Movement Live Notes

Over the past few weeks, we have spoken about the different types of leaders' hearts and how to guard them. This week, we considered how to acknowledge and combat those deeply rooted issues in our hearts. Our heart idols. Have you taken the time lately to evaluate what lies at the center of your heart? Why you do the things that you do? What drives you? Do you pour out love, patience, and kindness, or are you operating daily from selfishness, hurt, or anger? These are essential questions we all must ask. As followers of Jesus, it is our duty to ensure that everything we do is rooted in love in Christ Jesus. We do this by guarding our hearts. We do this by accepting the transformation. Mark 1:15 says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

The key is learning to repent. Not just learning but determining to repent of, not just surface sin, but those sins that sit at the center of our hearts. Repent and believe. Through authentic repentance, we are brought back to truth. Through believing, we are brought to trust. Not in ourselves and our own doing, but in Jesus. This was the main subject of His teaching – repent and believe. It's who He was. This is what the mantra of the believer should be. Repent and believe. What exactly are we supposed to be believing? According to Mark1:15, the gospel.

If there is a question of belief, how can we preach the gospel to ourselves every day? Many of us, in our humanity, wrestle with what it is precisely that we should be believing. We've accepted Christ. We believe that He indeed did die for us. Still, there's so much going on globally that sometimes the gospel is in the rearview for us. What is happening in culture is then at the forefront. This is because we have forgotten what our mantra should be – to repent and believe in the gospel of Christ Jesus. 

Take a moment and consider how you are dealing with heart idols. What are some of the ones that you might be wrestling with? How do they affect your day-to-day? How do they manifest themselves in you? Go beyond the surface sin. What do you see within yourself?  Once you’ve figured out what your idol is, and you’ve seen how it manifests itself in your everyday life, you might ask, “Now, what do I do about it?” Our scripture today reminds us to repent and believe. 

Ask yourself a few questions this week. How are you interacting? Not just with yourself, but how are you interacting with God the Father? How are you engaging with others? Ask yourself, what do I love? What do I trust? What do I fear? Do you fear being alone? Do you fear not being acknowledged? Do you fear not being accepted? Some of us draw back from society because we're afraid of what we can't do. It's not always that we are fearful of what we can do. What do you trust? Do you trust having enough security? Do I trust having enough of everything?

As you focus on and think about how this heart ideology is emerging, it's possible to repent of the surface sins yet never address the deeper issues behind them. Today, my encouragement is to understand that there is a beseeching that the scripture is asking us to do. Before you can preach the gospel to yourself every day, we've got to repent of those heart idol issues. Then you've got to believe so that you can actually be able to become a responsibility-driven leader who has the kingdom of God at the center of your heart.