The prayer at the end of the song Hosanna,  by Hillsong.

Heal my heart and make it clean.   That is Salvation.

Open up my eyes to the things unseen.    That is Spiritual Awakening

Show me how to love like You have loved me.    That isTrue Christianity.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours .      That is having the Mind of Christ

Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause.   That isTotal Surrender.

As I walk from earth into eternity.      That is membership in God’s Kingdom.

Heal my heart and make it clean.

    Until we see ourselves as we truly are, hopeless and helplessly lost sinners, we are playthings of the devil.  We live for his amusement.  And we are clueless.  When times are good, we think we are in control and directing our own lives.  When times get rough, we say we need to get our ducks in a row or we need to go find ourselves.  In any case, and in every case, it is always something we do or think we need to do.  God is nowhere in the picture, and we are hopeless and helplessly lost sinners.  And we stay that way until God decides to call us to Himself.  God’s choice, not ours.  In our fallen state we cannot make a decision to seek God.  The prompting to seek Him comes from Him through His Holy Spirit.

       Conviction is the prodding of the Holy Spirit telling you that you need to receive the gift of redemption that God provided for all mankind through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.   However conviction comes to you.  In a radio/TV broadcast.  By a friend or relative’s personal testimony.  A sermon  preached at church.  An unfortunate life tragedy.  Whatever, however.  You realize you need a life change that you are helpless to make on your own.  You ask Jesus to do it for you.  You believe He took all your sins upon Himself when He said, “it is finished.”  You believe at that moment the gift of redemption was made available for all, and now at this moment you are accepting that gift.  It is a gift.  You didn’t earn it.  You don’t deserve it.  Salvation is totally and eternally the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross in loving obedience to His Father.   This is all about Him.  Nothing about you.  You are crying out, Jesus.  “Heal my sinful heart and make it clean.”  That work was done on a cross on Calvary.  You are just now accepting it.

    The Bible assures us, Romans 10.9, “that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”   That means you put Jesus in charge of your life as Lord,  and, that you believe as fact that Jesus was brought back to life by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The same Holy Spirit that now lives inside of you.

Open up my eyes to the things unseen.

      Jesus knocked at your heart’s door, asking permission to enter.  You said yes.  The Holy Spirit now resides within you and He begins the work of house cleaning.  And we all need a huge amount of it.  We need the WHOLE house cleaned.  Not just a room or two.

     Before redemption we didn’t see how totally enslaved by sin we were.  Now we see differently.  We have been set free from the bondage of sin.  Satan no longer has rule over us.  We are children of God.  We now see things God’s way.  Before we had blinders on that prevented us from seeing, knowing, or understanding God’s kingdom.  We only saw what the world, a world ruled by Satan, wanted us to see.  Nothing of God’s kingdom was even on our radar screen, and if a blip did occur here and there, we didn’t begin to understand what it was.  We insisted on explaining the blip using the language of the world.  But as a child of God, everything is changed, and we hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness and no longer seek the pleasures the world offers.  

    But not all of this usually happens in an instant flash.  Our salvation happens the moment we truly accept Christ’s finished work for us on the cross.  But now that the blinders have been removed, we have to intentionally commit ourselves to allowing ourselves be more and more transformed into Christ’s image.  More and more allowing the Holy Spirit to bring His light into rooms, even dark rooms that have long been locked up, hurtful rooms, hidden rooms, rooms filled with memories we have tried so hard to forget.  We must view the world with spiritual eyes and see it the way God sees it.  But we must also look thoroughly, deeply, inward into our own souls with spiritual eyes asking God to give the Holy Spirit entry and control over all our Life - the good, the bad, the ugly.  Nothing unexposed.  God already knows everything, and He has already forgiven everything.  The honest examination is not needed for God to learn anything.  It is for you.  You need to be totally SET FREE from your past.  God, Open our eyes to things unseen.

     Most unseen and misunderstood of all is the total unconditional love God has for us.  He does not want to go into our hidden unclean rooms to condemn us, or to hurt us, but He wants us to know His forgiveness is unlimited.  It covered everything.  No sin, no matter how dark, is left unhealed to scar us.   So we are totally and eternally set free from all bondage.  The darker and more hidden, these rooms are:  the deeper and greater His grace is.  HE LOVES US SO MUCH.  Jesus, open our eyes to see your love.  Open our eyes to see You.  To reach and touch You.  And say that we love You.  

Show me how to love like You have loved me.

    That love, redeeming love, unconditional love, the love God has always had, always given. Pure love, love only He can give.  The love you have always had a longing for but did not understand.  A love that was kept hidden from your understanding by your sinful nature. Your love of your sinful nature. And your refusal to forsake your sinful nature because you enjoyed it and were addicted to it. You relied on sins’ momentary fleeting rewards you felt you were getting. Even though you knew it was destroying your life. And leaving you feeling empty, alone, needing more. Another fix.  Another tryst.  Another thrill.  Something.  Anything.  To make the emptiness go away.

      Ignorant of the Love God offers, but still knowing that something was missing from your life.   You dId all kinds of stupid stuff attempting to make yourself complete, or failing that, to numb your senses so you didn’t feel the lack of completeness.  An empty feeling.  A feeling that nothing is truly real.  Nothing really matters.  That Left ALONE to faceTHE WORLD  feeling.

    Only one thing can fill that emptiness and make a person complete.  The love that only God can give.  The love that compelled God to sacrificed His only Son so that you could receive atonement.  At oneness with Him.  The only love that is Holy, Eternal, and Pure.  God is Love.

