Kerry Shook - The Heart of Real Change
You know, Chris and I are so excited to be back. Every July, we take some time off, and it helps me because I’m not preparing to preach a message. So, Chris and I can pray, plan, and have meetings with others, really get ready for the fall. But I decided-really, Chris decided for me last year-that we would start a new July tradition. Chris came up with the idea that every July for five days, we would take our grandchildren who are over five years of age out of town for what we call Cousin Camp. They get Cousin Camp t-shirts. It’s five days of planned activities, outings, and crafts, and it’s pretty amazing. We have a Bible verse for the day, stories, and s’mores over the campfire at night. It’s Cousin Camp.
So, this was our second annual Cousin Camp, and our first stop, of course, was BIES. Here they are! We stayed five days at BIES, and then we came home. It was awesome; God blessed. Now it’s a tradition that we want them all to look back on with great memories when they get older. You know, my grandparents took us to Cousin Camp every year. Our first Cousin Camp was last July. We took our oldest four grandchildren, and this year, two more grandchildren turned five. So, we took six to Cousin Camp this year! We had a 33% increase in attendance at Cousin Camp this year, but it felt like we’d grown by about 500%.
I have to admit we only did about half the activities we had planned because someone always needed to go to the potty or someone was always upset, tired, hungry, or having a meltdown. And it was usually me, but sometimes it was some of the others. I don’t have to do any advanced analytics to figure this out. As the years go by, Chris and I will get older, and more and more of our grandkids will turn five. We have 12 grandkids with one on the way. Pray for us! This is an impossible commitment that we’ve gotten ourselves into.
So, next year, I’m enlisting three of our children’s pastors and 12 of our best children’s camp counselors. They’re going to go with us. It’s going to be amazing! And really, all six of our grandkids were amazing, and Chris and I loved every minute of it. Well, I can’t lie; I’m in church, so I can’t say every minute of it, but most of the minutes were amazing. And so here they are at their best. Look at them! Aren’t they great? Yeah! Cousin Camp! I can’t wait to see 13 — you know, it’s going to be fun.
One of the last activities we did was a cave tour. Probably not the wisest thing to take six kids into a dark cave, but we did. My assignment? Chris said I had to stay with the two that always wander off. He said, «Just stay with them. Whatever you do, don’t see me; it’s okay. Don’t see the other four; it’s okay. You stay with these two.» So, I chased after them the whole time.
There were a lot of times I almost had to go down on my knees to get through narrow passageways in this cave. But, of course, the kids were small enough; they could just run right through it. I hit my head three times on stalactites or whatever those daggers are called that are hanging from the top of the cave. And each time our guide would look at me and ask, «Are you okay?» But I could tell she cared more about the stalactites. You know, I was like, «I’m damaging the stalactites!» And I did; I reshaped that cave while I was there, and my head while I was there. I think I got a concussion, but at least the kids loved it, and only two of them got lost in the cave. We haven’t found them yet, but hopefully we will!
Here’s a picture of the kids in the cave. They always turned their flashlights on when they weren’t supposed to. But now, after we made it through what I now call the Concussion Tunnel, we came out into this enormous cavern, and our guide said, «There are a lot of people walking around on the surface right now, right above us, and they have no idea that this beautiful cathedral of a cave is right beneath their feet.»
And folks, really, so much of life is below the surface. Most people just walk around on the surface of life, dealing with surface issues, never realizing there’s so much more just beneath. But if you really want to overcome the problems in your life, you have to go beneath the surface to the heart of the problem. If you really want the power to live the life that you were made for, then you’ve got to go beneath the surface to a whole new depth of living. It’s like an iceberg.
Only 10% of an iceberg is above the surface, above the waterline and visible. Ninety percent of the iceberg is below the surface. Look at how much mass is beneath the surface in this iceberg; it’s amazing! Really, everything we see in life is just the tip of the iceberg. When a captain of a ship sees an iceberg, really, all they’re seeing is just what’s on the surface, just that 10%.
And that’s the way it is in life. Really, all you see in life is just what’s on the surface, what’s on the outside, and it’s only about 10% of really what’s going on in life. The 90% is underneath the surface. It’s not surface issues; it’s heart issues. Let me explain. When it comes to conflict in relationships, most couples just deal with the surface issues. Either they’re mad at each other, taking it out on each other, or they just deal with surface issues, and that’s why they never get anywhere; because they never get down to the root cause, the heart of the conflict.
