Luk 21:34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
God says to us, look at yourselves, look at your lives. We aren't to ignore our lives in relation with God, we simply aren't. God wants us to examine ourselves. It's not too hard to do, we are very self-absorbed and why wouldn't we be, we are beings functioning in the world around us. We exist and recognize our existence. Each and every one of us without a mental deficiency of some kind, recognizes ourselves as existing.
God tells us to 'take heed' and He wants us to take heed to ourselves.
In this heeding of ourselves that Jesus wants us to do, we are to do so because we are looking for defects. Yes, defects. We are looking at ourselves to see if the defects mentioned are a part of us. These defects involve our hearts. We have to look at our hearts and determine if our hearts are overcharged.
You might be wondering what an overcharged heart is, because it certainly doesn't mean a heart getting too much electricity. Or, you may already know and are shaking your head at my electricity comment. An overcharged heart is a heart consumed by something, overwhelmed by something, caught up in something, oppressed by something. An overcharged heart is a heart filled with something that steals the place of God in that heart. Otherwise why would it be bad to have our hearts overcharged with things, if it weren't a detriment to our relationship with Christ?
The all important thing with God is our relationship with Him! He wants to be in our heart! He wants our heart to be so filled with Him that it's completely filled with His love, then that love which is His, we can then give in truth, and purity to others.
So when He tells us to take heed that our hearts are not overcharged it's because IF they are overcharged with these other things, then they are taking the place of HIM in our hearts, pushing Him out!
We push God our of our lives when we choose other things over Him. We do. If we obsess over ANYTHING other than our love of God, we are letting those other things steal His place.
He wants us to MAKE SURE, to take heed, that we aren't letting our hearts be taken over by such things as… being more concerned with our satisfying our senses, our appetites, than Him. And our appetites come in many, many forms. You could have an appetite for anything in an analogical manner. I could say I have an appetite for mowing lawns- and you know what I mean. It's something I want to do. No, not consume a lawn, mow it. So many of our appetites for various things in life become perverted through obsession, through neglect of our God. So much isn't perverted when NOT taken to obsession and out of God's commands. Surfeiting is overindulgence, obsessive indulgence.
Our hearts are NOT supposed to be overcharged by our lives filled with obsession over ANYTHING. Nothing should so absorb our lives that it takes our time from God. God needs to be in ALL we do, NOT excluded from what we do.
Take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with - ANYTHING that takes God's place.
Take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with- drunkenness.
Now why isn't drunkenness simply included in the surfeiting because surely an obsession with altering our mind's thought process through drink or drugs, any artificial means- introducing anything into our bodies that has our brains going from full cognition, to impaired cognition well-- is wrong, like any other obsession that would take us from a God centered existence to a Self-centered existence.
Drunkenness. You may or may not know what it means to be drunk. I have been drunk in my life. I have been a little bit drunk, moderately drunk, excessively drunk. I have been tipsy (little bit drunk) and that feeling induced one of loosening of normal inhibitions in words, thoughts, actions. That loosening may have had me saying something silly, thinking silly things, doing silly things but nothing too outrageous. But moderate drunkenness takes it to the next level and there I am in a state of being that I ABSOLUTELY cannot sober up from instantly. I am now a slave to that state of mind I've induced in myself and unable to get out of it with a mere choice. Once you are moderately drunk…guess what? You're drunk. The only thing that can get you out of that state is time as the alcohol leaves your system and your normal thought processes return unimpaired by the outside influence you put inside. Moderately drunk goes beyond the tipsy phase where you still have some control only it's loosening up, lessening. You start to lose control over what you're saying, thinking, doing at this point. Then being excessively drunk you are at the point you won't even remember all that happens the next day, you passed a point of all control and do things like wet yourself, throw up on yourself, commit acts you never would have dreamed of committing while you had a shred of control left.
Take heed to yourselves-- that your heart is not overcharged with DRUNKENNESS- overcharged, obsessed with losing the ability to think as you should be able to think- completely clearly without any impairment at all artificially induced. Today we could add drugs to that caution in a heartbeat, couldn't we?
