(*Translation note: or attitude of the heart.)
- Proverbs 11:5 The righteousness of the blameless makes a straight way for them, but the wicked are brought down by their own wickedness.
- Proverbs 15:21 Folly delights a man who lacks judgment, but a man of understanding keeps a straight course.
When you know God’s heart, you can live comfortably by taking action [appropriately] knowing what is wrong and what is not wrong. When you don’t know God’s heart, you will even go through suffering because you will refrain from doing certain things thinking that they are sins even though they are not. For example, let’s say that you think praying with your head down before God is pious and pray in that posture for a long time. In the end, you won’t be able to pray for long because your neck will hurt. God said, “Bow the head of your heart. Bow your head with your heart.” People who don’t know God’s heart pray with their heads bowed and backs bent because they think that is more pious since they are going before God. But if you do that, you cannot pray deeply for a long time because you experience pain in your neck and back. Thus, it is a loss.
A typical adult head weighs between 4~6 kg. Your neck supports 4~6kg/8-13lbs. when your head is straight. But, when you bow your head, gravity will increase that pressure fivefold and your neck has to support about 25kg/55lbs. So, if you pray with your head continually down, you can’t pray for a long time because your neck will hurt and you will be bothered by that pain. Therefore, you should pray with ‘the head of your heart’ bowed while keeping your neck straight. If you pray with your head down, you are far more likely to fall asleep.
This is because the nerves in your neck are tired and fatigued. Most of the people who fall asleep during prayer are people who bow their heads. God designed the human body so that we can live comfortably if we keep our postures straight. Of course, keeping a straight posture is more difficult than having a relaxed posture. However, when you keep a straight posture, you are ultimately comfortable because your bones don’t become misaligned or bent. Like living with a straight posture, if you know God’s laws correctly and act on them, you will live comfortably.
You have to have the correct posture for the body of your faith and a correct posture for your heart. Only then will you see and perceive God’s actions correctly.
When you become used to bowing your head and bending your back and you become hardened that way, you will be comfortable with that posture for that moment temporarily. Then when you try to straighten what is bent, you will complain of pain. However, if you leave it that way, it will lead to tremendous pain and loss because [the neck and back] are unable to function properly. Once that happens, you must not straighten it out. Instead, you have to fix it through surgery.
With faith too – if you don’t fix what is bent, you will become crippled in faith as a result and thus, you will be unable to take action correctly, and since your body is unable to take action correctly, your spirit will be affected by that and become ‘a crippled spirit’ and you will have to live ‘a crippled life’ in the spiritual world forever.
People do things with confidence without even ‘checking.’ When handling people too – if you don’t know correctly and think that you’ve checked because you saw just what was in front of you, which is just a part, since the right, left, and back are not what you think, you will make mistakes with how you treat others. As a result, other people will get hurt and suffer pain. People’s hearts and thoughts are sharp and sensitive like knife-blades. Therefore, people are ‘easily hurt in their hearts’ by the words or actions of others. ‘Being hurt in the heart and thoughts’ is as big as being hurt in the body.
When God created human beings, He created their brains and then created their ‘hearts and thoughts.’ Just as the bones of your body are misaligned and in pain when you fail to set your body’s posture straight, when you get hurt in your heart and thoughts, the posture of your heart and thoughts get misaligned and thus, it is unbearably painful. Your heart and thoughts get bent and misaligned by the words and actions of others so, you will be in pain and experience suffering. When that happens, the person who hurt you sees only from his own perspective and thus, cannot recognize that you’ve been hurt. So, he will not apologize or resolve it for you. Therefore, you should first tell the Lord about your heart that is suffering, and receive treatment from God, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Son Lord.
Whenever the bones of your neck, lower back, back, pelvis, or knees are bent or twisted, you experience pain. In this way, if you don’t live by God’s Word or if you do things in life in crooked, bent, or twisted ways, it doesn’t look good and problems occur as a result of it. It is to keep your posture straight and keep your heart, actions, and thoughts straight according to the Word of truth.
When I exercised every day to maintain a straight posture and stretched and straightened my neck, back, shoulders, and knees, my posture became straight from that point on and it did not hurt even when I straightened my posture. In this way, with your ‘heart, thoughts, and actions’ too – you have to take action according to God’s Word every day in your life and set yourself straight so that you will not become hardened to centering on yourself or being worldly.
When you look at people from the front or back as you walk down the streets, you find many people who walk with crooked postures. There are many people whose necks, backs, or shoulders are crooked, whose pelvises are twisted, and whose legs are bent. The reason their bones became crooked and hardened that way is because their postures were crooked in their everyday lives.
The same is true with ‘the posture of faith.’ People normally talk or act like someone with a bent or crooked neck or back, talk and act like someone with a twisted pelvis, and talk and act like someone with bent knees. Since they treat their brothers in that state, it is hard for others to accept their words and actions. Yet, they have no idea whatsoever that they are talking and acting that way. All of you must surely (!) realize this and take action. Only then will your words and actions not be like a cripple. All of you must fix the posture of your thoughts, words, and actions 100% correctly just as one takes up the correct posture.
When you walk around after correcting your crooked posture, you look more beautiful, elegant, and attractive. It is to absolutely fix the posture of your faith and the posture of your heart, thoughts, and actions deliberately with the Lord’s Word. If you fail to fix them, you cannot properly receive ‘God’s Will that comes to you.’
If you fix them, you will become a person who is more beautiful, elegant, attractive, and shining. If you straighten and correct the posture of your heart, thoughts, and actions, the level of your faith will immediately increase. I want you to raise ‘the level of your faith’ as you take action on the Lord’s Word.