WHOLEHEARTED RELIGION NO. 2

By

Shelby G. Floyd

Good morning. We are glad to see all of you and thank you to our visitors who have come our way. We hope that you will feel welcome and will come back and be with us again.

About three weeks ago I spoke to you on “Wholehearted Religion,” and we pointed out at that time that there are Bad Hearts, Good Hearts and Obedient Hearts. Today we want to continue our discussion of Wholehearted Religion. When God rejected King Saul, the first King of Israel, he was looking for a new king and David had a lot of brothers. And they marched each brother in front of Samuel and God said no, he is not the one. Finally they came to David who was the youngest of all of the boys and God chose him. Then God said to Samuel, “The Lord sees not as man sees for the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

And so today we want to talk about wholehearted religion. We must admit that there is a lot of halfhearted religion today! I do not believe that we will make it to heaven if we serve God in a half-hearted way. Therefore we are talking about serving God with all of our heart—with the complete heart! And the word heart, translated from the Greek word kardia is found 156 times in the New Testament. God wants us to serve him from the very center of our being. He wants us to serve him with our EGO and with our ID—with our conscious and with our subconscious heart. Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-6 and said, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment” (Mark 12:29-30 NKJV). So today we are exploring what is wholehearted religion. It is serving God with your entire being.

WHAT IS THE BIBLE HEART?

What is the Bible heart? We have before you on the screen a chart that shows you what is the Bible Heart! The Bible heart is the Seat of the Intellect! The Bible Heart is the Seat of our Emotions. The Bible Heart is made up of my thinking process, my emotional nature, and the Bible heart is the Seat of my Willpower–what we choose and determine to do in life. And in the last place, the Bible heart is the Seat of our Conscience. Now we plan to discuss each one of those areas of the Bible heart and if we serve God with all four areas of the Bible Heart, then that is what I would call “Wholehearted Religion!”

Religion is that which binds us back to God because we been separated from God by sin (Isaiah 59:1-2). So we want to be bound back to God with “wholehearted religion!” Therefore let us examine “THE EXERCISES OF THE BIBLE HEART.” Continue reading “WHOLEHEARTED RELIGION NO. 2”

THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART

By 

Shelby G. Floyd

Good morning church. We are glad to see a good number present for worship today, even though this is the two-week break for the schools in this area. In our adult class this quarter we have been studying the book of Exodus. Jerry Stephens did a good job teaching the class on the subject of the Passover. Therefore, many of you will be somewhat familiar with the topic that I am discussing today, which is, THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART.

FREE WILL OF MANKIND

I think most of you would agree that God created mankind with free will. We are not robots! We are free to make our choices, and when we make our choices, we must live with the consequences. According to the Bible, we have all chosen to be sinners. But we do not need to live with the eternal consequences of our sin. Because God Almighty sent his son Jesus Christ into the world to be our Passover Lamb—the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Therefore we do not need to suffer the eternal consequences of our sin. God is merciful, loving and forgiving. Continue reading “THE HARDENING OF PHARAOH’S HEART”