Surfeiting, drunkenness… don't obsess over anything in life to the point of excluding God being first in your life, and don't impair your mind in anyway so you can't recognize God needing to be first and foremost in your life in all things.
Next-- Take heed that your heart is not overcharged with the CARES OF THIS LIFE. Uhn? Okay, you know what it means already. You know what THIS life is compared to ANOTHER LIFE, right? It has to be compared to another life, you don't have a this without something else. This door is the right one, not the other. This is the right direction, the other is the wrong one. This is my friend, not another person. This is my house, not that one. This man is my doctor, not that other one. You know what I'm saying! This is my life… but if this is my life that means another life is a possibility. However when I say this is my life I could be telling you this is how I'm choosing, or maybe not choosing to live, but the life dealt to me and I'd choose differently if I could. Or I could say this is my life as just a matter of fact that this is how I'm living for better or worse. This is it…. This is the one opposed to another. This life. Take heed that our hearts aren't oppressed with the cares of THIS life. (There is another LIFE, the LIFE JESUS came to offer to us- OFFER to us NOT Force upon us as if we don't have a choice. There is Life Eternal, Salvation, Redemption, the life that the majority of Biblical figures choosing God and salvation through Him will have one day when that last trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise to meet Him, and those who have lived since the Bible was written and have died, they too will be His! And those who are living are changed as they rise to meet Him in the air!)
However, we are to TAKE heed because THIS LIFE has so many CARES. Things that can steal our thoughts from God, take away our faith in God, strip from us any love of God if we let them. We see our CARES of THIS life piling up until we are drowning in them and if we let our hearts be overcome by those cares it means we are PUSHING God out of our lives and that is WHY we are told to TAKE HEED NOT to do this thing! Not to let our hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life! MILLIONS and millions of cares of this life exist and will truly crush us if we let them! They will STEAL Christ from us with their wickedness! How can we have hope when the cares are SO OVERWHELMING US? HOW?! This is WHY we must TAKE HEED that we don't let them!!
These are ALL such realities in our world and we can't just push them away as if they don't exist, they do! All of them are DANGERS to our life with GOD! All of these threaten our relationship with Christ! He is WARNING US! Big warning flags waving wildly in our faces telling us there will be these things that can infect our hearts, our entire lives, and they are going to try an replace God in our lives!
God NEEDS TO BE FIRST in our lives and if you DO NOT WANT God first in your life, then Satan is going to make it very easy for Him not to be.
So many people won't take heed, they won't examine their entire life day to day and ask themselves if God is absent in any way from what they are doing. They won't say to themselves- If something comes up and I'm interrupted from doing THIS thing (whatever it is) because I'm being called to serve God in some way, and I get even the slightest bit annoyed at the interruption, MAYBE I need to question whether or not this thing in my life has overtaken God in my life without my even knowing it has. Yes, the devil is deceitful, very sneaky and will try and trick us into NOT recognizing our hearts being overcharged.
God needs to be first!
PLEASE GOD help us to put you FIRST! Please, we don't want our hearts overcharged with ANYTHING but serving YOU and YOUR WILL in all we do. Your will LORD, Your WILL.
Please help us to take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with surfeiting, drunkenness, cares of this life because we do NOT want to the DAY OF YOUR RETURN to take us unaware.
Help us LORD-
Luk 21:35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Luk 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
We would be accounted WORTHY through YOU to escape all these things that shall come to pass and STAND BEFORE THE SON OF MAN! This is our prayer, may we be accounted worthy!
All through YOU! All through YOU!
If we do realize our heart are overcharged with those things, any or all of them, PLEASE LORD SAVE US FROM OURSELVES! Only You can loosen the bindings Satan has wrapped tight around us! Please LORD we are so often our own worst enemies! We would be YOURS LORD, we would be YOURS! All by Your mercy and grace, through Your everlasting LOVE and forgiveness!
Save us unworthy, vile creatures, please! God alone is good!
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen!
