I started Hebrews yesterday. Here is another way that we can emulate the Lord. Hebrews 1:9 reveals the fruit of loving righteousness and hating lawlessness: the oil of gladness. It is the fruit that emulates the Lord.

As I thought about this, I realized something I had not considered before. We too can love righteousness and hate lawlessness. However we cannot live in sin (lawlessness) and love righteousness. They are like oil and water.

The Greek for lawlessness is iniquity, disobedience, and sin. We are born with a lawless nature. Ephesians 2:2 says that we walked according to the course of this world, and we were under the control of satan. We remained lawless until we accepted Jesus.

Let me quickly take you back to Genesis 2:7. Connect that now with 2 Thessalonians 2:8. It says, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.”

The breath that gave Adam’s dust life, is the same breath that will consume the antichrist! Hebrews 10:31 says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Is the fruit of the Spirit evident in your life? It will be when you love righteousness and hate lawlessness. This is a great barometer for us. When the oil of gladness is missing, it is time to search our heart for sin. Some thought has pulled us off course.

After David confessed his sin, Psalm 51:8 says, “Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice.” Psalm 21 was written by David. Verse 6 says, “For You have made him most blessed forever; You have made him exceedingly glad in Your presence.”

Psalm 100:2 says, “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 says that He sings over us with gladness. Note that gladness is associated with His Presence.

Job sat in sackcloth and ashes when satan attacked his body. He was silent in mourning. Repentance for salvation is recognizing that our sin was against God and mourning over it. The gospel is the Divine exchange.

Isaiah 61:3 says, “…to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” The chains of sin were broken, freeing us to freely praise Him!

This is my newspaper article published today in our local newspaper.

What is an emotional filler? It is our well-established pattern of escape from present stress or other extenuating circumstances. The filler might be a person, an activity, or a certain food like chocolate. The whole goal is to get instant relief, even if it is only a temporary fix. It is a superficial means of emotionally extracting ourselves from what is weighing us down.

In actuality, emotional fillers are heart-idols. They become our source of comfort rather than turning to the Lord. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Psalm 61:2 says “…When my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” He wants to be our Sustainer.

In Ezekiel 14:4, the Lord was speaking to the house of Israel through His prophet. Here is part of the verse which says, “…Everyone…who sets up his idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, …I the Lord will answer him who comes, according to the multitude of his idols.”

Heart idols are sin. They are deceptive figments of our imagination. They lead us away from the Lord. Psalm 82:11-12 says that when we don’t listen to the Lord, “…So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels.” That is a scary truth.

I am speaking from experience. As a child, I had bitten satan’s bait and was hooked on self-deception. I pretended that everything was alright, but my life was marinating in pain. My heart had a huge vacuum in it from broken expectations. I unconsciously turned to my myriad emotional fillers anytime I felt overwhelmed.

I had accepted Jesus as my Savior in 1958, but I did not know anything about intimate communion with Him until many years later. The crux of my emptiness was because my relationship with the Lord was superficial.

Emotional fillers are a hidden trap. When we turn to food, entertainment, or substances as an escape route we are deceived. Until our eyes are opened, we cannot see the dynamic magnetic force behind our choices. We find ourselves being pulled into the same old patterns of defeat. We try to do better but cannot get free.

My freedom came unexpectedly. A friend gave me a book by A. W. Tozer called The Pursuit of God. The prayers at the end of chapter one drew me with magnetic force. I dared to use them as my own. I haltingly spoke words like, ‘I desire to desire You’, ‘I long to long for You’, ‘I want to want You.’ My wounded heart began to open up like a flower bud does in the sun.

I didn’t realize the futile cycle was my default until the truth I was reading about exposed the lies. Like a yawning pit I fell into it time and time again. My heart idols spoke convincing lies that controlled my thoughts and actions. Once I confessed them as sin against God, my relationship with Him was restored.

