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“<\/span>For my concern is] that their hearts may be braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth and blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely and accurately and thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).\u201d<\/em> \u00a0Colossians 2:2\u00a0\u00a0 Amplified Bible<\/p>\n Paul tells us that as believers our hearts should always be \u201ccomforted, cheered and encouraged\u201d.\u00a0 Think about those words because they are very intentional and specific.\u00a0 It is clear that the Lord is speaking through Paul and He wants us to know that it is His intention that our hearts should constantly be comforted.\u00a0 Most of us spend the better portion of our day looking to be comforted against all the negative things we hear and experience throughout our day.<\/p>\n The second word used to describe the heart condition God expects for each of us is \u201ccheered\u201d.\u00a0 Few of us start the day cheerful because we fill our early thoughts of the morning with the dread of what we anticipate for the day.\u00a0 How many people do you know that would describe their hearts as \u201ccheered\u201d?\u00a0 How many days would you be able to describe your heart with this adjective?<\/p>\n The third word is \u201cencouraged\u201d.\u00a0 Once more, my estimation would be that few if any people would say they were encouraged when they think about their day, let alone their lives.\u00a0 The older people get and the more jaded they allow their hearts to become as a result of the things of this life, the less encouraged they become.\u00a0 In fact, the opposite is usually the result; they become cynical and hardened in their hearts.<\/p>\n We are living in the grace, mercy, and love of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 We have every good thing in Him and the promise of His deliverance and victory in all things in this life.\u00a0 We should awaken each day filled with the heart that Paul is describing, comforted, cheered and encouraged.\u00a0 This should be the norm for us.\u00a0 However, if we are honest with ourselves the opposite is more likely accurate.\u00a0 How many days do you wake up with a dread regarding the day in front of you?<\/p>\n Paul tells us here that as believers we should know those secret things of Christ.\u00a0 If we are not seeing those promises that are hidden from the world but revealed to us in Jesus, then it is likely that the hindrance and blockade for us lie within our own hearts.\u00a0 We need to knit our hearts closer to His.\u00a0 We need to make the deliberate effort to intertwine our hearts with Him on a daily basis.\u00a0 I can do this by starting each morning not being worried about the things the day might bring, but instead with reading His Word and being with Him and thus intertwining my heart with His before I do anything else on the day.\u00a0 The more time I spend with Him the better acquainted I am with Him.\u00a0 Then all those secret things that are\u00a0hidden from the world and the flesh, all the things that will comfort, cheer and encourage my heart, will become evident to me.<\/p>\n J Todd Hostetler<\/p>\n