Everybody, good morning. May hope arise. In your lives in 2015.  May hope for your marriage and your kids, and your future, and your job, and your heart, and your soul, and your destiny may hope arise this year as you lift Jesus up over you, hope can help, but rise and follow him as you declare His goodness over your life.  “I am so glad that you are here.”  Two things quick before we jump in.  First thing is this; as if you were here with us last year in January as we had our 2014 21 days of prayer and fasting and if you were here on that day, we broke the fast when we ended it. What we did together is we took a card that looked like this and we wrote down the things that we are praying for and believing God for in 2014 and we told you to put it in an envelope and we collected it.  We told you we will sent it back to you next year at the same time, and so if you were here that weekend and you are part of the fast last year and you filled it out, you should have got this in the mail this week.

If you didn’t get it, you will get it in the next day or two, but I hope for those of you that got these when you opened them up this week, I hope it encouraged your heart.  I hope it builds your faith as look back on and said one year ago, “here were things that I was praying for” and I hope you have seen miracles and the movement of God and some profound answers to prayers and that it just excites you and builds your faith to present to this 21 days of prayer and fasting this year.  And maybe some of you, you got your card and you opened it up.  And when you opened it up, there were some things you were praying for and God hasn’t moved on those things yet.  To be real honest with you, this is my card that I got this week and I opened it up.  And the top couple of things, the major things I am praying for in my life, god hasn’t moved on those things yet.  And when I read that, it doesn’t make me lose faith, and it doesn’t make me not want to pray this year.  It actually does the opposite.  It makes me want to press in more.  Because, it’s not that God hasn’t answered it.  I just believe, he hasn’t answered it yet.  And so some of you, you have some big prayers.  You have been praying.  God hasn’t answered it yet.

Therefore, I tell you, whatever you asked for and prayed, I believe you have received it and it shall be yours.  I want to be, like the widow who keeps seeking, and begging, and being persistent that eventually moves God’s hand.  So for those of you that got those, man a year ago, those were things we were praying for.  God is moving.  He is building our faith, and so hopefully you talk to Him about those things.  And then everyone when you walked in, you should have got one of these cards.  And so this weekend today, we are starting our 2015, 21 days of prayer and fasting.  We talked about it last week.  If you are not sure what prayer and fasting is, it’s simply this.  Fasting is when we give something up to disconnect from the world.  Prayer is pressing in to connect with God.  And so over the next 21 days, we are going to fast, give some things up in our lives to break our dependence on the things of this world and create a hunger in our heart for Jesus.  And so maybe, you will fast lunch or breakfast or dinner; sugars are sweets, your T.V., your social media.  “I don’t really care what it is.  It doesn’t matter.”  The point is, just making the commitment to give something up, to spend time seeking Jesus.

And I believe, He has got some amazing things in store for us as we petition Him, and seek Him, and talk to Him, and ask Him to move in our lives.  And you will see on this card, we got some great things coming up.  So I would encourage everybody to text VCCFAST41411 on your card there.  Basically, starting today or tomorrow, you will get a one sentence text from us, everyday for the next 21 days.  And what that will do is, it is remind you that 1000s of others valley creekers were seeking God together on this 21 days of praying and fasting, and by day 3 when you are hungry for some food and you want to give up.  You probably going to need that text to say, “You can do it, {laughs} keep going.”  So let me encourage you to do that.  And then on Tuesdays, every Tuesdays night at both campuses for the next 3 weeks, we are going to have an extended time of prayer.  Come join us, as well seek the Lord together and then we are going to have a Beyond Service, where we are going to have extended worship.  All that’s listed there, and then on the back side, there is just a simple Bible reading plan.  I realize, life is busy and it’s stressful and chaotic, and we don’t spend a lot of time in the world.

But man, you can do a one chapter a day for the next 21 days.  I am going to be reading those chapters as well with you, and I just believe that God has something great in store for us.  See, we can’t make God move, but we can create space for him to fill.  Let’s create space in 2015 for God to fill.  And if you are here last week, I said it’s like going on a treasure hunt.  Let’s go on the greatest treasure hunt we have ever been on in our lives and believe God has some amazing hope for you in 2015.  And every year, when we do this fast, we all pray one prayer together.  And here is the prayer; I want to ask you to pray.  No matter what you do, if you participate or don’t, if you can just pray this one sentence prayer every day for the next 21 days, and it’s this, “Lord awaken my heart.”  For the next 21 days. That’s what we are going to do together.  So can we pray it right now together?  Can we just all just say it, like pray it, like say it to the Lord together.  Can we do that?  Ready?  “Lord awaken my heart.”  Because I believe that’s what he wants to do.

