heart | The Shoe Ministries

Filling the thoughts of your heart

Because so many people are hopeless and powerless to change their circumstances I am writing to inspire and empower you to rule in the way Adam should have. Because Adam failed to rule with authority, Jesus came to show us how to rule. The masses were amazed at Jesus’ authority. He spoke and the lame walked. He raised the dead and healed everyone who wanted to be healed. He also displayed that he had authority over the weather. In Matthew 17:20 He said that nothing will be impossible to us. Above all, he said we would do greater work than he did. I challenge you to meditate and see yourselves doing greater works than he did.

We cannot do these things on our own. The idea is that we can do these things IN Christ!

In Genesis 6:5 God saw that the imaginations and thoughts of the hearts of men were continually evil. These words place man’s heart in the head (mind) and not the chest. Furthermore, it shows us how powerful the imaginations and thoughts of the heart are, because in Genesis God confused people’s languages because nothing would be impossible to them if they could imagine it.

The next thing I would like the reader to understand is that the Kingdom of God is in the heart of man. God does things on earth through people. God made everything and then created man to rule over it. The only priority is that we should enthrone God in our hearts. If we place the first and second commandments at the top of our list of things to do, God lives in us and works through us by Christ being in us.

God already created all things we must rule over by speaking the Word of God. We tell the clouds that God created them to suck up water and bring the rain in season. It’s part of the blessing, God gives us rain in season. (Deuteronomy 28) If our bodies are ill, we speak to that part of the body and quote Proverbs 4:22. We tell it that Jesus bore all our sicknesses in 1 Peter 2:22. Remember Jesus is the Word! God gave us the power to get wealth. The power is the Word, in your heart, spoken with faith. If you live this way you are pleasing God.

Jesus created all things by speaking it. When He cursed the fig tree, he spoke to it but they only saw that it was dead the next day because it died from the roots up. (Read Mark 11:22-24.) If you are a farmer speak to your animals and plants, tell them what God says about them. Speak to the clouds, don’t be afraid to speak God’s word.

I have recently noticed a discoloration in my leg getting larger. When I spoke to it, it started hurting immediately and the next week it started looking like a dried raisin and took a while to go away. My point is that when we begin to rule, things normally get worse before it gets better. Don’t be discouraged.

Get up early in the morning and fill your mind with scriptures like Psalm 1 and Joshua 1:8. Meditate on every word of God and read about how the old Bible people lived. Learn never to say the negative things that come into your thoughts. Never obey negative feelings. We tell feelings how they should feel. Tell your family what you are doing and get them to agree with you as in Mathew 18:19. Tell your finances what God says about it. Read the blessings in Deuteronomy out load to your business. Search for the promises, write them down, and speak them all the time. In this way, you fill your mind with heaven.

Joshua 1:8  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Proverbs 4:20-23:  “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.  Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

If you need a list of scriptures to quote concerning your health you can click here.

We also have a free resource called The Twelve Room Prayer that helps you compartmentalize your life and prayers. This will help you speak the right thing over the right area of your life. Click here to get it.

We really love to hear from you! Please comment! It also helps our ratings if you do! Until next month!

How to Keep the heart (Part 2)

I recently saw a video of a preacher encouraging people to have a clear conscience. He then left it there without telling them how to do it.

This is the second letter on how to guard the heart. Click here if you missed the first one.

Once you understand how the conscience works you will see that it is the subject of the Bible. The Bible uses physical things to explain spiritual things. Now you will understand that the Garden of Eden is the Conscience. Out of the conscience comes everything we have need of. It compares to the soil in the sense that it must be weed-free in order to bring forth good things. It must be planted in and then it must be watered and kept clean. (Just like the Parable of the Sower who sowed the seed in different kinds of Soil in Matthew 13)

The first time God spoke to man He said: “Keep the garden!”

Prov 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

God is the great provider; He will give you everything you need if you keep your garden.

God’s laws are written in our hearts, we know right from wrong, and we know the Ten commandments instinctively.

When we learn to deal with sin the way Jesus showed us, the provision of God is like a river of life. The moment we allow sin to enter the heart, the river dries up. Living this life of guarding the heart pleases God and will always feel as if you are living in a garden. The original meaning for the word Garden means “fenced”. It’s like having a fenced mind, being in a safe place where you can talk to God in the cool of the day. In the New Testament, this place is called the Kingdom of God.

We are told that if we find this Kingdom first all things will be added (Matt 6:33). It is very much the like the Promised Land. Those people who eventually entered the Promised Land were living in a type of heaven. Everything was provided for them in a supernatural way.

