying to overcome sin. Some sin I might see in someone else, they might not see. Someone might see sin in me that I don’t see. Our goal is not to compare ourselves with each other and see who wins the contest.

The goal is not to focus on who is right. The goal is to focus on what is right, not who is right.

Who is right arguments always end up in the flesh. What is right discussions can lead us to righteousness. The goal is a clean heart. The prize is the high calling in Messiah Yahushua. The important thing is that we seek to overcome sin. So we pray this:

Psalms 119:36 – Incline my heart to Your testimonies, And not to covetousness.

That is the alternative the enemy offers, the things of this world, the promises of this world, which are short lived. Let’s pray the following:

2Thessalonians 3:5 – Now may YAHWEH direct your hearts into the love of Elohim and into the patience of Messiah.

Psalms 95:8 – Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, As [in] the day of trial in the wilderness,

We all have our trial in the wilderness.

Psalms 66:18 – If I regard iniquity in my heart, YAHWEH will not hear.

If we regard iniquity in our hearts then Yahweh is going to shut off the communications, when we choose to willfully practice sin.

Deuteronomy 1:16 – Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, `Hear [the cases] between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him.

The gods of this age are people’s jobs, people’s own will, their own desires, their cars, their houses, their entertainments, and if that is what we are focused on then we are not focused on Yahweh. So take heed to yourself. We don’t want our heart to be deceived. Don’t trust your heart.

Proverbs 28:26 – He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

Think about that. All the Scriptures in Proverbs that talk about the poor and sorry condition the fool is in. We don’t want to be in that condition. So don’t even trust your own heart. Trust in Yahweh. We don’t want to be a fool. We have to give Yahweh the old heart and let Him do the cleansing He needs to do.

When we do that, the words which Yahweh commands us this day, as it says in Deuteronomy, will be in our heart. We will not sin against Him because His word is there, because Messiah is there. Then the following will be what happens.

Deuteronomy 6:7 – You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

8 – You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

9 – You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This is what we will teach because it will be what is on our mind all the time. When walk by the way, we lie down or sit in our house, our hearts are just full and overflowing with the Word.

If we want to instill theses words in the hearts of our children so they may overcome sin, so they may overcome the evil tendencies that are found in the heart that they are born with, so the foolishness can be driven out, then we need to speak of them and let the Spirit of Yahweh flow through us.

Yahweh help us. You see how He wants to surround us with His Word? On the doorposts.

The frontlets between our eyes and our hand. Talk about them all the time, then our hearts can be clean and purified. He wants our environment to be surrounded with His Word, but what does the enemy have?

He is surrounding us with Tv shows internets and movies and books and movies and radio and all these other things so we will listen to his words and fill our minds with his garbage.

He want to fill us with his doctrines, with his world view.

If you surround yourself with all that stuff, what are you going to have in your heart? This is what I hear too much of, ‘you shall teach them diligently to your children.’ You talk about the movies and the TV shows and all these things, when you sit in your house and you walk by the way and you lie down and you rise up.

You meet with your friends and you talk about it. You talk about it with your brother and sister. If those are the words in your heart, then where is room for Yahweh’s Word? So what spirits are we allowing to take residence, if the words are spirit?

Yahushua says His words are spirit and they are life. Then what spirits are taking residence in our hearts?

It’s one thing to be walking through Walmart and there are all kinds of unclean examples and words and behavior going on that reflect the condition of the world today, but we don’t have to let these things take residence when we are in our house. The enemy pipes his words right into our homes. What does Yahweh have to do with those things?

Yahweh wants us to have His words continually before us, the words that bring us faith, that lead us to love, that lead us to uprightness and purity and strength and truth and wisdom. If we believe them with all of our heart, we will be saved.

Let’s receive that. Let’s receive His Word into our hearts. Then what is going to come out of our hearts? Confession, faith, belief unto righteousness, unto salvation. Then the blessings will come. Don’t trust in your own heart.

Proverbs 3:5 – Trust in YAHWEH with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;

6 – In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

7 – Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear YAHWEH and depart from evil.

Yahweh wants all of our heart. Lay it out before Him, He sees it anyway, and He will forgive.

2Chronicles 6:38 – and [when] they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name:

39 – then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You.

We are in captivity now, but when we return to Him, He promised He would forgive us.

Psalms 51:17 – The sacrifices of Elohim [are] a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart — These, O Elohim, You will not despise.

He promises to have mercy on us. If we humble our heart before Him, He will not despise it. He We can believe it. Let’s give everything to HIm. If there is something in our hearts we are not giving to Him, we might as well do it because He knows anyway and He deserves, and the ultimate end result is that we love.

We love Him, and we love one another. He will forgive us, He says He will.

Sometimes we don’t want to give it to Him because we want to continue doing what we want to do. We can’t think that way. That is a heart problem. That’s a heart condition we don’t want. And once we see that forgiveness, let’s extend it to others. Otherwise our master will be angry.

Matthew 18:34 – And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

35 – So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

We have to forgive from our hearts. Love one another. Forgive one another with a pure heart. Keep your heart with all diligence. Out of it are the issues of life. Keep our hearts, and beware the gates through which the enemy might enter. Pride. Pride is there, preventing us from forgiving.

Let’s beware of the gates. The eye gate, the ear gate. Put away from us a perverse and perverse lips.

Put them far from us. Let our eyes look straight on. Proverbs says, ‘Ponder the path of your feet. Let all your ways be established. Turn not to the right or to the left. Let’s move our feet from evil. You’re driving down the road,don’t look to the right or the left, just look straight ahead because there all kinds of things you don’t want to see.

There are billboards you don’t want to see.

You’re going down the aisles of the local store, there’s probably some things you don’t want to see. Just let your eyes look straight ahead.

Proverbs 27:20 – Hell and Destruction are never full; So the eyes of man are never satisfied.

Just like hell and destruction are never satisfied. So let’s ponder the ways of our feet and let our eyes look straight ahead on a narrow path. In so doing, we will guard and keep our hearts from the broad path of the wicked, as Yahushua admonished us.

Matthew 7:13 – Enter by the narrow gate; for wide [is] the gate and broad [is] the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.

14 – Because narrow [is] the gate and difficult [is] the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Few. Few who find it. Wow. Yahweh is looking for a few humble men and women. Let’s be among the few. Yahushua’s disciples. Let’s not allow the things that never satisfy to be our guide. Let there not be a breach in the wall that guards our hearts. Let’s be on guard.

Let’s continually seek to keep our hearts purified, sanctified, clean, full of love, full o light, full of truth, full of Yahweh’s Spirit.

Trusting in Yahweh with all of our hearts and keeping our eyes focused on Yahweh, our redeemer and our rock. May Yahweh bless you, and may Yahweh truly have mercy on us all.