Open Heart Closed Heart...

Welcome to the Wednesday Morning Bible Study. We have been looking at verses about strongholds. The dictionary defines stronghold two ways, as a walled city, a fortress to which we flee for safety and also as a way of thinking which we defend and cling to tenaciously.
Review:

We looked at walls and how we build them as children in order to help us cope with the world around us. When I first learned about this I was teaching school. Some children have more walls than others because some children have a more difficult home life than others. We can be either an “open” person or a “closed” person. Especially in our hearts. We can have an open heart, ready and willing to receive from God and then give forth from the bountiful supply He has given us to others. Or we can have a closed heart. In the scripture Ezekiel speaks of this. Ez 36:26-27 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Also Ez 11:19-20
19 Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them,[a] and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
One of my favorite passages is Jer 24:7 AMP And I will give them a heart to know (recognize, understand, and be acquainted with) Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
NKJV 7 Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
After learning about closed and open hearts, I decided to test it out. I KNEW mine had been closed for so long, this was the time when God was teaching me to allow Him to show me and to touch, heal and begin to restore my heart to the “original” design as He, God intended.
I had bus duty at work, which meant I was supposed to “control” the kids as they exited the school bus. Some of our kids came from a “project”. Some came from a rich neighborhood and others just from a normal neighborhood.
I greeted each child and attempted to try to make eye contact. Some neighborhood buses had a lot more open kids than others. Some children, whose lives were in general a lot tougher, were so closed. They got off either way too loud and boisterous or silent, eyes at the ground, unable to make or unwilling to make eye contact or speak back when greeted.
 The next day, I bribed them with a treat. As time went on, the closed children began to trust me and were able to make eye contact and respond when I spoke to them.
Then I went to VBS as an intercessor. I watched the children come in. I repeated the experiment.
Remember GOD was teaching me about myself too.
As expected, there were very few children who were closed in this group. What was the difference? GOD. Knowing and being taught that GOD (somebody) loves them, that they have value and are wanted.
Isn’t that amazing?
Think about yourself…is your heart open or closed? First to God and then to “others”.
Comments?
See the interesting thing is that if we have walls around our heart to protect OURSELF then those walls do help keep hurt out. BUT they also keep love out. Love from God and love from people as well. God told me I do not get to pick and choose what comes inside the walls. Either I could invite him and cooperate with him to take them down, or I could keep them. But as long as I kept them intact, it severely inhibited my ability to “feel” God and His Love in a tangible emotions attached manner.

We then spent some time talking about GOOD strongholds. We do need protection from the onslaught of the world and Satan. There will be times when life simply is overwhelming, especially once we have invited God to exchange our stony heart, or walled off heart (smile), for a heart of flesh that is tender and able to “feel”.
We learned that as we begin to feel safe in the care of our Abba, we are safe to invite Him to help us tear down our walls that we built to defend our stony heart. It is safe, you know, to invite God in because there is NO SECRET thing hidden in our heart from God. There are reasons for the strongholds we have built. God is aware of that, He tells us so in scripture. Psalm 44:21
Would not God discover this? For He knows the secrets of the heart.
Psalm 139:23
Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
Jeremiah 17:10
I the Lord search the mind, I try the heart, even to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
As children, when most walls (ways of self defense vs God’s defense) are built we do not have any better way to cope. Things happened to us as being children and egocentric, we did as all children do, we began to built up thought patterns and habits based on a child’s resources and perceptions.
Proverbs 23:7
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.