And I believe He has given us a great invitation to live with our whole hearts and in passionate pursuit of Him.  And I don’t know about you, but I want to live with my whole heart, and I want to live in passionate pursuit of Him.  And I want us to live with our whole hearts, and I want us to passionately pursue Him.  You see, I was thinking about it this week, like I wonder how many of us in this room, how many of us are alive, but were not really living? How many of us are alive? like you are alive.  You get up, and you go to work or you go to school, you have your friends, you raise your kids.  We come to Church, like we are alive, but we are not really living.  Could you just kind of going through the motions, just kind of getting by, there is no passion in our lives.  I mean, take 5 minutes this week, when you are going about your daily business and just look people in the face.  They are alive, but they are certainly not living.  They are surviving.  They are just barely getting by.  They have an apathetic lifestyle and the problem is our hearts.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful, and wicked, and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?

 “The heart is deceitful, and wicked, and beyond cure.  Who can understand it? [Laughs] Okay.  That’s a pretty depressing Bible verse.  Anybody want to agree with that? I guess it’s a pretty frightening picture of our hearts.  And if you deal with people at all in life, you know that’s true.  In fact, there is some scary stuff in here.  Anybody want to agree with me on that?

There is some scary stuff in here.  Our hearts deceive us and we think the problem in our lives is our behavior or our relationships or our circumstances.  No.  The problem is our hearts.  So Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it’s the well spring of life.”  Above all things, more than anything else, make sure you guard or protect your heart because it is the well spring of life.  In other words, the condition of your heart will always determine the quality of your life.  The condition of this, will always determine the quality of your life.  And you say, “how do I know what the condition of this is, what’s springing out of your life.”  If the heart is the well spring of life and just look at what’s springing out of your life.

What kind of words are springing forth from your mouth? What kind of attitudes are springing forth from your life? What kind of behaviors are springing forth from your life? That’s showing and revealing to you what’s going on in here.  And the condition of this will determine the quality of our life.  The problem has always been our hearts.  And God wants to awaken them.  And so, if you got your Bibles, turn with me to Ezekiel 36.  Ezekiel 36, you say “Ezekiel, who? Okay.  Ezekiel 36.  If you got your Bibles and you are not sure where it is, go to Psalms right in the middle and then go forward a few books.  You go through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and then you get to Ezekiel.  And basically, Ezekiel is a profit.  And He is speaking to the rebellious Israelites’.  And God gives Ezekiel a word.  He says, “I want you to declare this to my people whose hearts are far away from me, whose hearts are not awakened.”  And Ezekiel comes and He gives this prophecy.  And so pick it up with me in Verse 24.  Here is what God says.

He says, “for I will take you out of the nations and I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.  I will cleanse you from your impurities and from all your ideals and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and I will remove from you, your heart of stone and give you a heart a flesh and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrease and be careful to keep my loss and you will live in the land I gave your forefathers and you will be My people, and I will be your God.  And I will save you from all your uncleanness and I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and it will not bring famine.  And I will increase the fruit of the trees, of the crops of the fields so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of the fem.”  Okay.  That’s a great passage man.  That’s a great passage.  And you know what that is? That’s a messianic prophecy of what Jesus was going to come and do.

Ezekiel was speaking to the rebellious Israelites’ whose hearts are far from God and He is prophesying about Jesus and about who Jesus was going to be and what Jesus was going to come and do.  And so, let me give you a little bit of theology here and then I am going to tell you a personal story.  Okay? Little bit of theology.  You have to remember in the old covenant, okay? The old testimony, the law and if you don’t like the word covenant, you say “what does that mean?”  Use the word agreement.  Okay? Under the old agreement, under the old deal, the old covenant, it was the law that 10 commandments, which you are familiar with, the agreement God had with his people.  It was all about you.  You had to behave and if you behaved a certain way, then you can have relationship with God.  It’s the 10 commandments.  It’s all about you.  “You shall have no other Gods before me and you shall not create any idols and you shall honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy and you shall honor your mother and father and you shall not commit adultery, and you shall not steal.”  It was all about you.

