KINGDOM HEARTS

Author Guardian (Gatekeeper)

CITY OF GOD

PART THREE , KINGDOM HEARTS

MARCHING INTO THE CITY

And so marched into Jerusalem with the Ark of the Testimony and He danced before the Lord in

worship, not as an actor playing a scene, not lying behind a mask, not playing a role scene to impress

But having a joy bubbling up inside him that he could just not control, he had to dance, he

could'nt hold it in,

But his enemies watched on and mocked ..........................................................

CITY OF GOD

Ark of the covenant

And so we are focusing on Psalm 24 and going onto Psalm 25 and we dance with rejoicing hearts into the Holy City Of God..as a testimony.

And so we dance before the Lord and we shout as song of victory, we trust in Him the bridegroom and we sing a song of celebration.

What made the Ark of the covenant any different ?

What made it different to any other box ? after all it was a container like any other container, ...made of wood ...objects inside ...so what made it different to say another box made of wood ?

What makes a Christian any different compared to other people ?

After all a Christian is simply flesh and blood like any one else ?

The answer is " Gods Prescence "

For the Ark of The Covenant was also the Ark Of The Testimony

How did God speak ? How would you know God was there ?

Did the Ark Glow ? was it red hot ? Did it ommit some strange noise ?

What were the visible signs of God and the Ark ?

How do you know God is visible in a person ?

How do you see God in them ?

Do they radiate some strange force ? do they stand on a Hill and glow in the dark ?

No ... the testimony on the Hill is the laying down... that God might speak

The voice that speaks the loudest is the voice that is silent

The action that speaks is the evidence

And so we dance before the Lord and we shout as song of victory, we trust in Him the

bridegroom and we sing a song of celebration.

STAYING IN THE CITY

The Church of laodicea

Church of laodicea

Lord light the fire again,in my heart,let the laodicean heart come alive, I've had this on my layed on my heart since this morning, Do you know that name can mean "people's opinions" or "people judged". ?

Laodicea was rich, prosperous, it looked good on the outside, decent, it had all the trappings of wealth, it may well have been seen as " blessed of God "

Respectable, well thought of, a rich banking center, a prosperous community, a community thriving

It even had two pipelines that ran to it, one pumping hot water , the other pumping cold water,

the people had hot and cold running water in that place,

The only problem was that by the time

the hot water reached its destination it was lukewarm and by the time the cold water reached its

destination it had heated up and become lukewarm

and so we read revelations, Rev 3:14 "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not

realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me

gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand

at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

THE MODERN DAY LAODICEANS

Door of the heart

God see's right deep down into every heart, there is nothing that can be hidden, God can see behind the respectable lifes of people and right deep down into the innermost motives and thoughts and intentions, He can see into our lifes and hearts

He looked at the people of Laodicea and He saw past the exterior gloss and the false walls

And He saw right into their very beings, and He saw then as naked, pitiful, poor, and wretched, and they needed salve to put on their eyes so that they could see

God knocks at the door of the hearts of the modern day Laodiceans "people's opinions" or "people judged"

And He tells them to repent....to repent means to change, it means to "turn around "

It means to let go of self perceived respectable opinions produced by pride,

It means that when GOD see's the heart change and is invited into the repentant heart, He will

fellowship and commune.

Verse 19 If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he

with me.

God looks instead at the poor man, the beggar on the street corner, the lame man, the

prostitute, the deaf and mute, the person who's heart is right with Him, the person who comes

to Him with openess and with a seeking heart

THIS is what God looks at,

WRITTEN ON STONE OR THE HEART

Rich Young Ruler

Now what has the story of the Rich Young Ruler got to do with the above ?

Luke 18:18-23

[18] A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

[19] "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good -- except God alone. [20] You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"

[21] "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

[22] When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have

and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

[23] When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

[24] Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! [25] Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to

enter the kingdom of God."

[26] Those who heard this asked, "Who then can be saved?"

[27] Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

[28] Peter said to him, "We have left all we had to follow you!"

[29] "I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God

[30] will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life."

A lot of people refer to the ten commandments given to Moses on the mountain, but actually

there are something like 613 commandments noted in the Old Testament, and we all know that

we can never keep all these commandments don't we ? We know that we live by grace and we

also know that this does not give us license to do what we want !! We know that by following the God of Mount Sinia we want to please Him and that this is about relationship....and when we

love someone we want to do what pleases them !!

And we turn to the few words that sum up the law and we love our neigbour as ourselves and we love the Lord with all our strength and with all our minds and hearts and we love our neigbours as we love ourselves, and we love ourselves as we see ourselves in Christ !!

And let he who does not sin cast the first stone !! and we know that we all sin !! and we do not judge for when we judge we are judged !! for it says " do not judge lest you be judged !!

And yet we all judge to a certain extent !! we judge to decide on a matter and we judge to weigh

up a person and we all know that we all break the commandments for we can never keep all the

commandments even if we try,

For we all lie and steal and murder and make false gods !!n we can lie to ourselves, we can say " we have no gods as we put our material possesions before God and as we make excuses

And we look to a man in the bible who had authority and power, a man of prestige and fame, a man who had wealth and servants, a man who had all he wanted and more,

A man who in his community was seen as " blessed of God " because he had wealth, and in the jewish community at that time if you had wealth then you must be blessed of God because wealth was seen as a blessing from God

And if you were as such a man as job you were looked upon as cursed by God and you were seen as a man who had done something to warrant your situation and you were seen as a man who had lost his blessing from God.