When it comes to conflict, most couples just deal with surface issues. They don’t even understand what’s causing the conflict-the fear, the hurt-they don’t understand, so they never get down to the root of it. It just gets worse and worse. When it comes to decisions, most people just see the results of their decisions, and they don’t really understand what motivates them to make a decision. They don’t go down to the heart of the issue and see that it’s the heart of their priorities. That’s where all the decisions come from.
To make wise decisions, you have to go beneath the surface to get to the heart of your priorities and develop the right priorities, and you have a wise heart. Every action and reaction in life really is just a surface-level thing. It’s just the 10%; the 90% is what’s below the surface. And when you get down to the heart issue, that’s when real change occurs. That’s where you find real power.
But most of us just focus on the visible. We just focus on the surface issues. We never get down to the heart of the matter, and we don’t really change in those areas that are so vital. And so I want us to look at a key passage today: Proverbs 4:23. It’s a really short verse, but it’s so powerful, and it talks all about the heart of the matter.
Would you stand in honor of God’s Word? Would you read it out loud with me? Just read it out loud -it’s a short verse. «Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.» You can be seated. The writer of Proverbs says, «Do everything you can to guard your heart because everything you do flows from your heart.» Everything starts from the heart.
It’s in our hearts that we first hear God’s voice and continue to hear God’s voice when we follow Him with all of our heart. Now, the Bible doesn’t give a specific definition for the heart; there’s a mystery to the heart that can’t be completely explained or defined. But the Bible describes the heart as those internal motivations-those loves, the passion, the desire. The heart is the deepest part of who you are. That’s why God wants you to live from your heart.
But the problem is, we focus so much on the surface issues, we neglect the heart. We fail to guard our heart. We learn at an early age to cover up our hearts, to ignore our hearts, to anesthetize our hearts. We divorce ourselves from our hearts, and we live life on the surface level. And we wonder why we always feel like something deep inside is missing.
This fall, I want to challenge every one of us to focus on our hearts first. Don’t get so caught up in changing what’s on the surface, but really get down to the heart of the matter. Connect to God’s heart. Align your heart with God’s heart. Let Him strengthen and center your heart.
When you focus beneath the surface issues to the heart issues, it produces real change on the surface. That’s where lasting change comes from. When you get down to the heart issues and you focus first on the heart, then it comes out in those surface areas where people can see because it’s real change. When you focus on the heart, God gives you a wise heart to make wise decisions.
He’ll give you a peaceful heart, centered in the stress. A fearless heart to face every fear. A loving heart to build lasting relationships. If you want to change your life, you have to start with the heart.
I want us to look at someone in Scripture who really focused on his heart, and he made an amazing difference for his nation and in the world: David. God chose this young shepherd boy. He was the least in his family, the youngest. I mean, there’s nothing remarkable about him that you could see on the outside, but God chose him to be the king of Israel. And God tells us why in Acts 13:22: «I’ve searched the land and found David, son of Jesse. He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart-a man who will do what I tell him.»
God said David’s heart beats to the rhythm of my heart. That’s the secret to life-that your heart beats to the rhythm of God’s heart. That’s what you were made for-that your heart beats to the rhythm of your Creator’s heart. That’s when your heart comes alive with passion and the courage to face your giants like David did.
So, how do I become someone whose heart beats to God’s heart? First, delight in God’s heart. David tells us the secret. He says you delight in God’s heart. Look what he said in Psalm 37:4: «Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him, and he will do this.» What an amazing promise! If you take delight in the Lord, God will give you the desires of your heart.
How many of you want the desires of your heart? That’s a good thing-to receive the desires of your heart! God says, «Take delight in me, and I’ll give you the desires of your heart.» The word delight literally means to enjoy. When you enjoy someone, you spend time with them.
So, if I spend time with God and put Him first in my life, then I can follow my heart because those deepest and true desires will dominate my heart. But if you put anything besides God in first place in your life-if you delight in something more than God-don’t dare follow the desires of your heart because the desires of your heart will be skewed. They’ll mislead you. They’ll mess up your life.
That’s why Jeremiah says this in Jeremiah 17:9: «The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart.» The desires of your heart can be deceitful because we’re born with this genetic heart problem called sin. We try to cure it. We do everything we can to try to make it look good on the outside. We try to impress people on the outside, but on the inside, we still have a heart problem. On the surface level, things can look good, but beneath the surface and the heart issue, we have a heart problem.
When you become a believer, God doesn’t just do a bypass on you; He gives you a heart transplant because that’s the only way. That’s why Christ had to come to this earth and die so that He could take His heart and give it to us, so that we could have a new heart.
When I became a believer, I got a heart transplant because I needed a new heart. There’s no cure for this genetic heart problem of sin, and that’s why Christ had to come. The only thing He could do was give us a heart transplant. So when you become a believer, you have a new heart. You’re a new creation.
And then with your new heart, you begin to enjoy the Lord and spend time with God. Put Him first in your life. He starts changing your desires, and you start loving Him with all your heart. And He begins to change your desires into His desires. All of my desires that aren’t what they ought to be, He starts changing those to make them more like His desires. And when His desires and my desires align, then I get the desires of my heart because that’s the best thing for me, and it glorifies God.
It’s for my good and for God’s glory. That’s why I have to take delight in the Lord and spend time with God so my heart can be aligned with His heart. As a Christ follower, I have a new heart, a true heart, but I also have my flesh still. My flesh wants to do what it feels like. My flesh wants to do whatever it wants to do. And whenever I disobey God and sin, I’m not living from my true heart; I’m just letting my flesh do what it wants.
To live from my true heart, I have to slow down enough to get in touch with God’s heart. I have to come to that place every day where I surrender: «God, I can’t control my flesh without your power, but I want to live from my true heart.» You know, I have a heart for you, God. Yeah, I disobeyed, gave in to my flesh, but that’s not who I really am. Forgive me, Lord; I have a true heart. I want to follow You.
So I surrender control. I can’t control anything, so I give up to Your care and control. I want You to be right there at the center of my life. Now let’s look back at Psalm 37 again. In verse 7 of Psalm 37, David says, «Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.»
So, David says if you take delight in the Lord, He’ll give you the desires of your heart. And part of that, taking delight in the Lord, as he goes on to say a few verses later, is to be still before the Lord. Wait for the Lord. David’s heartbeat to the rhythm of God’s heart because he got still before God and waited for God’s wisdom and power.
We have to guard our hearts from becoming hurried hearts. We get so busy with surface-level issues and activities that we can’t hear our own heartbeat anymore. Our hearts become overcrowded, and our schedules are overloaded. But you have to stop, get still, and spend time with God so you can hear your own heartbeat again. And your heartbeat can align with the heartbeat of God.
When I don’t, my hurried heart begins to lose heart. Some of you are there right now. I mean, you’ve got a hurried heart-hurried and worried, just going from one thing to the next. And you’re not really stopping to get still to get re-centered and reconnected to God, and you can’t hear your own heartbeat.
When you get too busy to hear your own heartbeat, you lose heart, and your heart’s not in it anymore. You lose passion, whether it’s your marriage, your work, or your life. You start to lose heart. And if you don’t guard against a hurried heart, you’ll lose heart because life with no heart is no life at all. You’re made to live from your heart. If you’re a Christ follower, you’re made to live from your true heart.
And when you disconnect from your heart, you disconnect from what you’re made for. Some of you today have a hurried heart. You’re going 100 miles an hour, overcommitted. Your heart is crowded. It’s time to stop, be still, and know that He is God. And you’ll start to hear your heartbeat again. It may be faint, but God will renew your heart and your passion.
I just really challenge every one of us in this busy time. Let’s stop for a few minutes each day just to connect to God, to hear our own heartbeat, to remember that He’s given us a new heart, to focus on our hearts, and spend time with God in His Word. We’re going to do the book of Psalms-you know, David’s book that he wrote-starting tomorrow in our devotionals.
So I hope you’ll connect on all of our platforms. You can do the devotional, but we’ll be going through Psalms. Just five minutes, ten minutes, or fifteen minutes before you go off into your day, write down some things you’re learning or just put it in your notes on your phone and read that chapter in the book of Psalms. Just connect to God!
You’ll feel like you don’t have time to focus on your heart, but if you focus on the heart issues, the surface issues start coming together. If you don’t stop, your hurried heart will turn into a hardened heart.
