Christianity Oasis Forum

[cimi]

May 23
Friday


HEART DISEASE

READ:
zechariah 7:8-14
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Do not harden your
hearts. __Psalm 95:8
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Pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars selling drugs that prevent hardening of the arteries, a condition that can lead to heart attacks, which kill thousands of people every year.

A more serious condition than hardening of the arteries, however, is hardening of the heart, and it cannot be prevented by any wonder drug. The prophet Zechariah warned the Israelites about it. They had hardened their hearts and refused to listen to the words of the Lord. Symptoms of this deadly condition were their refusal to execute true justice and their failure to show mercy and compassion (Zech. 7:9). As a result, the Lord became angry and stopped listening to them. (v.13).

While it's important to keep plaque from forming in our arteries, it's even more important to keep our hearts from becoming callous to people who are important to God: widows, orphans, aliens, and the poor (v.10).

It's crucial to follow our doctor's orders to keep our arteries from hardening. But it's even more crucial to obey God to keep our hearts from becoming hardened to the needs of others.

Ask God to bring to mind a person who needs the help of someone with a soft heart. __Julie Ackerman Link
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````````````````````If I can right a human wrong,````````````````
```````````````````If I cn help to make one strong,```````````````
```````````````````If I can cheer with smile or song,``````````````
````````````````````Lord, show me how. __Kleiser````````````````
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To love Christ is to have a heart for others.

**************Today's Bible reading __ Zechariah 7:8-14************

8 Then the word of the
LORD came to Zechariah,
saying, 9 "Thus says the
LORD of hosts: 'Execute
true justice, show mercy
and compassion everyone to
his brother. 10 Do not
oppress the widow or the
fatherless, the alien or the
poor. Let none of you plan
evil in his heart against his
brother.'

11 "But they refused to
heed, shrugged their
shoulders, and stopped their
ears so that they could not
hear. 12 Yes, they made their
hearts like flint, refusing to
hear the law and the words
which the LORD of hosts
had sent by His Spirit
through the former
prophets. Thus great wrath
came from the LORD of
hosts. 13 Therefore it
happened, that just as He
proclaimed and they would
not hear, so they called out
and I would not listen,"
says the LORD of hosts.

14 "But I scattered them
with a whirlwind among all
the nations which they had
not known. Thus the land
became desolate after them,
so that no one passed
through or returned; for
they made the pleasant land
desolate."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INSIGHT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

At the end of 70 years of exile in Babylon, Cyrus of Persia decreed
that the Jews could retrun to their homeland (Ezra 2:64-65). They
started rebuilding the temple, but opposition from the Samaritans
caused the project to stop (Ezra 4:24). Sixteen years later, the
prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1-2) encouraged them to
complete the temple. __Sim Kay Tee