And so we turn to the " Rich young ruler" of the bible and we see that Jesus meets the rich

young ruler and instead of looking at him in judgement he looks at him in love, for this sums up the law and the ten commandments, For Jesus did not come to judge but to save...and He loves the rich young ruler as He loves Himself and He looks at him in love ,for Jesus came to

fulfil the law, seeing through his life and heart and thoughts and Jesus says " get rid of it "

Get rid of your god and come follow me "

The rich young ruler had spent his life following wealth and fame and prestige and honor and glory and riches and the place in society that put him above his fellows and to be seen as "

blessed of God " and then he meets God and God says " Put it down and come follow me "

The rich young ruler says " I have always followed the commandents "

At this precise moment he opens himself up to judgement and yet Jesus loves him

In this one statement the rich young ruler shows and displays the errors of his life

For he had broken every commandment from an early age and even now he was lieing to

himself

For he had other gods before Jesus and wealth and fame and his status were his god

He lied , put other gods before the God of heaven since an early age, he coveted, he murdered ..

You see Jesus takes sin to another level and says " even if you look upon a person with lust you

have already commited adultery " and we all commit spiritual adultery in our hearts.

We can never keep the 613 commandments in the old testament or the ten, we can simply love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our strength and might and love our neigbours

as ourselves,

For God is love and our hearts are no longer hardened by sin that we need the

law and the prophets, but our hearts have seen The Jesus who can melt the hardest of hearts to take in the law of love

ON THE HILL

O how dear was Jesus to The Father and how He did not want to lead Jesus to that Hill by the

Rod and Staff

O how dear some things are to us that we do not want them taken up that Hill with the Rod and Staff

All we hold dear, all that is of worth, all that is valuable to us, all that we prize , all that we work

for , all that we own, all that we hold near, all that we need and want !!

We shall not want, for we have Jehovah Jireh

Who was crucified on a Hill instead so that in giving up we receive everything .

THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

The Testimony Of Jesus

There was a time for Jesus to be born in flesh .

A time to suffer at the hands of man .

A time to be Crucified by the nails of our sin .

A time to rise from death .

A time to send the Holy Spirit .

A time to dwell among men .

And there is a time for all things to be new .

Isaiah 11:1 Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

Isaiah 53:2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance

that we should be attracted to Him.

Zechariah 6:12 "Then say to him, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Behold, a man whose name is Branch, for He will branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the LORD.

BUILDING A HOUSE

Building

Psalm 31:15-16 15 My times are in your hands;deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.

Our times are in His Hands ? our past,present and future are in His hands and yet we want to hold onto the past and take control of the present and plan for the future

Very hard to see is'nt it ? our future in Gods hands !!

So many times we want to take control , we make plans, we take over, we do things and

prepare things and we are the masters of our destiny...... AND then we pray Lord you will be

done in my life

We read ...Unless the Lord builds the house they labour in vain that build it,

We wonder when we should take control and when God does or should

We do things and make ourselves busy only to find that our efforts are in vain

So whats the secret ?

We go back to relationship with God, we go back to seeking Gods heart,

Knowing and hearing when He wants us to move or when He simply wants us to step back so

that He can move, this only comes with relationship, hearing and listening and doing

Of course we all get it wrong at times, God does not always work in the ways we think He will

and Gods Spirit moves in ways we cannot comprehen.

In the same way you cannot always say that you know a person inside out, you only know as

much as the person cares to show you and certain people bring out certain parts of your

personality and character,

Whereas others might bring out of you different aspects , but with

God how much deeper and wider and greater and higher and lower does His love, character

and person go ?

THE BITTERNESS OF THE HILL

The bitter sweet

Father Jehovah Jireh , Father King maker of heaven and earth we give you this time today and we hear your voice today and we put down anything that may hinder and stop our focus on you and we lay it down before you right now on the hill and we take off our shoes as we stand on

Holy ground and we offer you our lifes ,

Being prepared as Moses was prepared to give up all to trust and to obey, as Abraham was

prepared to walk the hill, all consuming fire is in your gaze and we look to you the burning bush and we look to you Jehovah Jireh,

And we look to you the branch that makes the bitter waters sweet and we look to you the Lion of Judah and we look to you the Shekinah Glory and we look to you the God of many names

and one name in Jesus name amen

The keeper of the Gate is waiting, He counts the sheep and the Sheep have His mark

Psalm 23...I shall not want...

He waits and He moves and He listens, He listens to our hearts and our reasonings and our

motives and our responses

What is our desire ? to know Jesus more ?

What is our need ? to need Jesus more ?

What is our want ? to want Jesus more ?

What is our " Isaac " ?

Who is our " Isaac " ?

What do we lay down before God today ?

Father God maker of heaven and earth we look to the hill where our help comes from and we

walk that hill and we lay down before you each day the "Isaac" of our lifes

In Jesus name amen