And if you performed, then you could have relationship with God.  And so what the Tablets of Stone did, right? The law was written on Tablets of Stone.  Moses goes on the mountain, God with His finger writes the 10 commandments Tablets of Stone.  What the Tablets of Stone did, is they revealed the heart of stone within us.  That’s what the Tablets of Stone did.  The law.  It revealed a heart of stone within us.  Remember the law, where the 10 commandments were never given to make you good.  They were given to expose your need for Jesus.  You are never going to be good.  You are never going to get rid of heart of stone by keeping the law.  All the law, the Tablets of Stone do is reveal a heart of stone within you and expose your need for Jesus.  That was the old covenant or the old deal, you had to perform, but under the new covenant, the new agreement, the new deal grace, the new testimony with Jesus, it’s all about now what He has done.  That’s why He says.

He says, “I will cleanse you, I will get rid of your idols, and I will remove your impurities, and I will put a new heart in you, and I will get rid of your heart of stone, and I will give you my spirit that will move within you to follow and obey me and I will bless you, and I will give you abundance.”  It’s all about Jesus and what He does.  That’s the new covenant.  That’s called grace.  Undeserved favor, supernatural empowerment in our lives.  Remember the new deal, grace.  All we do is believe and receive and we get the heart spirit and the life of Jesus.  The old covenant, you had to behave and then you could become.  With Jesus, you become and He supernaturally empowers you to behave.  I mean with Jesus, it’s always identity before obedience.  I mean, that’s the passage.  Identity.  Supernatural empowerment to obey and then abundance.  Identity, “I will give you a new heart and I will put my spirit in you.  And My spirit will supernaturally move within you to give you the desire and the power to obey and then you will live in my abundance.

With Jesus, identity always comes before behavior.  That’s what is different about Jesus and religion.  Religion says behave and you can become.  Jesus says, “I will help you become and then you will want to behave.  You want to change your lifestyle.”  So I said in Corinthians 517, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has gone and the new has come {laughs}.  He has given you a new heart and a new heart will always lead to a new lifestyle.  In fact, I can say it to you like this.  Okay?  The law can tell you how to live, but only grace can make you alive.  The law can tell you how to live, like the law tells you, do not commit adultery, but only grace can make you love your spouse.  The law can tell you not to steal, but only grace can give you a generous heart.  The law can tell you, you shall have no other Gods before him, but grace can make you passionately pursue after Jesus.  In fact, I will reverse it and say it to you like this.  Religion can tell you how to live, only Jesus can awaken your heart. Are you with me?

You are like, I like religion. Religion tells you how to live.  Only Jesus awakens your heart.  So in Verse 26, He says, “I will remove from you the heart of stone and I will give you a heart of flesh.  He says, I will get rid of a heart that is hard, and heavy, and resistant.  And I will give you a heart that is soft, and flexible, and receptive.”  Remember Jesus, didn’t come to make bad people good or rebellious people religious.  He came to make dead people alive.  So Ephesians 25 says, “God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions, it is by grace you have been saved.  You understand, without Jesus you are a walking dead person.  You are alive, but you have a heart of stone within you, so you are actually dead.  And what Jesus does is, He comes and He gives you a new heart.  He gives you a tender heart.  And then you get this tender heart, you start walking through a world.  A world that bites, and pricks, and scratches in claws, and it’s really hard to keep a tender heart in an angry world.

And so what happens is, we get hurt.  And the moment we get hurt, we built a wall of stone around our new heart of flesh.  The very stone that Jesus pulled out of us, we pick it back up and we built a wall of stone around our heart of flesh and what you have to remember is that the same walls you built to keep yourself from getting hurt are the same walls that keep love from getting in.  the walls you built in your life to keep yourself from getting hurt are the same walls that keeps God’s love from getting in.  Because if pain can’t get in, then neither can love.  And so what happens is we get hurt.  And we are terrified of getting hurt again, so we get really good in building walls.  We get really good at building our lives.  Like, “look at our city.  Our city is like world class life builders.”  Like, I mean we know how to build a life around here in the Metroplex, like we have the right car and a right house, and a right job, and right clothes, and a right make-up, and our kids have all the right activities, and trophies, and hobbies.”