God lives in the heart of man, it is His property, and we gave the heart to God. We cannot give the heart to anything else. If we allow fear in the heart we have a fearful heart. The same place we gave to God belongs to everything else we decide to give it to. Many people do not think that it is bad to give your heart to your spouse or children. Perhaps we give our hearts to our goals or some people give their hearts to dogs. The subject of romance stories is broken hearts.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and everything in you.

Remember the first two commandments. As we spend our time reading the Word of God the Holy Spirit explains it all, and the Word becomes alive. Now, this life in Christ becomes a blessed life with new ideas and opportunities. The first Psalm says He who meditates the word of God is like a tree planted by streams of water bringing forth his fruit in season and whatsoever he does prosper.

However, the sinful nature lies at the door, always looking for an opportunity to slip a thought into the garden that can grow and cause a stronghold. The smallest thought can grow and cause the fall of mega companies. Lust can creep in, and if unchecked can cause adultery that can ruin the lives of many people. Greed can cause a country to be bankrupted while pride is blinding the eyes and the garden is closed to its occupants.

Learn to guard the heart. Learn to listen to the still small voice that will transform your mind and teach you to be a living sacrifice daily.

By daily doing introspection, taking thoughts captive, and crucifying the things of the flesh we are guarding our hearts.

Tell us what your garden looks like! We would love to hear your comments!

Until next month

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How to Guard the heart (Part 1)

Part one of How to Keep the Heart.

In Revelation 3:21 we are told that the ultimate goal that we achieve as believers are to be overcomers and to be seated with Christ in heavenly places. Most people believe this to be a future event.

In this first email of 2023, I would like to bring this overcoming in Christ into the here and now.

I believe that all people can have a heavenly mind or a hell of a mind, right here on earth. We don’t need an overcoming mind in heaven, there is nothing to overcome there. We need to learn to overcome here, on earth, daily -IN CHRIST!

This means that the troubles of the world are not our problem. Our problem is to keep our own minds and stay in the rest. This compares to having a Sunday every day.

We have authority in Christ, we can do what he did and even greater. This means that we can speak to our minds in the same way Jesus spoke to the earthly things. He walked on a physical storm and then calmed it by speaking to it. If we are in Christ we speak to the storms inside ourselves in His name. Because He did it we can do it.

Jesus is called the prince of Peace. He gave His life so that we can live in peace right here on the earth today.

Peace in the heart is God’s gift to all mankind. However, how will we keep this peace? Can anyone keep their mind free from the chaos outside there?

Firstly you must understand that God lives inside people. He lives in the heart of man along with all of heaven. The heart is the Kingdom of God. If you gave your heart to God He lives in you.

The ‘heart’ the Bible refers to, is not the physical heart in your chest, it is in the imaginations and thoughts of the heart. (Gen.6:5) The heart of man is the conscience. God comes to live in us when we give our hearts to God. That is the best day of our lives. However, we must now learn to guard the heart against sinful thoughts. God is in us, but so is our sinful nature. The sinful nature is called the ‘Flesh’ in the Bible, also carnality, the devil or Satan. Our problem is within us! (Mark 7:21)

As we learn to get to know God with our hearts we come under greater attack from our old nature. Our feelings begin to complain and want to go back into our thoughts to occupy our minds. Negative emotions become hard to deal with along with our intellect and our will. We must learn to die to these things that are in us. The Bible points to these things as being in the body. Paul calls it the Fruit of the Flesh in Galatians 5.

This is the reason why Jesus was crucified, hands and feet. When we use communion we eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood. He overcome all mental anguish in the garden of Gethsemane and perspired blood. He overcame all the terrible things the priests and the Roman soldiers did to Him. Everything they did to Him was so unfair yet he never complained or cursed them, in fact, he prayed for them. He said they don’t know what they are doing.

He gave His back willingly to be torn apart at the whipping post so that we never have to be sick again and then He was crucified to die a criminal’s death. He did all this so we can follow him daily. We can take those bad thoughts that came into us yesterday and we can crucify them. I use my imagination, I know what I look like when I am angry, and Jesus helps me to crucify that bad part of myself. While doing this I eat the Body of Jesus (Communion). I can crucify anything that steals my peace and the Spirit of Jesus is there to help me. When I have dealt with my flesh and know what I am saved from, I drink the blood of Jesus and then He sprinkles my thoughts from an evil conscience. (Heb.10:22)

I never miss my daily appointment to have a clear conscience, in the way described above.

