Open Your Heart
God’s Heart
Open your heart to the verses we read together from God’s Word. Opening your heart to God’s Word is a beautiful, life-altering experience. His Word reveals the very heart and character of God to us. God’s Word is His heart. As we read it and reflect upon it, the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and guides us according to His perfect will for our lives.
Have you ever invited someone over for dinner or even out to dinner? Why did you invite them? Think about the people with whom you have made a conscious decision to share a meal. Most likely, you hoped to get to know them better, or just wanted some quality time in their presence. Sharing a meal is intimate and relational. It is quite special.
That’s why Jesus says if we open the door of our lives - our hearts - He will come in and eat with us and we with him.
In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
It is a beautiful picture of the intimacy He desires to have with us.
Jesus created our hearts to be His dwelling place, so that He could enter in. He wants to spend some time. He wants to hear from us and speak to us. He is a personal God - a God who desires relationship with us so much so that He willingly enters our sinful hearts, sits with us in the midst of all that our hearts hold - the good and the bad - and shares a meal.
All we need to do is open the door. If we do, our lives change. It’s a simple step, but one we all too often avoid. The question we may need to ask and work through is, “Why do we keep the door closed?” Is it possible we worry He won’t want to come into our hearts? Maybe we think everyone else’s heart makes a house fit for a king, but our own just doesn’t measure up.
The truth is we need to take Him at His Word - “I will come in.”
He doesn’t say that He will look around, sort through the mess and evaluate our hearts to determine if they are worthy of His presence. He doesn’t say that He might come in if our hearts look good enough or clean enough. He says, “ I will come in.”
In our hesitation to let Jesus in - our hesitation to open the door - let’s remember two things:
Brokenness is why Jesus came.
Brokenness is how Jesus came.
In John 12:27, when Jesus faces the reality of the cross, He says,
“Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!”
Jesus Himself says that the brokenness of humanity is why He came. He didn’t come to earth to die on the cross for the perfect people - primarily because perfect people don’t exist. He came to save sinners, like us. He came because He knew we could never truly measure up. He took the penalty for our sins upon His very own body to set us free.
John 3:16-17:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Galatians 5:1:
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
It is also helpful for us to remember that brokenness is how Jesus came. Jesus’ life on earth as the Son of Man demonstrates this clearly. Think about His life: born in a smelly stable; His first bed a feeding trough; relentless persecution; a horrific bloody death on a cross like a criminal. The truth is, our raw messes of hearts offer the perfect dwelling place for such a Savior as ours - the Savior who left the glory of heaven in order to be crucified on a cross like a common criminal.
Philippians 2:5-8:
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus, who was in the form of God, emptied Himself of His glory and took the human form, the form of a servant. He willingly put on flesh. He entered the broken state of humanity because of His desire to be with us. Jesus willingly enters our broken. He enters our ugly. He enters our deepest pain, our raging anger, our nasty sin, our red hot tears and sadness.
Brokenness - the broken condition of humanity - is not only why Jesus came, but it is how He came as well.
He came to die in order to fix our messes and to give us access to the presence of God despite the mess. He came to redeem us, to pay for our overwhelming debt to the Father, and to restore us to perfect fellowship with Almighty God.
1 John 4:10:
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Today, let us reflect upon the tremendous gift we have in a God who desires to come in, dwell in our hearts, and fill us with all of Himself, despite the conditions He finds.
While we take pause at the thought of allowing Him to enter our messy hearts, He knocks and waits, longing to come in, desiring to sit with us and to eat with us. Won’t you let Him in today? He died so that you could.
Share Your Heart
Consider the following discussion starters as you share your hearts with one another:
Do you think you put up boundaries to keep the Lord from taking up residence in your heart?
Do you grasp the magnitude of His love for you - what it took for Him to leave the glory of heaven, to come here and break down barriers, so that you could have access to His presence?
Does knowing that brokenness is not only why Jesus came but how He came to earth encourage you to open your heart and life and let Him in today?
The Cries of Your Heart
At Hearts Together Women, we believe that the Lord hears the cries of our hearts.
We also believe in prayer partnership because God’s Word teaches us that partnering with one another in prayer is powerful.
James 5:16 says, “Therefore…pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
And Jesus encourages us, “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there” (Matthew 18:19-20, The Message).
What amazing promises!
Here is how prayer partnership works at a Hearts Together Gathering:
After we share in the Word and discussion, your facilitator will ask each woman for her prayer requests. All you need to do is share your own requests - the cries of your heart - because we all have them.
We encourage you to request prayer for 1) your own needs; 2) the needs of your family and loved ones; and 3) the needs you see around you - in the workplace, the school, the neighborhood or even the nation.
After the requests are shared, your gathering facilitator will lead in a prayer for the needs that were put forth.
In the following days, we encourage you to pray for the requests of the other women in your gathering. They will do the same for you. That’s what prayer partnership is all about!
As we unite in prayer, we trust the Lord will meet with us, dwell among us and answer us in accordance with His perfect will.
Your Heart to His
Maybe you felt the Holy Spirit stirring something in your heart during this gathering. It doesn’t have to end here. Take it home. In the followings days, continue to pursue Him. Spend some time alone and quiet, away from the noise of life - just you and Jesus.
Tell Him the cries of your heart. He is listening; He cares, and He does answer. Praying is kind of like having a conversation with your best friend. He created you, so He already knows everything about you. He just wants to be with you.
After you pray, reread the Scriptures and thoughts under God’s Heart. Reflect upon the verses and how they speak to you and your life.
Here are some things you might contemplate and pray about:
Reflect upon Jesus’ own Words that your brokenness “is the very reason [He] came” to earth. He truly desires relationship with you. Consider any boundaries you put up to keep Him from taking up residence in your heart. Ask Him to help you to open your heart. Remember, He died so that you could have access to Him.
This is just between you and Jesus - your heart to His. Make space in your busy days to spend some time with Him.