I started to renew my mind by hiding specific verses in my heart. As I memorized them and put them into practice, my thought patterns changed. I quoted them in my mind, and I clung to them when I was overwhelmed. Ephesians 4:23 Amplified says, “And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude).”

Slowly my heart-idols were dismantled and replaced. Standing in truth reinforced my new pathway. I also began to understand how much the Lord delighted in me. As I spent some time communing in my heart with His Heart, I learned how to delight in Him delighting in me. That new awareness began my journey of intimate communion with the Lord that radically changed my life. 

The trials the Lord has allowed have been His tools to conform me to His image. He has used them to develop my trust to cling to Him alone. I am now aware of emotional fillers and seek to turn to Him first so that they fall as defeated temptations. 

What about you? Do you have a sustaining personal relationship with Jesus? If you don’t, you can. He died on the cross, bearing your sins. He took your place. Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

At the end of Job, God addressed Eliphaz alone. Job 2:11 named Eliphaz first then Bildad and Zophar. Eliphaz was the first to speak accusingly to Job. Job 42:7 says, “And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”

It appears to me that Eliphaz had influenced his two friends through erroneous doctrine. In verse 9 they did as the Lord commanded them. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says, “Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good habits.” James 1:16 says, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” James was addressing the cascading descent of temptations.

Verse 22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” It followed verse 21 which says, “…received with meekness the implanted word…” That takes us to 2 Timothy 2:15. It says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

Do you think that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were ashamed when God corrected them? Prideful acts bring shame. They had to humble themselves. The one they falsely accused of hidden sin? Job was instructed to pray for them.

2 Timothy 2:2 says, “And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

We are all responsible to disciple others from God’s word. Will we influence them in right doctrine, or the doctrine of men? Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms an hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Here is our parameter. Verse 17 says, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do ALL in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

A word to the one discipling, and the one being discipled comes from Acts 17:11. The folks in Berea heard Paul and Silas. It says, “…they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

That is the part James was writing about. To be a hearer only and not a doer leaves us vulnerable to self deception. It is God’s word, deeply ingrained in our hearts, that will keep us from the false doctrine of men. Digesting the full counsel of the Lord will exercise our senses to discern false doctrine the moment we hear it.

If you are ever tempted to question what God is doing in your life, I encourage you to read Job 38, 39, 40, 41, 42:1-3. It will bring you right back into righteous perspective.

God is so great. His wisdom is beyond anything we can comprehend or grasp. Here is one verse to meditate on. Job 38:36 says, “Who has put wisdom in the mind? Or who has given understanding to the heart?”

I was meditating on Genesis 2:7. It says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

Think about this scene with me. Dust. No life. We are created in the image of God. When he created Adam, he fully equipped his body to function through His breath. That means the brain and all of its intricate work. All the vital organs, miles of blood vessels that carried oxygen to every cell, the right stomach acid and healthy gut bacteria to digest his food.

Adam had no sin. The wisdom of God was within him. In Genesis 2:19-20 it says that God formed animal life, and then brought them to Adam. He named them: cattle, birds, and every beast. Think about birds. Here are a few: cardinal, finch, sparrow, and eagle. With his brain, fully functioning, he named every creature that God made.

Psalm 145:5 says, “I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works.” When we meditate on God’s work through His word, we fill our bodies with life-giving health and energy. It is the negative thoughts, and the unresolved issues that destroy our health.

Proverbs 3:5-8 says that when we trust Him with all of our heart, acknowledge Him in all of our ways, and fear Him through awe and worship, it will be health to all our flesh and strength to all our bones. The Hebrew thought in meditating was to utterly abandon all outside distractions. When I was meditating on Genesis 2:7 I felt like the walls of my brain were expanding because of the marvel and wonder of God. He is awesome beyond words (or thoughts).

(I was two paragraphs into this when FB suddenly ‘had an error’ and I lost it all). Hmm. This must be very important to some)

Prolonged anxiety is very destructive to our health. Here are some symptoms of anxiety that I picked up from various Scriptures: worry, fretting, fear, smoldering anger, impatience, overwhelmed, wrought up, self-hatred, and self-rejection. 

The Lord created us with an internal mechanism which turns on when we are faced with danger. It is called fight or flight. It increases our heart rate and breathing as adrenaline pumps into our muscles. It readies our body to fight the danger or flee from it.

However, the brain does not distinguish between real danger and perceived danger. Therefore prolonged anxiety keeps our body in that fight or flight state. When I had the hidden mold in my house, my heart raced all the time. I dropped 21 pounds in three weeks. When I got out of there my heart stopped racing. The mold was hidden until the Lord revealed it to me.

Unresolved issues are also hidden. They keep our bodies in a constant state of anxiety. Why? It takes a lot of energy to keep something hidden. It may be unconscious. We may try to suppress or ignore it, but our brain doesn’t see it that way. The limbic system in our brain has everything locked in its memory.

How do we calm anxiety? First we need to recognize where it is coming from. If you feel anxious, stop and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal its source. The root to any prolonged anxiety is lack of trust.

Matthew 6:25-34 is a great passage to help us grasp this truth. Verse 25 says, “…do not worry about your life…” Verse 26-30 says that the Father feeds the birds, He clothes the lilies, and the grass of the fields. At the end of the verse He gave the root of worry. It is a lack of faith. It is myopic vision. We are looking to ourselves or others, while burdening our heart with our circumstances that we have no control over.

Mark 11:23 says, “…Have faith in God.” If we put our faith in our own strength, others, or in hope that our circumstances will change we will be anxious. That is the flesh way which is futile. Philippians 4:6 Amplified says, “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.” 

The Lord knows what we need. He does not want us to carry a burden that is not ours to carry. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” True rest is releasing everything that constricts our faith. When our faith is freely flowing to and from the Lord, our inner being will be tranquil or serene.

There are spiritual roots to disease. I was startled when the Holy Spirit showed me this one. I had never thought about it before. I do know that unresolved issues seep into our thought process.

What would spiritual acid reflux look like? Let’s take unforgiveness. Though the emotional pain is buried from your conscious thoughts, it is alive and oozing acid. You emotionally trigger if something reminds you of the person who hurt you, or the circumstance that radically changed your life.

True heart forgiveness destroys the record of wrongs, which is a detailed internal list. Forgiveness leaves no painful emotions to fester. The slate is clear. Forgiveness neutralizes the acid build up.

Here is an analogy from Proverbs 18:21. Death words are caustic or acidic. They corrode. Life-giving words are peaceful. They are full of encouragement, acceptance, and love. They are alkaline and therefore impart grace.

Bitterness causes chemical changes in our body. Toxic thoughts drip that ‘acid’ onto our neuro pathways in our brain which corrodes them. Bitterness is poison to our bloodstream. Acts 8:23 says, “For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”

Resentment is like cement that lines the bottom of our heart. Why do I say this? That is how I felt in 1983 when I began my healing journey. I had no idea how deeply ingrained it was until the Holy Spirit showed me. Hebrews 3:13 says, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

Gossip, that juicy morsel, enters the chamber of our memory. It springs up unconsciously. Gossip taints our view of the person who spoke it, as well as the person who received it. Gossip creates inner defilement.

I hope this gives you something to think about. It did me. I do not want anything hidden that will fester and destroy my health from within. Confession of sin is God’s perfect way.

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Ephesians 1:7 says, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” That is our standing. It will never be changed or altered.

We are responsible to deal with painful issues as they come. That is our state. If we sin, we must confess it. When we acknowledge our sin, we are agreeing with what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

Who is truly in control? Job 34:14-15 brings everything into righteous perspective. It says, “If He should set His heart on it, if He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust.”

There are three types of thoughts. They can come from the Lord, fiery darts, or they seep up through unresolved issues. Yesterday morning, when I had the visual thought that created instant fear, I made my next thought praise.

When peace instantly returned to my body, I knew the thought was from the Lord. Praise opened my heart to receive the insight He wanted to give me.