I mean, we know how to build lives like nobody’s business and what we are doing is, we are building walls.  And what we actually do is we pride ourselves on the very walls that keep love from getting in.  we say, we are proud of ourselves on how good we look, how much money we have or our house or our kids activities or religious connections; the walls that keep all of us in.  We pride ourselves on that stuff.  And you understand, right?  It doesn’t matter how good your life looks.  What matters is how alive your heart is.  So 1st Samuel 16:7 – God says, “Man does not look at the same thing I look at.”  He says man looks at the outward appearance.  He says, “But I look at the heart.”  In other words, God doesn’t care how good your life looks.  God cares how alive your heart is.  How alive is your heart this morning? How alive is your heart this morning?  And again notice the questions I am not asking you lately, if you have been around here.

Not asking you “how much money you have? How’s your house? Are your circumstances good? Are your kids all starts, so I am asking you.  I am asking you how alive your heart is.  As we build these walls and these walls get so big that they bury our heart and they cut off circulation to our heart, and our heart goes numb.  And our heart goes numb and we keep our hearts numb, because we learned to feel safe with a numb heart.  And we so we hide behind our walls and we judge everybody else for building their walls.  Are you all awake today?

Come on.  Right? We hide behind our walls and we judge everybody else for building their walls.  Like it’s easy to judge an addict.  Look at as why you are doing that? Why you are taking that? You throw in your life or you are destroying yourself, above all it’s really easy to judge an addict.  You know what an addict is doing? They are just using a substance to numb the pain in their heart.

They are doing the same thing you might be doing with Facebook or with your job or with your money or with your performance or your religious activities or your kids sports or whatever it might be.  We are all numb in different ways.  You may be an addict to judgment, your wall maybe judgment.  You judge other people to make yourself feel good and the numb and the pain in your heart.  We are all numb in different ways.  And the problem is, when you stop using your heart, you actually start to lose it.  Like apathy leads to atrophy.  An apathetic or numb heart will start to atrophy over time.  It’s like the Grinch who stole Christmas. Anybody watch that over Christmas?

Right?  The Grinch. [Laughs] What happened to the Grinch? He got hurt.  He built a wall and what happened to his heart? Two sizes, too small.

Right?  He stopped using his heart, so it started shrinking.

Some of our hearts are two sizes, too small and again smaller every day.  Because we are really good at building walls.  We are really bad at living with an awakened heart.  And an unused heart will always create a loveless life.  Now, let me try to illustrate for you with a story in my own life.  Years ago in my life, I had a broken relationship.  And like most broken relationships, it created a lot of pain within me.  It was traumatic.  It left me with a lot of tears.  It took a big chunk of time out of my life because of the sorrow and the pain within my heart and it was a really painful broken relationship.  And like most broken relationships, at some point in time you just got to pick up the pieces and you got to keep moving and you just kind of getting on with life.  And so, I kind of picked up the pieces and got on with life and moved to Colorado and went to seminary and met Colleen and we got married, and I became a pastor and we moved to Texas and became pastors here at Valley Creek and we started having kids and just kind of going through life.

And one of the things that Colleen would always say to me is, she would always say “Johnny, why are you always so emotionless.  Husbands, “do your wives ever tell you that you are emotionless.”

Wives, “do your husband ever tell you that you are emotionless.  As you say, why are we so emotionless.  Just say, you are never high, never low, you are just kind of always right in the middle.  Like you never cry, you are never really excited.  You are just kind of like “where is your heart that I always look up at.  What are you talking about.”  Where is my heart?  You got it all.  This is all I have.  Like, I'm just me.  What else [Laughs] do you want from me?  I mean, this is all there is.  I am not hiding anything from you.”  And she is like, “No, there is more.  You are just not sharing it.”  So Colleen always had this little bit of disappointment, that there is more of my heart that I wasn’t sharing.  I mean, I can even remember sitting in the counselor’s office with her one time.  We are just trying to grow in our marriage.  And we are sitting there with the counselor, and Colleen shares with the counselor.

She says, “I feel like there is more of his heart than he shares and the counselor looks at me and she says, “Do you want to respond me.”  Yeah {laughs} I want to respond to that.

 “Man that is all it is.  I am giving you everything I got man.  I {laughs} don’t know what else you want from me?”  And Colleen is like “no other is more.”  Counselor looks at me, she is like “no that’s is more.  I am not knowing what you people talking about.”

If there was more, I would tell you.  There is not more, it is just all that there is.  And so we are just leading life and that’s the way it is.  Kind of emotionless from me.  Pastor at Valley Creek Church.  This is now as John as lead pastor at Valley Creek just kind of living man.  And you know me, I am all about next steps.  Right?  We know that right?

If we don’t know that, we need to go back to the beginning and start over.

{Laughs} and I will never ask you to do things, I myself I am not willing to do.  So, we are all about next steps.  And I take next steps.  And Colleen takes next steps.  Our family takes next steps.  And so a couple of years ago, we wanted to take a next step in the area of freedom.  Before freedom is not a one-time event, it’s a lifestyle we live.

Freedom is not I met Jesus, I am as free I will ever need to be.  You know, it’s a lifestyle of learning to receive the fullness of the freedom that Jesus died to give us.  So we want to keep getting free air and free air in Jesus.  And so Colleen and I, we set up a week to go to North Carolina to have a personal freedom ministry session with another couple and just us and so the next steps.  They cost money, and time, and energy, and effort.  They were not easy, but they were always worth it.  And so we go to North Carolina to go a personal freedom ministry.  And I am sitting with this couple, and they just kind of go through your life in fine areas in your life where your heart maybe heart, that you haven’t found freedom yet and so we are going through it and somehow this broken relationships from years ago comes up.  And it’s this nice, little older lady and she is sitting on the couch and she said “I feel like the Lord is inviting us to explore that. What you be willing to explore that.”  And I said “sure.”  So let’s close your eyes and let’s just ask the Holy Spirit to come and show us some things.  Is it okay?  So close my eyes.

And she just says, “Holy Spirit! Will You just come and show us what happened in John’s heat when that relationship was broken.”  And so remember the Holy Spirits speaks in visions, in pictures, and dreams like every, we live on every word that perceives from the mouth of God now.  He speaks now to you about everything and anything that you need to hear Him on.  And so I am sitting there, and all of the sudden the Holy Spirits are showing me this picture in my mind.  And he shows me a picture of my heart and the moment that relationship was broken, he showed me a syringe, like a doctor’s syringe that came and went into my heart.  And the moment that their relationship was broken, it was like a whole bunch of Novocain or anesthetic was released into my heart and my heart went numb.  And so I am sitting there, and I am sharing it with this woman not realizing that years ago, this broken relationship had created a numb heart within me and I have been living with a numb heart ever since.  And she says, “what you want Jesus to do about that.  I said I want to heal it, so then ask.  Jesus, will you heal my heart.”

And so the next thing I see in my mind is, at the top of my heart it looks good, but it has been numb and He turns my heart over on the back side of my heart, there is this huge gash.  A huge cut, a huge split that happened from that broken relationship that had never been healed.  And so I watched as Jesus took some needle and threat in my mind and He just started sewing my heart back together and in that moment, as He was restoring that gash on the back of my heart, it was like He was starting to awaken me.  It was like, I was starting to learn to live with a whole heart, like He was resurrecting a piece of my heart that He bended.  And here I am sitting on this couch in North Carolina, tear streaming down my face.  Haven’t cried in years, and all of a sudden it was like this emotional release because Jesus was awakening my heart.  And I can stand here today and tell you, “I am not learning to live with a whole heart and I cry at movies like “13 going on 30.” 

Do you know that movie? You know that movie? {laughs} 13 year old becomes like 30 and it is like I remember sitting there watching with Colleen.  I am sitting there like savage.  She looks at me, she is like “now I know your heart is ill.  You are crying.” {laughs}

At 13 going on 30 or like Toy Story 3.  You know, when the boy gives away his toys.  My kids, I am always like, I {laughs} got to get out of the room.  Okay.  I can’t handle it.

And you might look at me and say which is because “you got mushy and soft.  Listen, I am wearing no skinny jeans.” Okay.  No skinny jeans. If you like skinny jeans, that’s awesome.  Good for you.  I can’t pull off skinny jeans, my legs are bowed, it’s just like that ain’t going to work.  If I could, I would.  I am just jealous that’s what I am trying to say.  No I am still “me.” I am the me that God created me to be, but I am living with a whole heart and I am living in a whole heart and I am living in a whole different level of freedom that allows me to experience the life that Jesus really came to give me.”

You see, what I didn’t realize in shutting out the pain, I was shutting out life.  And what I did unintentionally was I made a wall in my heart to say, I will never get hurt like that again.  So I built a wall and pain couldn’t get in and neither could live or love.  And what happens is, when your heart has a gash in it or a piece that’s broken off, you don’t even know that it’s broken off.  So when people say to you, where is your heart, where is your emotion, and you are like “I am giving you everything I got, you genuinely believe you are living with your whole heart, because it’s broken off.  It’s disconnected.  There is no circulation.  You don’t even realize there is huge portions of your heart, that are not in use.  And so the question I would ask you is “Have you experienced a broken heart.”  Maybe it was an abortion, maybe it was a divorcee, and maybe it was abuse.

Maybe you are abandoned, maybe you are adopted, maybe your parents shamed you, and maybe it was a Church wound, maybe it’s trauma or death or a disease, maybe it’s just life.  Have a broken heart, and maybe you are unaware of like, “If Jesus turned your heart around right now, will there be a gash and wound.  Have you made vows unintentionally in your heart to say things like, “I am never going to go there again.  I will never allow that to happen to me again.  I am not going to be hurt like that again.  So a piece of your heart has been broken off.  I believe Jesus wants to awaken it.  So in Psalm 147 Verse 3 He says, “He heals the broken heart and then binds up their wounds.”  Only Jesus can heal your heart and stitch together, bind up your wounds.  You see, when a baby is born, we all expect that baby to be awake and live.  Right?

Nobody expect the baby to sleep all the time, maybe the parents, but everyone else expects that baby will.  When you are born again in Jesus, He expects you to live.  In John 10:10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you might have a life in avid abundantly.  The thief comes to steal your affection, kill your heart and destroy your faith, but Jesus has come that might have abundant life.  And too many of us guys have become content with eternal life some day when Jesus offers us abundant life today.  Living with an awakened whole heart.  He said, “what is an awakened whole heart looked like.  Look at a child.”  This week it’s cold and my kids were so excited about the cold, they dressed up and their snow gear went outside and got the neighborhood kids and with fake snowballs had a snowball fight on our driveway, and had the time in their life.

And while us as adults are complaining that it’s so cold, these kids are outside, living and flourishing their full of joy, their present, no shame, they receive, they are expressive, they are full of passion.  It’s a child’s heart is an awakened heart.  Because children haven’t learned to hide their heart yet.  Children are born within the need desire to hide their heart, we learned to hide our hearts, because we get hurt.  Jesus will probably be a better example.  He is a perfect example of whole heartened awakened living.  He received the love of the father.  He lived the life of love with people.  He fulfilled His destiny and He made disciples.  In this journey of following Jesus, is a journey of learning to live with our whole heart.  I mean if we are becoming like Jesus and He lived with an awakened heart then that means every next step you take on your journey with Him a little bit more of your heart gets awakened.  I know some of you, if you were here last week, you sit in here and you hear me say take next steps in the area of time, and money, and relationships, and obedience.  I think sometimes you think, that I am asking you to take those steps because it benefits me in some way.

Do you understand, your next step doesn’t benefit me.  It benefits you.  I want you to take steps, so your heart can be awakened, and free, and Jesus.  I mean listen to me, “maturity is not how much of the Bible you know, it’s how much of your heart is alive.”  So if that’s the definition of maturity, how mature are you right now? Some of you think, I have been in Church 40 years, I know every story there is in there.  Okay.  Great.  How alive is your heart is the question I am asking you.  I had a friend recently that said to me, as I am learning to live this whole heart of journey, I experienced a lot more pain, but I also experienced a lot more life.  And so that’s it because when your heart is numb, yeah you don’t feel bad, but you don’t experience the good.  You don’t get hurt, but you certainly get loved.  When thinking Jesus, He experienced some serious pain with people.

You think our Jesus can’t relate.  He is the high priest who is able to sympathize with you and your weakness; Hebrews 4:15 says.  He was rejected by His family, the crowds abandoned Him, Pharisees wanted to kill Him, His disciples betrayed Him.  Jesus experienced some serious pain of people and yet He experienced amazing love of His father.  And so He would take the pain of people to His father and He would allow His father’s love to be greater than the pain of people in His life.  And it was those moments that Jesus’ heart stayed awakened and whole and healthy.  Don’t let fear of pain keep you from the freedom of love.  Take your pain to the father.  I mean, you remember Luke 15, the story of a Prodigal father and Prodigal son.  However, you would like to say father has two sons; younger son and older son.  And the younger son comes to him and says “Dad, I want my inheritance and I want it now.  In other words, dad I wish you were dead, so I can have my money.  That’s bad when you start wishing your dad dead.

Like, this is the bad heart.  And so the dad agrees and He gives the kid the money and the kid goes off.  And the Bible says, “He blows it all and prostitutes, partying, wild living, ends up in a pig pen feeding pigs, pig food, and he is hungry for the pig food.  Like you want to talk about a broken heart, full of walls, and wounds and numbness and all kinds of stuff.  And the kid thinks to himself, “I know I can’t be his son anymore, but maybe I can just get a job on his farm.”  And so the son comes home.  And he says, while the father sees him a long way off, which means the father has been looking for his son’s return.  The son takes one step and the father runs.  And he comes and he picks up the son and he hugs him.  The biggest bear hug, you have ever had in your life.  I mean, bear hugs the son and son smells like pigs and nasty lifestyle and all kind of dirty unclean things, but he jugs his son and he says to a servant, go get a rover ring and sandals.  Kill the fattened calf, we are having a party because the son of mine was lost and is found.

He was dead and now he is alive.  What made the son’s heart to come back to life.  The father’s hug.  Was the father’s love that awakened the son’s heart? It wasn’t a rover ring and sandals, it wasn’t a calf and a party, it wasn’t you can have a job on the farm; it was love.  Only love can awaken your heart, which means you can’t awaken your own heart.  Only the father can do that.  Romans 5:5 says, “Hope does not disappoint us because he has poured out His love into our hearts through the whole spirit He has given us.  The father wants to heal your heart, and you will never fully live until you have been deeply loved and what Jesus does is, “He resurrects your life by healing your heart.  Some of you, you walked in today.  Your life is a train wreck.  You know it.  You are desperate.

You will need Jesus wants to resurrect your life by healing your heart.  Because what’s amazing is “once your heart is whole, circumstances become irrelevant.”  If your heart is whole, circumstances are irrelevant.  Why? Because the whole heart lives free regardless of it’s surroundings.  Remember when Jesus was hanging on the Cross.  They did everything to Him.  They beat Him with rods, they flogged Him with whips, they put thrones on His head, they put nails in His hands and in His feet.  They spit on Him, they shamed Him, and they mocked Him.  But there was one last thing, they had to do.  And when Jesus gave up His breath and dropped His head, it says “the soldiers came along and took a spear and shoved a spear up into His spear.  And when the spear went into His side, it says blood and water came running out, which means they pierced His heart.  Which means, the last thing that had to happen in the crucifixion was “Jesus’ heart had to be broken, so yours could be made whole.”

Jesus’ heart had to be pierced by a sharp spear, so yours could be pierced by soft love.  Hard stone had to be shoved into His heart, so soft flesh could be poured into your health.  That’s why the Bible says, “He carried our sorrows to the cross.  He took the deep wounds of the heart.  His heart was broken, so yours could be made whole.”  Is every one of us sitting in this room, you have one of three hearts.  You either have a dead heart, a numb heart or a live heart.  If you are here, and you never put your faith in Jesus, you have a dead heart, you have a stone heart.  You are walking around with a stone heart.  You are literally a walking dead person and if you would just say “Jesus I believe in you, and by faith I trust you, you come into my life and I will follow you.”  He will take that stone heart out, get rid of it.  He will put a heart of flesh within you and He will put His spirit within you to give you a desire to follow him and raise you to new life.

