Heart Failure

Hard Hearts Lead To Heart Disease!
I began researching the idea of a hard heart and discovered quite an amount of material. In examining the scripture of course the first person that comes to mind with a hard heart was the Pharaoh in the times of Moses. Actually the word says that God hardened his heart so that he would not let the people of God go and this ultimately ended up in his demise. But it is easy to define from this story what a hard heart is.
Basically we find a hard heart is an unwilling heart. It describes a person that will not listen to reason and mostly basis decisions on what is good for them. They do not consider others but only what is best for them.
Jesus even spoke of people with a hard heart frequently. He made mention of the fact that those that let their heart get hard or callous will not be able to hear or see clearly. That is definitely not the way I want to live. As a matter of fact I believe we can find that many relationships in life are destroyed because of hardness or unwillingness to forgive and love the way Christ loved us. Our stubbornness can actually separate us from the LIFE of God! Wow now that is reason enough to take a closer look at our lives and make sure our heart is pliable, teachable and reachable.
You see our hearts hardened through the course of life over little things that build inside us. We let things get to us and we finally get to a point that we become callous in that situation.
You can lose compassion over time and all desire to forgive or be merciful due to a constant bombarding of similar circumstances. Have you ever said in a situation " i don't care anymore what happens". Your heart has closed in that area. We lose our direction and sight. We lose understanding.
We have to allow the Lord to help us keep an open sensitive heart. Let's not lose hope or faith by letting our hearts stop caring. Let's keep some simple basic truths alive in our life like; repentance, forgiveness, mercy, and love. Don't be robbed of true life by allowing your heart to get hard or stay calloused. Let's fall on our knees before our Father and let Him take from us the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh!
Scripture References you can study:

• Mark 8:17-18
• Acts 28:26-27
• Ephesians 4:17-18
  
• Matthew 13:15
• Matthew 19:8
• Hebrews 3:7-15

Darlene, my wife, and I just returned from a ministry trip back into Mexico. What a refreshing time as we revisited with people and ministered that we have known for many years. It brought deep satisfaction to see many lives touched by the power of the Lord. He is such an awesome, real God.

I was reminded of the power of salvation once again during this time. As I witnessed dozens of people give their lives in complete surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ I realized how amazing it can be to come into a personal relationship with the Lord for the first time.

As I watched people receive the Lord into their hearts for the first time I could actually identify the power of God that was flowing into their lives at that moment. You could see it on their faces. The peace and joy that swept over them for the first time. It was real. It is one thing to talk about the bible or Jesus but still a totally different thing to experience it. I could literally see burdens falling off their lives and their countenance change in an instant.

Let's not forget how awesome salvation is. How awesome it is to walk with the Lord Jesus. He really does lift our burdens and bring peace and joy to our lives. it doesn't matter what is going on in our lives, He meets us at that moment and brings eternal life into our being.

I was so refreshed while witnessing the power of salvation once again. It filled my life. And even more so it reaffirmed purpose in life. Too many times we get caught up in things we have to do and forget the eternal purpose for which we were created. Remember He created us and wants to spend eternity with us. Don't you want to spend it with Him for all He has done? And more than that, don' t you want to share such a great salvation?