All of us should have a heart that is connected to God. We should listen to God’s Word, we should seek Him in prayer, and have a heart that praises Him in worship. Are we connected to God like we should be?
I read a study from Network World from back in 2016 that shows how obsessed we are with our phones. The study showed that people either click, tap, or swipe on their phones at least 5,427 times in a day.

Wow!  That number comes from the top 10 percent of phone users.  Those who don’t use their phones as much, on average, touch their phones 2,617 times a day. Still a big number of times people touch their
phones. There was some software installed on Android devices that showed that the heaviest of phone users are touching their phones a couple million times in one year.  41 percent of the people said, “They probably won’t change the way they use their phones.”

We are addicted to our phones. We either get on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, check email, etc., but how many taps, touches, swipes, or clicks are taking place between us and God in a day?  How connected are we to God? How often or how frequently are we reaching out to God? I think most of us are guilty of playing on our phones more than we reach out to God. God wants us to draw near to Him. 

James 4:7-8 teaches us, “7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

A connected heart communicates with God in prayer.  An important part of our connection with God is through prayer. The Bible tells us about prayer. We know Jesus prayed to His Father as we
saw earlier. Paul teaches us to pray without ceasing or to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17). We are told to continue steadfastly in prayer (Colossians 4:2).

We are told to pray in the spirit on all occasions (Ephesians 6:18).  Our prayer should be to let His light shine in and through us so others can see our awesome God.  Like the song Father God, may my steps be worship, may my thoughts be praise, and may my words bring honor to your name! What a blessing it is we can go to God in prayer, and He hears us!

A connected heart reads God's Word.  This is a desire that we should daily want. We should want to
continually hear from Him and have a steady diet of His Word. The Bible talks about meditating on scripture day and night (Psalm 1:2).  Jesus tells us that He is the vine, and we are the branches.
As the branches, we are to abide or remain in Him (John 15).

We are told to put into practice what we have learned (Philippians 4:9). The only way we put into practice what God is telling us is through His Word. Those who abide or remain in Him, will men and women of the Good Book. We will treat God’s Word as a valuable treasure.  God’s Word is powerful. God’s Word can help us as we live from day to day. 

C.H. Spurgeon, once said, “A Bible that’s falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn’t.” If we are in God’s Word, we will have hearts and lives that are connected to Him. When we are connected to the Vine
as His branches, our lives won’t fall apart, but will be strong in Him.

A connected heart worships God.  We come together to remember what Jesus did for us in the Lord’s
Supper. We can pray to Him. We devote ourselves to the reading of God’s Word. We sing praises to His wonderful name. We sing and encourage one another as well.

What a blessing we can come and worship. After we leave here, our lives should change. In Matthew 17, Jesus was transfigured. His face was as bright as the sun, and His clothes became white as the light.
He was in God’s presence because a voice from Heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” Before God, Jesus’ face changed. Moses, after speaking to God, his face was
radiant (Exodus 34).

When we come before God with humbled hearts, He can do His work on us. He can transform us. A change should occur in our lives after spending time with God. I truly believe that. From day to day, we are to be transformed and not to conform.  Our spiritual worship is to live a holy life from day to day (Romans 12:1-2). A life that is connected to God will seek to worship God in spirit and truth. A connected heart will love Him, worship Him, and seek to please Him in all that we do.

Let's connect to God through prayer, through study of His Word, and through worship!  Let's have a heart like His and let's go to Heaven together! 

In Philippians 2:5, Paul wrote, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…”  Bottom line is “Our heart should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…”  Jesus had a loving, caring, serving, and a forgiving heart.  All of us are to have a forgiving heart as well.  Alexander Pope once said, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.”  That is true.  We do sin and the Lord forgives.  If we are to have a heart like Jesus, He is one who forgave.  Jesus had a forgiving heart and the same should be said of His children. 

I have often said and truly believe that forgiving others is easier said than done.  We are quick to accept the fact that God can, will, and does forgive us of our sins.  But we are not quick to forgive others when they do us wrong.  Jesus was one who had a heart that forgave.  He didn’t come to earth to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17).  He came to redeem us from sin and death.  He was the only perfect, sinless person to ever walk the earth. 

He doesn’t have to forgive; He could condemn us.  He has the right to because of who He is.  I like the song in our books, “I Keep Falling In Love With Him.”  One of the lines goes like this, “He keeps cleansing me over, and over and over, and over and over again!” 

I keep sinning and He keeps forgiving!  I am imperfect, but the perfect one has forgiven me numerous times.  When I come to Him and ask for forgiveness, He doesn’t condemn but forgives because He loves me.  We need to learn to have the same attitude that Jesus had. 

Wouldn’t it be great if we could forgive like Jesus did?  He wants us to develop a forgiving heart like He forgives.  Let me read what Paul wrote in Colossians 3:13 which says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

The Message Version says, “Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you.”  I love the verse in Ephesians where Paul talks about forgiving one another.  Ephesians 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

From time to time, we sin against others and need to be forgiven.  Sometimes others will do wrong to us, and we need to forgive them.  When someone does us wrong, one needs to acknowledge their sin and seek to be forgiven. 

Biblical forgiveness is where the wrongdoer confesses, “I have singed against you, and I need you to forgive me.”  The one wronged will either forgive the person or not.  The truth is you have the choice to forgive someone or not. 

You own the choices you make in life.  Hopefully, Lord willing, we will forgive others as God in Christ as forgiven us.  Thankfully, God has dealt with our sins through Jesus. 