God says to us, look at yourselves, look at your lives. We aren't to ignore our lives in relation with God, we simply aren't. God wants us to examine ourselves. It's not too hard to do, we are very self-absorbed and why wouldn't we be, we are beings functioning in the world around us. We exist and recognize our existence. Each and every one of us without a mental deficiency of some kind, recognizes ourselves as existing.
God tells us to 'take heed' and He wants us to take heed to ourselves.
In this heeding of ourselves that Jesus wants us to do, we are to do so because we are looking for defects. Yes, defects. We are looking at ourselves to see if the defects mentioned are a part of us. These defects involve our hearts. We have to look at our hearts and determine if our hearts are overcharged.
You might be wondering what an overcharged heart is, because it certainly doesn't mean a heart getting too much electricity. Or, you may already know and are shaking your head at my electricity comment. An overcharged heart is a heart consumed by something, overwhelmed by something, caught up in something, oppressed by something. An overcharged heart is a heart filled with something that steals the place of God in that heart. Otherwise why would it be bad to have our hearts overcharged with things, if it weren't a detriment to our relationship with Christ?
The all important thing with God is our relationship with Him! He wants to be in our heart! He wants our heart to be so filled with Him that it's completely filled with His love, then that love which is His, we can then give in truth, and purity to others.
So when He tells us to take heed that our hearts are not overcharged it's because IF they are overcharged with these other things, then they are taking the place of HIM in our hearts, pushing Him out!
We push God our of our lives when we choose other things over Him. We do. If we obsess over ANYTHING other than our love of God, we are letting those other things steal His place.
He wants us to MAKE SURE, to take heed, that we aren't letting our hearts be taken over by such things as… being more concerned with our satisfying our senses, our appetites, than Him. And our appetites come in many, many forms. You could have an appetite for anything in an analogical manner. I could say I have an appetite for mowing lawns- and you know what I mean. It's something I want to do. No, not consume a lawn, mow it. So many of our appetites for various things in life become perverted through obsession, through neglect of our God. So much isn't perverted when NOT taken to obsession and out of God's commands. Surfeiting is overindulgence, obsessive indulgence.
Our hearts are NOT supposed to be overcharged by our lives filled with obsession over ANYTHING. Nothing should so absorb our lives that it takes our time from God. God needs to be in ALL we do, NOT excluded from what we do.
Take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with - ANYTHING that takes God's place.
Take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with- drunkenness.
Now why isn't drunkenness simply included in the surfeiting because surely an obsession with altering our mind's thought process through drink or drugs, any artificial means- introducing anything into our bodies that has our brains going from full cognition, to impaired cognition well-- is wrong, like any other obsession that would take us from a God centered existence to a Self-centered existence.
Drunkenness. You may or may not know what it means to be drunk. I have been drunk in my life. I have been a little bit drunk, moderately drunk, excessively drunk. I have been tipsy (little bit drunk) and that feeling induced one of loosening of normal inhibitions in words, thoughts, actions. That loosening may have had me saying something silly, thinking silly things, doing silly things but nothing too outrageous. But moderate drunkenness takes it to the next level and there I am in a state of being that I ABSOLUTELY cannot sober up from instantly. I am now a slave to that state of mind I've induced in myself and unable to get out of it with a mere choice. Once you are moderately drunk…guess what? You're drunk. The only thing that can get you out of that state is time as the alcohol leaves your system and your normal thought processes return unimpaired by the outside influence you put inside. Moderately drunk goes beyond the tipsy phase where you still have some control only it's loosening up, lessening. You start to lose control over what you're saying, thinking, doing at this point. Then being excessively drunk you are at the point you won't even remember all that happens the next day, you passed a point of all control and do things like wet yourself, throw up on yourself, commit acts you never would have dreamed of committing while you had a shred of control left.
Take heed to yourselves-- that your heart is not overcharged with DRUNKENNESS- overcharged, obsessed with losing the ability to think as you should be able to think- completely clearly without any impairment at all artificially induced. Today we could add drugs to that caution in a heartbeat, couldn't we?