I know some of you here with a live heart.  You are in the journey of learning to live whole-hearted awakened lifestyle thanking for it.  And above all else, guard your heart, for it’s the well spring of life.  But the majority of us in this room are living with a numb heart.  And the same God who gave you a new heart, can resurrect your numb heart.  And you say, “How do I know I am living with a numb heart.”  All you have to do is, look at the level of passion in your life.  Because in a awakened heart, will always live a passionate life.  It’s impossible to have an awakened heart without passion overflowing.  So how passionate are you for Jesus, for His Church, for the world, for your family, for people; how passionate are you? And if the answer is not very, then you have a numb heart.  And maybe it’s because on the back side of your heart, there is a wound where there is a gash.

That you have been unaware of, like I was.  Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken heart.  Just catch this, and I am done.  The sacrifice of God is a broken heart, which means what God wants a sacrifice is something we offered to Him.  What God wants from you, more than your amazing evangelism and your incredible generosity and your religious good deeds, what He wants from you is your broken heart.  That’s the sacrifice, He is asking for.  Is it why? Because He knows if you will give Him your broken heart, He can sew it back together.  And when God sews the wound of your heart back together, the stitches are literally riding Hi s loss and His commands upon your heart.  Remember God wrote on the tablet of stone with His finger.  And when God heals your heart, He is using His finger to write His loss and His commands on your heart.

That you would have the desire to follow them, and the empowerment to obey.  So Hebrews 8:10 says, “I will literally write my laws upon your heart.”  Ezekiel 36, he says “I will put My spirit in you and it move you to follow Me.  When God sews up your heart, He writes His laws upon your heart.  That’s why every person that follows Jesus has given Him their broken heart.  Because in finding healing, He created within them a passion and desire to follow it.  A broken heart is the birth place of a passionate life.  Because a broken heart is the heart that’s most receptive to receiving His love.  Jesus did not give you a heart of flesh, so you could cover it in the wall of stone.  He gave you a heart of flesh, so you could live an awakened life.”  So you close your eyes with me.

I realize, we just went on a journey there.  And I know talking about the heart is so hard because in every area of our life, we try so hard to build a wall to protect it, because we live in a broken world that bites, and kicks, in claws and scratches.  But those same walls that are keeping the pain out are keeping Jesus from getting in.  And so right now, “what is the Holy Spirit saying to you?”  In fact, maybe you can even ask Him and say, “Holy Spirit” will you search my heart.  Will you show me wounds and brokenness and pain.”  Maybe from 40 years ago, that I don’t even realize that it’s there.

 “Holy Spirit, come and show us the picture or a vision.  Show us the condition of our hearts, and we invite you to come and heal us.”  The Holy Spirit moved.  Since some of you are trying so hard to build your life, thinking that building your life, it’s going to heal your heart.  But no amount of money, no job title, no house or relationship or kids success and circumstances is ever going to heal your heart.  Only Jesus can heal and bind up your wounds. I feel like there is some woman in this room and you feel like you have to be strong.  You have to be strong because of the situation or circumstance.  I think the Lord is saying to you, “Is tear down that wall of strength that really just makes you weak.  And let’s start living from your heart that will truly make you brave and strong in Me.”  And I feel like there is some men in this room and from much of your life, you have been very emotive and you feel like you have been shamed for emotion that’s coming from your heart.  The heart that’s full of emotion, is a heart that’s alive.

And so you don’t have to pretend to be someone you are not.  You can be free and awakened in Jesus.  Holy Spirit come and heal our hearts.  We may be awakened in you.  Maybe this week, as you prey and fast, you just say, “Lord awaken my heart. And take some time, let Him draw you into a picture, let Him show you some things from the past.  Search me oh God and know my heart.  See if there have been any brokenness within me.  leave me in the way of abundant and every lasting lives.  Only You can do that Jesus.  I realize I am kind of lend hang here, but here is why.  I feel like you are open to it right now.  And sometimes in Church, we are not very open to God moving.  I feel like you are.  So Holy Spirit move. Heal and free and love.  So Jesus, I thank You.  That in You, we can have a whole-hearted passionate awakened life.  Come and heal our heart.  And we thank you for it.  We love you Lord.