He has shown grace and mercy towards us in taking our place on the cross.  For that, we should be eternally grateful.  In love, God forgives us and removes the debt of our sins.  He removes our sins as far as the east is from the west Psalm 103:12. 

To forgive others is a decision to drop the offense and to let it go.  Forgiveness involves releasing the guilty party from the guilt of their sin.  God, when He forgives, declares us to be not guilty.  When we forgive someone else, we are declaring them to be not guilty as well. 

There is a benefit in forgiving others.  When we forgive others, we get rid of the bitterness that can eat away at our souls.  Relationships can be restored with others as well.  But when we forgive others, we are doing that which God commands and therefore, glorifying God.  Shouldn’t we desire to glorify God in all that we do? 

Forgiving others is part of the Christian life.  We need to remember how much God has forgiven us in Christ.  We don’t deserve His grace and mercy, but He shows it to us anyway.  We deserve judgment, but we receive forgiveness and love. 

Let’s say we are sitting in the theater, and we are about to watch the latest movie that we have been wanting to see.  Instead of the movie we want to see, the movie is an unedited, undeleted story of or your entire life.  How many in here want to see that movie version?  

I would say that not many of us want to go back and relive some parts of our lives.  This movie would contain everything you ever said, every unclean and impure thought, and all the things you ever did in secret that nobody knows about.  The things you thought you got away with. 

I don’t want to see that and thank God, that doesn’t exist.  When I look at the sins I have committed, God throws my sins into the depths of the sea never to be brought up again. 

Having been forgiven so much from God above, He commands us to forgive other people who do lesser sins against us.  In third grade English, the one who wrongs us is a sinner in need of God’s grace as well.  Be kind and forgiven towards all. 

Think about the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:14-15!  Just because the other person hasn’t asked to be forgiven, you can do as my friend Zach Neal posted on Facebook the other day: “You can forgive someone even if they don’t ask for forgiveness.” 

General Oglethorpe once said to John Wesley, “I never forgive and I never forget,” and John Wesley said, “Then, sir, I hope you never sin.” Because we all sin, we all need forgiveness and we all need to forgive, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. 

May we all seek to have a heart like His! 

Last Sunday, January 1, I wasn't able to worship with you all due to having the stomach bug.  But I am thankful for men like Justin Rutledge.  I called Justin and told him my situation and he offered to speak.  He told me it won’t be a very long sermon, but I know you guys weren’t going to be upset with him over that. 

I will say, and I think you will agree with me that being sick is awful. But when you are sick, it sure is nice when others are present to help you out when you need something to drink, some medicine, a snack, or whatever. 

As I was laying down the other day thinking about being sick, I thought how I can make a spiritual point out of being sick this past weekend for my devotional this coming Wednesday night.  I thought that all of us have an illness that needs to be dealt with. 

All of us can say like David did in Psalm 51:4, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…”  All of us have sinned and we need The Great Physician’s care.  All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory or standard of living (Romans 3:23). 

Because of our great need, God had a plan to send His Son to the earth to die on the cross for our sins.  He has given us the help that we all truly need.  John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

I am so thankful for the salvation, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and blessings of having Jesus in my life.  He has been so good to us.  I loved the old saying about God:  God is good all the time and all the time God is good. 

When we are sick with sin, we, as His children, turn to Him for help.  Turn to Him for spiritual cleansing.  When we first learned of why Jesus came to earth, we turned to Him in faith knowing He is the answer and cure for our sin problem. 

We lean on Him, we rely on Him, and we turn to Him for every need in this life.  He asks us to seek Him.  Peter tells us, “Cast your cares upon Him for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  Sadly, there are so many who will never turn to God.  There are so many who are lost in sin. 

There are so many who do not know the love of God.  There are so many who know nothing about Him.  I challenge all of us to be bold and courageous enough to share Jesus with one soul this year.  Focus on one person in our lives.  Pray about it!  And ask God to use us to bring that person to Him.  I believe He will be there to help us. 

The world is lost in sin.  Sin is rampant in our world.  Just look what happened in Searcy last night.  People shot and killed in McDonald’s area, and shots fired in apartment complexes, some close to Harding University.  It’s a sad world.  The world needs Jesus.  I guess the world has always been a rough place. 

Even in the beginning the hearts of people were only evil continually.  I guess as a parent, sometimes the world my kids are growing up in doesn’t always look so promising.  But there is still good in this world, remember that.  No matter how sinful it may be, we can be the light.  We can be kind to others.  We can let Christ glow in and around our lives. 

The world needs Him.  It is good to see that so many in our world were turning to God in prayer this week to heal the Damar Hamlin from the Buffalo Bills.  Damar Hamlin is in critical condition due to collapsing on the field.  It was nice to see Dan Orlovsky pray for him on TV.  On ESPN for that fact a channel that typically doesn’t talk much about God. 

It was nice to see how so many people in our country turned to God in prayer over a football player.  Wouldn’t it be great if the sin sick kept on turning to God instead of sin?  I pray that more and more people will keep turning to God.  I pray that we, as His children, will keep living the life that shows we need Him.  I pray that by our actions, others will want what we have.

Keep living for God in a world that is filled with sin.  We can do this.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:13-16, “13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

What Jesus is saying is that others will come to see Me by what they see in you!  The lost need to see Jesus living in us.  Be a salty example and one that glows for God.  The world needs to see who we belong to.  Pray and ask God to use each of us in a mighty way!  Give thanks to God for the help He has provided us. 

Ryan