Surfeiting, drunkenness… don't obsess over anything in life to the point of excluding God being first in your life, and don't impair your mind in anyway so you can't recognize God needing to be first and foremost in your life in all things.
Next-- Take heed that your heart is not overcharged with the CARES OF THIS LIFE. Uhn? Okay, you know what it means already. You know what THIS life is compared to ANOTHER LIFE, right? It has to be compared to another life, you don't have a this without something else. This door is the right one, not the other. This is the right direction, the other is the wrong one. This is my friend, not another person. This is my house, not that one. This man is my doctor, not that other one. You know what I'm saying! This is my life… but if this is my life that means another life is a possibility. However when I say this is my life I could be telling you this is how I'm choosing, or maybe not choosing to live, but the life dealt to me and I'd choose differently if I could. Or I could say this is my life as just a matter of fact that this is how I'm living for better or worse. This is it…. This is the one opposed to another. This life. Take heed that our hearts aren't oppressed with the cares of THIS life. (There is another LIFE, the LIFE JESUS came to offer to us- OFFER to us NOT Force upon us as if we don't have a choice. There is Life Eternal, Salvation, Redemption, the life that the majority of Biblical figures choosing God and salvation through Him will have one day when that last trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ rise to meet Him, and those who have lived since the Bible was written and have died, they too will be His! And those who are living are changed as they rise to meet Him in the air!)
However, we are to TAKE heed because THIS LIFE has so many CARES. Things that can steal our thoughts from God, take away our faith in God, strip from us any love of God if we let them. We see our CARES of THIS life piling up until we are drowning in them and if we let our hearts be overcome by those cares it means we are PUSHING God out of our lives and that is WHY we are told to TAKE HEED NOT to do this thing! Not to let our hearts be overcharged with the cares of this life! MILLIONS and millions of cares of this life exist and will truly crush us if we let them! They will STEAL Christ from us with their wickedness! How can we have hope when the cares are SO OVERWHELMING US? HOW?! This is WHY we must TAKE HEED that we don't let them!!
These are ALL such realities in our world and we can't just push them away as if they don't exist, they do! All of them are DANGERS to our life with GOD! All of these threaten our relationship with Christ! He is WARNING US! Big warning flags waving wildly in our faces telling us there will be these things that can infect our hearts, our entire lives, and they are going to try an replace God in our lives!
God NEEDS TO BE FIRST in our lives and if you DO NOT WANT God first in your life, then Satan is going to make it very easy for Him not to be.
So many people won't take heed, they won't examine their entire life day to day and ask themselves if God is absent in any way from what they are doing. They won't say to themselves- If something comes up and I'm interrupted from doing THIS thing (whatever it is) because I'm being called to serve God in some way, and I get even the slightest bit annoyed at the interruption, MAYBE I need to question whether or not this thing in my life has overtaken God in my life without my even knowing it has. Yes, the devil is deceitful, very sneaky and will try and trick us into NOT recognizing our hearts being overcharged.
God needs to be first!
PLEASE GOD help us to put you FIRST! Please, we don't want our hearts overcharged with ANYTHING but serving YOU and YOUR WILL in all we do. Your will LORD, Your WILL.
Please help us to take heed that our hearts aren't overcharged with surfeiting, drunkenness, cares of this life because we do NOT want to the DAY OF YOUR RETURN to take us unaware.
Help us LORD-
Luk 21:35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
Luk 21:36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
We would be accounted WORTHY through YOU to escape all these things that shall come to pass and STAND BEFORE THE SON OF MAN! This is our prayer, may we be accounted worthy!
All through YOU! All through YOU!
If we do realize our heart are overcharged with those things, any or all of them, PLEASE LORD SAVE US FROM OURSELVES! Only You can loosen the bindings Satan has wrapped tight around us! Please LORD we are so often our own worst enemies! We would be YOURS LORD, we would be YOURS! All by Your mercy and grace, through Your everlasting LOVE and forgiveness!
Save us unworthy, vile creatures, please! God alone is good!
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen!