Who and What is Ruling Your Heart-mind? (Go Tell Ahab He Can't Live Here)

This past week, on For Real Radio Broadcast, Chief Apostle delivered a very powerful message concerning our thought-life, the contents of our heart, and the real root of all the turmoil we face.

You can listen to the message titled, “Go tell Ahab” here.

Ahab and his queen used their influence toward the worship of idols and wicked things and fought against the worship of the true God. This broadcast recap shows how we as Christians are doing the same thing.

1 Kings 16:30-31: "And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him."

As the broadcast started, Chief Apostle began to pray and in his prayers, he said "If I regard iniquity in my heart, though I were a son of God, God will not hear me."

This moment was a powerful call to remember that if there is any regard for sin, any allowance of its presence in one's life, the Lord will not hear your prayers. This is something to keep in mind as many times we ask why our prayers go unanswered. Instead of being angry at God, or losing faith, we need to look inwardly.

Chief Apostle Gunn referenced Jeremiah 17:9... “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Chief explained that the mind and the heart are connected so this verse is speaking to the heart-mind of man. Yes, our thoughts and what we allow in our hearts can easily deceive and misdirect us. Wickedness is not just around us in the world, it can come from within us.

He added that, God searches hearts and tries motives. God does not look at things the way we do, and because of the wrong outlook, we have been bold in even questioning the Word or making it of non-effect because we follow “traditions of elders,” or our family ways, patterns and wrong teaching, instead of what the word of God says. In other words, when we don’t follow God’s way and follow our traditions and own plans, and what we are used to, then we are acting just like the Pharisees did in Mark 7.

The Pharisees’ focus was on the outward appearance and performance of certain acts, but again we know God is concerned about the hearts and minds of men. If the cup is clean on the outside and unclean on the inside, what use does it really have?

Do you question or challenge God with what traditions and idols you bow to? .... Because we make our traditions and idols little gods in our lives even though we know it's contrary to the word of God and to the teaching we get every week.

As the broadcast continued, Chief Apostle Gunn made the point that many of us as Christians who go to church have only been gathering in a building instead of gathering to God in our hearts and minds.

Church has in effect become just another place to go, and even a social gathering for many. He said that "some children have been allowed to play games on the way to church, even in the church and it's not okay” as if church is not sacred and important. What are we teaching our children? What wrong traditions are we creating?

He reminded us that everything is not about our children. These acts of worldly concerns (i.e. being a sports or any other industry fanatic, being overly concerned about what we are going to eat or have for ourselves, being consumed with bills, and worshiping our children, etc.) pollute the minds and hearts of the saints. So, as God's word is being taught, the ears of the people have become stopped up by what's in their hearts and their vain thoughts. If it's not Jesus, then it's sin.

Chief went over what David said according to Psalm 119:113: “I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.”

This is key as he posed the question: "How are you hoping in God's Word?"

Many of us sadly are not. Our jobs, paychecks, paying bills, looking the part, pursuing the wrong relationships, and the other aforementioned examples have become our hope instead of hoping and trusting in the word and plan of God.

Chief calls this alternative hope idolatry. Saints today have, just like the Jews in the Bible times, a system of passing down through the generations emptiness, vanity, corruption, and wrong thinking because of the fallen nature. What grandma and grandpa have said shouldn’t matter more than what God says. Chief Apostle said that this has led to "wrong and error becoming a tradition.”

These traditions have become so commonplace and overpowering in our lives, that we have Bibles in the back of the pews, but no Bible reading at the house and no prayers, no love at the house, no getting along, no respect at the house, we have no families any more.

He said: we call them families but God does not call them families. We have gone astray from the family design God created. We just show up at church, when instead we are supposed to be church families, but we have no families anymore, we have no (Godly) homes anymore.

Any Kingdom divided will not stand and any church divided cannot stand. Any house divided cannot stand, but it's brought to desolation.

It’s time we choose God’s way and refuse the way of Ahab, or we will always be bound, destroyed, and apart from God following our own way.

Apostle Kanya contributed to this post.