How did I discern that? There was no fight that ensued. Had it been a fiery dart thought, I would have been engaged in a battle. Deuteronomy 20:12 stated a principle in warfare that we can follow. It says, “Now if the city will not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.”

The fiery dart is designed to penetrate. It can only do that if we do not fight. It is a suggestion. It usually comes in the first person, sneaking in stealthily. If we do not discern and block it, it will become a stronghold that the enemy uses to fight us from within.

Hebrews 5:14 says, “But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Discernment comes through ingesting strong doctrine, and from dining with the Lord through intimate communion. It also comes from diversity as we read and walk in the full counsel of the Lord.

Therefore when we have God’s word hidden in our heart, the Holy Spirit will alert us to use it. He knows when the fiery dart is lobbed. He is our General in warfare. He is in control. When we follow His orders, we will wield our truth-sword and whack the fiery dart to pieces.

The Lord popped a thought into my mind the moment I woke up. He wanted to illustrate a significant truth. In my mind I saw myself in a chairlift swinging out over a very deep canyon.

I would not be doing that in the natural! Instantly I felt fear. My whole body reacted. I redirected my next thought to praise. I praised the Lord for His power, and thanked Him for being in control of all things. My body calmed down.

Then He spoke these words into my heart: emotions are driven by your thoughts. I quickly got out of bed and wrote the words down in my notebook.

I have read numerous times that all disease starts in the gut. Fear is a great contributor. Why? When we are fearful, our bodies are in a constant state of fight or flight. Yet, our brain does not distinguish between real or perceived fear. It reacts the same. Our heart rate goes up, our breathing increases, but our digestion either stops or decreases.

God has given us an amazing digestive system. However, we can compromise our health by entertaining unhealthy thoughts. According to the Hebrew thought, our gut is the seat of our more passionate emotions such as anger, love, or hate.

We need to translate that into our thought process. Can disease then be created by our thoughts? Constant anger or fear certainly negatively affects our digestion. Without healthy digestion our body would not function as the Lord intended.

Job 3:25-26 says, “For the thing that I feared the most has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest, for trouble comes.” Notice his words. His fear and dread caused his negative physical symptoms.

I am told, but have never searched it out personally, that there are 365 ‘fear not’ verses. I want to encourage you to recognize how your thoughts are driving your emotions. It is for your future health. Here is one ‘fear not’ verse that I love.

Isaiah 41:10 says, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”

Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” The Greek is to direct the mind. How do we do this? First we need something to direct it towards.

Picture this: on a blackboard there is a dot far to the left and a dot far to the right. When you draw a line from the left to the right is it straight? Not if I was drawing it. I need a ruler to connect the dots.

Truth within our heart is the ruler. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” We read about Job’s issues as they spring up through his questions. Yet in all the weaving back and forth he finds truth. Like a compass, his heart hones into true-north which is truth.

A cardiologist will use a heart monitor on their patient to find any heart irregularities. A dedicated believer has something far superior. The Holy Spirit is our Heart Monitor. When we are attentive to Him, He will reveal any irregularity in our heart’s beat.

What causes it to be irregular? Our negative thoughts, digested morsels of gossip, hidden unforgiveness, or buried emotional pain are classified as unresolved issues that spring forth when we least expect them.

Psalm 119:11 is a very familiar verse. It says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” When we dissect it, gems of truth are revealed.

God’s word is truth. Jesus said that it sanctifies our heart, or sets it apart for holiness. It is His word hidden in our heart that will spring up instead of unresolved issues when we are stressed, or emotionally hurt. May this encourage you to release your hidden issues to the Lord so He can truly be your Heart Monitor.

3 FREE ebooks of mine are available on Amazon today and tomorrow. I have offered them for free before, but I have new folks that may want to seize this opportunity.

He Drew Me Out of Deep Waters: encouragement for hard trials

Emotional Freedom: releasing the heart

Daily Thoughts: rich insights from my quiet time