Private Practice: The Watch Letter

For many of us growing up, it was a family practice to attend church, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Bible study, watch night services, and others without fail.

But what was the family practice in the house? Was what we heard taught at church guiding how our homes functioned? Or would someone never be ever to tell that we listened to the word at church by how our home life was?

The house is a symbol of the heart. Is how we live before others what we practice in our hearts? Out of the heart flow the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

Our Pastor Chief Apostle H.C. Gunn taught us in May of this year that what we practice (rehearsing, exercising, and habitually doing) in our hearts is our true lifestyle. It’s the us that God sees. I’m so glad I came back across this message because it causes me to ask: Six months have passed and seasons have changed, but how has my heart changed? And what have I started or stopped practicing in my heart?

In May, he said, "How you practice is how you play the game." And he asked us how we were nurturing our hearts. 

Nurturing is another word for cultivating, feeding, and attending to. His question was based on Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Are we cultivating, feeding, and attending to right and holy things or wrong and wicked things on the inside of us? Chief Apostle Gunn has reminded us over the years that we are what we consume (ingest, put away). So, what we consume in our hearts is the real us.

The same with our homes. What we nurture and consume in our homes is the reality of our family life.

Chief Apostle Gunn also taught us some years back that “our real life is in our hearts." That is why the Bible tells us to “keep our hearts with all diligence, to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts, and to keep our hearts clean.”

He said, "What is in your heart is how/where you will spend eternity” and that “you can’t believe God with an unclean heart.” (The junk and trash leave no room for faith or faithfulness.) God does not just pay attention to what comes out of your mouth. He is listening to and watching what comes out of your heart.

He also said, “What’s in your mind will go to your heart, and what’s in your heart tells your body what to do,” and that whatever we practice, we will be more of. For example, if you practice evil things, you will become progressively more evil. But if you practice prayer, studying the word, praising God, showing mercy, giving, love, faithfulness, steadfastness, care, compassion, decency, forgiveness, cleanliness, holiness, obedience, right living, seeking God, listening to good counsel, etc., you will progressively become more of these things and do more of these things.

Listen to this week’s FORREAL RADIO BROADCAST with Chief Apostle Gunn “St. John 1” here: https://www.thebodyofchristinc.com/listen-in?wix-music-track-id=2124905267804056&wix-music-comp-id=comp-lrczxokb