{"id":678,"date":"2012-02-08T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T06:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/"},"modified":"2012-02-08T06:00:01","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T06:00:01","slug":"an-open-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Weekly Overview:<\/h2>\n<p>So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren\u2019t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God\u2019s character. God is after the heart. More than he wants us to do right, he wants us to see him rightly. He wants going to church, reading the Bible, worshipping, serving the poor, and living righteously to come from a heart filled with a true revelation of his loving-kindness. May your heart be wholly God\u2019s this week.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Scripture:<\/h2>\n<p><em>\u201cKeep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.&#8221;<\/em> Proverbs 4:23<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"worship\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Worship:<\/h2>\n<h3>Great Are You Lord by All Sons and Daughters<\/h3>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"display: block; margin: auto auto 30px auto; width: 100%; float:left;\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: block; margin: auto; float: left; border: 1px solid #000000; background-color: #484846; padding: 2px; -moz-border-radius: 3px; -khtml-border-radius: 3px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; border-radius: 3px;\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uHz0w-HG4iU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Devotional:<\/h2>\n<p>In order to experience all the fullness of life God has in store for us we must live with an open heart. Oftentimes, whether it be from wounds or simply bad teaching, we live closed off and self-focused. We go throughout our days with walls up around our hearts and rarely allow ourselves to receive the reality of God\u2019s nearness moment to moment. But God is calling us deeper. He\u2019s calling us to a lifestyle of encountering him. He\u2019s calling us to tear down the walls we\u2019ve built up and trust that living openly and receptively will bear life, peace, and joy.<\/p>\n<p>John 15:4 says, <em>\u201cAbide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.&#8221;<\/em> God longs to be with you. He longs to speak to you, guide you, pour out his love on you, and remain with you throughout your day. He\u2019s not just a God of Sundays. His presence isn\u2019t only available at conferences, worship services, or monasteries. He is God of every moment. He is Lord of all eternity. And he longs to give you good gifts all the time. He longs to bear wonderful, life-giving fruit in you. But you must be willing to abide in him. You must receive all he has to give.<\/p>\n<p>Proverbs 4:23 says, <em>\u201cKeep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.&#8221;<\/em> Life comes from the heart both physically and spiritually. Just as the heart pumps blood out to the rest of your body, your heart pumps out spiritual life. Your heart is the place where God is constantly speaking. Your heart is what he cares about. It\u2019s not enough to just give him your mind for understanding or your hands for good works; he wants you at your core. He wants your life to be wrapped up in his.<\/p>\n<p>Take time today to open your heart to your loving heavenly Father. Look for any walls you\u2019ve built up around your heart. Stop believing any lies or misconceptions that would keep you from experiencing God\u2019s love moment to moment. May your time in guided prayer be filled with new life as your heart is open and receptive to the freedom of God\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n<h2>Guided Prayer:<\/h2>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p><strong>1. Meditate on the importance of having an open and receptive heart to God.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAbide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.&#8221;<\/em> John 15:4<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cKeep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.&#8221;<\/em> Proverbs 4:23<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Do you have any walls up between you and God?<\/strong> Are you living at times as if he isn\u2019t with you? Are you fully open and receptive to the things of God throughout your day?<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Cast down any walls you\u2019ve built up at the feet of Jesus and open your heart to him.<\/strong> Receive a revelation of his nearness and spend some time simply resting in his presence. Ask him to give you eyes to see all the good gifts he has given you today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>God is constantly blessing us. He constantly has good gifts to give us. James 1:17 says, <em>\u201cEvery good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.&#8221;<\/em> God longs to demonstrate his love to you by giving you good and perfect gifts. Cultivate a lifestyle of noticing and receiving God\u2019s blessings. Look for all the ways he is providing for you and give thanks to him. Live your whole life in light of the reality of his nearness and experience all his goodness throughout your day. May you be filled with abundant blessings as you seek to live with an open heart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Extended Reading:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=matthew+12&#038;version=ESV\" rel=\"alternate\">Matthew 12<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":636,"featured_media":681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first15"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>An Open Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Open Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"First15 Daily Devotional\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-08T06:00:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/450\/2021\/02\/4.05-550x364.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"550\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"364\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cdenison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Open Heart","description":"Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An Open Heart","og_description":"Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/","og_site_name":"First15 Daily Devotional","article_published_time":"2012-02-08T06:00:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":550,"height":364,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/450\/2021\/02\/4.05-550x364.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cdenison","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/","name":"An Open Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/450\/2021\/02\/4.05.jpg","datePublished":"2012-02-08T06:00:01+00:00","dateModified":"2012-02-08T06:00:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/#\/schema\/person\/ab397c9ca5ade37b7fc66fefa43eb0cf"},"description":"Weekly Overview: So often we view God as an enforcer of religious rules. We see the commands of Scripture as a list of to-dos rather than a path leading to abundant life. But those perceptions aren&#8217;t the truth of Scripture. Those beliefs are founded on misguided notions of God&#8217;s character. God is after the heart.&hellip;","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/450\/2021\/02\/4.05.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/450\/2021\/02\/4.05.jpg","width":4928,"height":3264},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/2012\/02\/an-open-heart\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"An Open Heart"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/","name":"First15 Daily Devotional","description":"Scripture, reflection, prayer and more","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/#\/schema\/person\/ab397c9ca5ade37b7fc66fefa43eb0cf","name":"cdenison","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/author\/cdenison\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/first15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}