In this way, we overcome the enemy and go ahead and have a great day. If your conscience is clear you can pray to God with confidence that He answers prayers. Because sin has been dealt with.

Next month we will continue with Part 2, on How to guard the heart.

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Guard the heart against Pride

Dear friends last month I wrote about Who is my neighbour?

I would just like to add a short note to this subject before continuing on with this month’s subject which is How to Guard the heart.

We are told to love our neighbour as ourselves and the conclusion of the previous letter is that our enemy is the sinful nature that is in all of us. If we can teach our fellow human being what sin is and how to deal with it we are fulfilling the second commandment.

The word “love” is a verb. That means we are working for our neighbour, if we can, by example self-control. We can teach others that this is the way to guard the heart so that God can bless us.

To self-control completely is impossible, to live above our sinful nature is our greatest challenge, but we can help each other guard the heart against the wickedness of the personal lower nature.

I have personally experienced how I lost God’s blessing when I lost my temper. After a long time of praying and fasting God taught me to die to anger. He taught me that this bad thing is inside me and that it is for me to rule over it. He taught me to crucify what I look like when I am angry, I learnt to use my imagination and to follow Jesus daily, by laying down this lower life of self at the cross. It changed my life! I teach it to everyone I meet. This is the way I love my neighbour.

February 2021 – The Heart

The Heart referred to in the Bible is not the Physical heart.

I have been making a study of the word heart in the Bible. The word is used seven hundred and sixty five times in the Bible. As far as I can make out it always refers to the spirit heart and not the physical. We must remember that the Bible is a spiritual book that must be discerned spiritually. This is the reason that the carnal intellect does not understand the Bible. When intellectuals try to explain the Bible it makes no sense to anyone. This is the reason that there are so many interpretations of the word of God. I believe that the Holy Scriptures are written is such a way that it remains a mystery to all people until the Spirit of God interprets.

This being said there is one truth that must be applied to understanding the word, that all things that are physical are also spiritual.

January 2021

The Kingdom of God is within

A New year letter from the Shoe Ministries.

The great commission to all believers is to preach the Kingdom of God.

It has come to my attention that most people don’t know where the Kingdom of God is. “The Kingdom of God is within”. Jesus stood on earth and said he was in heaven.

Ephesians 2:4 says we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. In Hebrews 12:22 “We are citizens of heaven”. Just to name a few scriptural examples. How can this be? Some say heaven is to the north of the earth and others that we will someday live in heaven but we are in hell right now. So many traditions and religions that make the word of God of none effect.

“But the kingdom of God belongs to children” (Luke 18:16).

When God came to earth in Genesis 65, He saw that the imaginations and thoughts of men’s hearts were continually evil.. For this same reason, He gave Noah the task of building the ark so that only he and his family would be saved as the flood commenced and wiped out the entire population of the earth. These three words describe that most important part of man where God should live, inside man. In the imaginations (1) and thoughts(2) of the heart(3). This shows that the physical heart is only a pump while the heart is where imaginations and thoughts abide that are of such importance to God.

December 2018

Ron wrote:

The imaginations and thoughts of the heart are meant to be in use. It is not meant to lay dormant for emergencies only. If it is not in use we are limiting God in the things He wishes us to bring forth by faith. We should be continually growing in all areas and should be living exiting lives where we believe for things we would have thought impossible in the past. The present political situation in our country, challenges in our health and family should be a challenge to overcome in our minds to not live in it but above it.

Deut 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live:”

September 2018

Ron wrote:

Some of our readers are still struggling to understand the practicality of the kingdom of God.

Is it really the way God supplies all our needs?

As explained many times before the natural man is a carnal man driven by the fruits of the flesh, living by pride or for itself. This natural state in the heart of man is as Genesis 6:5 describes.

Gen 6:5: “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

God caused the flood because of this heart that is wicket, ignorant and evil and chaotic. This is described as being the kingdom of darkness, deep and dark. Some people choose to give their kingdom of the mind to the beasts of Revelation 17:17. If the Holy Spirit chooses, He moves upon the face of our deep and calls light into being. This is when we give our hearts to God. Gradually we grow into being the Kingdom of God. Revelation 12:10 and the old kingdom which is called Babylon (Rev 17:5) begins to fall. Slowly the Holy Spirit finds more and more room in our hearts until the imaginations and thoughts of the heart becomes the dwelling of the Holy Spirit.