    Let that sink in.  Absolutely you are not worthy.  Only He is worthy.  Get over it.  You can’t make yourself worthy.  It is not a matter of doing anything.  Not trying to clean your life up first and then seeking Him.  That can never happen.  You can’t do it. You cannot clean up your own life.  That’s putting lipstick on a pig. It may look a little better. For a while.  BUT It’s still a pig. First accept God’s LOVE.  Then His LOVE will begin to clean up your life for you.  You will be so appreciative of what He has done for you, what only He can do,  that you will long to please Him.  Because He loves you so much.  Experiencing His love, for real, you want to draw closer and closer to Him.  The more you let Him clean up your life and purify your heart, the closer you are drawn.  Life with Jesus just gets sweeter and sweeter every day.  The time will come when you want to spend every minute of every day with Him.  Nothing else MATTERS, only His love. And the time will come you will love Jesus so much, because His love swallows you up so completely, that you will want to Love others the way He loves you.  Of course you won’t be very good at it at first, but keep trying.  You’ll never get it perfect.  Only God loves perfectly.  But you will continually get better.  Don’t worry if your Love is rejected.  After all God’s perfect love is rejected all the time.  He doesn’t quit offering it.  Neither should you.  Christ lives in you.   

     If loving others seems like work for you.  If it seems like it requires too much time taken from doing things for yourself.    STOP.  THINK.  A WARNING.  Something is out of whack.  Go back to the life cleansing, life changing, love Jesus first gave to you.    Go back to that overflowing fountain of His love.  Drink from it again.  Renewal.  Ask the Holy Spirit to look in those dark corners once more and do whatever house cleaning needs done.   Get rid of the cobwebs.  Let the spirit flow through you.  The love God gives you.  Be a channel, not a dam.  Passing God’s love on to others does not drain you, and it certainly doesn’t deplete God. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  John 13.35.

 Break my heart for what breaks Yours

     God hates sin.  We should hate sin.  God knows what sin does to a person, a society, a country, the world.  We certainly know how sin destroys us.  Like God, our hearts should break for the lost, the weak, the abused, the downtrodden, the forgotten, and oppressed.  The widows, the orphans, the sick, the hungry, those living in prisons made of brick and iron, and those living in prisons made of flesh and blood. We should be righteously angered by satan’s lies, deception, and control over souls.   God teach us to hate the things you hate, and to love the things you love.  

    Philippians 4.8,  “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”  These are the good things God wants for His children. It breaks His heart when He sees us forsake these pure Godly things to chase after the filthy, cheap, and impure offerings of the world.  It should break our hearts also.

Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause

    Two weeks after my wife’s death I reached the lowest point of my life.   It was then that Modena”s death became real to me.  She was never coming back.  The house was so empty without her.  So was my heart.  I had never before felt this low. I I was throwing in the towel.  Quitting.  Giving up.  I said to God, “I can’t do this anymore.  You’ll have to do it for me.  Take over.  I’m yours. I know you love me.  But I just feel so completely alone, and completely powerless right now.  I don’t know how to deal with this.  You deal with it for me.  Tell me what to do next.  Give me your assurance.”

    Of course that is what God had been wanting from me all the time.  My acknowledgement of my own total powerlessness, and my surrender to His control over all my life - not just some parts of it.  He did tell me exactly what to do.  Go back to church.  Go back to ministering at Planned Parenthood. Do that.  So I did that.  And as I was driving home from 3051 E.  New York St.  I heard a new song on K-love.  It began with the words,  “I'd be lying if I said that I'm okay, because right now, I'm lost. And lost count of the broken prayers I've prayed. And it's true that some days It'd be easier to doubt, But Your word has never let me down. So I believe You when You say You're fighting for me. I believe You when You tell me that my story Isn't over just yet. I will rise up again You promised me that I will make it through.

         I cried when I heard the words of the song, “I Believe You”, sung by Megan Woods.

     I knew this was from God,  These were words directly spoken for me, poured from my heart. Into His love.  I would rise up again. He is not finished with me just yet.  He is such a good good Father.

 As I walk from earth into eternity.

     First of all, we all do have eternal life.  

        It is just a matter of WHERE the majority of it will be spent.  Our life on earth is just a moment, a vapor.   Life eternal is forever.  We will either spend it with God in heaven, or separated forever from God in Sheol.

       Walking from earth into eternity is our walk with Jesus.  Our daily walk.  I love Jesus so much.  He loves me even more than I love Him.  Jesus is my constant companion.  My sustainer. My redeemer and Lord.

     In the Bible, the crowd dispersed and walked away from Jesus after He explained to them how He was the true bread of life, and that they must eat this bread and partake of His blood if they wished to follow Him.  Upon seeing so many reject His teaching, Jesus turned to His disciples and asked Peter if he was going to leave Him also.  Simon Peter responded, “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.”  John 6.68.  That has to be our response too.

        The walk from earth into eternity is ongoing.  It started the day of our birth.  Actually the Bible says even before that we were known by God.  But from our perspective, we are now in the process of walking from our home on earth to our final home in eternity.  The question is, which home? 

     The crowd walked away from Jesus choosing their final resting place in Sheol.   Peter chose to walk with Jesus on earth to be eternally with Jesus in heaven.  That’s what I want.  I want Jesus.  I want Jesus now.  I want Jesus forever.  Whatever the cost.

Mathew 7. 13 - 14  instructs us to

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” .

Love you so much.

Curt