The Pharisees were the religious leaders in Jesus' day, and they acted real spiritual on the surface. They looked down at everyone else, judged everyone else. They were always following all the rules and the regulations. They were very religious on the outside; they looked so impressive. Everyone looked up to them and thought, «These guys are so spiritual.» But Jesus looked right into their hearts, and He saw that their hearts were hard. Their religion was cold and lifeless.
He reserved His harshest criticism for the religious leaders. Look at what He said in Matthew 23:27: «You hypocrites! You’re like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.»
Okay, Jesus, why don’t you tell us how you really feel about these guys? I mean, these guys are the most influential people in society-the wealthiest. I mean, these guys are the most spiritual and religious. And Jesus says this: You see, in Jesus' day, the tombs were carved out of the side of mountains. They would carve these ornate decorations on the front of the tomb, and then they would paint them white. They would whitewash them so they would look really ornate, stately, and beautiful and impressive. But on the inside was death.
They were tombs! I mean, a tomb is a tomb-dead bones! Jesus looked at the Pharisees and He said, «You guys on the outside look really impressive. You look stately and spiritual. Everyone looks up to you, but on the inside, you’re rotting. You’re decaying. You’re death on the inside because your religion is rotten because there’s no heart.»
Some of the meanest people I’ve ever met call themselves Christians. They know the Bible. They know all the right things to do. They know all the rules, but there is no heart. Their religion is rotten. They judge everyone else, criticize everyone else. They’re always negative about everything. And God says, «If you divorce your heart from your religion, your religion becomes rotten, cold, lifeless-death!»
Because Christianity is a relationship of love! It’s a relationship of the heart. So how about your heart? Do you have a hardened heart? Even believers get hard hearts over time. We go through the motions, and we’re just doing all the right things, but there’s no heart in it anymore. We lose heart. We forget why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s not about love anymore-just about doing things, going through the motions, doing the religious thing, doing the church thing rather than really loving God with our whole heart.
Maybe today you need to get back to your first love. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Really, it goes back to just loving God and loving people. It really just goes back to loving Jesus and loving others. Loving Jesus by obeying Him and His Word and loving others. It’s really a love relationship! We make it so complicated, and we lose our heart.
And when you lose the heart, you really lose what it’s all about because it’s a relationship of love with Jesus. That’s why Jesus said it all comes down to two things: All of the 613 commandments, He said, I can sum up into: love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. You know, it just comes down to that.
But we make it so complicated! I’m so glad church is a church for imperfect people! I’m so glad this is not a church of Pharisees who look great on the outside, but on the inside there’s no love. I’m so glad that you can come in here. You can come as you are. You don’t have to impress anybody because this is a church for imperfect people.
In fact, no perfect people are allowed! We’ve never let a perfect person in! Never! We turn them away at the door. We’ve never done it. God loves you just the way you are-imperfections and all-but He loves you too much to let you stay that way. He wants you to grow in Him. He wants you to follow Him. He wants you to obey Him in love.
And that’s what we’re doing. We don’t have it all together, but we look to the One who does have it all together, and we trust that His Word is true, that He knows what’s best, and we’re seeking to follow Him with all our heart. That’s why Jesus said, «Matthew 22, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.» That’s what it comes down to.
Delight in God’s heart. Are you enjoying God? Do you enjoy God? Spend some time with God. Know that God is for you, not against you! I really challenge you this fall: Let’s spend some time enjoying God! Let’s focus on the heart, and everything else will take care of itself! Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will fall into place, Jesus said.
So, I delight in God’s heart, then I practice the disciplines of the heart. This is crucial because David practiced the disciplines of the heart. Some people say they live from their heart, but really, they just live from their feelings. They say, «I follow my heart.» Really, they just follow their feelings. They just do whatever they feel like. That’s not following your true heart! It takes discipline to follow your true heart. It takes discipline to be a disciple. You have to develop disciplines.
It’s not always about what you feel like doing! That’s why in 1 Timothy 4:7 it says, «Take time in trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit. Bodily fitness has a certain value, but spiritual fitness is essential both for this present life and for the life to come.» Saying it’s really great; it’s important to get physically fit, but it’s so much more important to be spiritually fit.
It comes down to spiritual disciplines because spiritual fitness will benefit you in this life and the one to come. We have to practice the disciplines of the heart. But as believers, sometimes we want to skip over the disciplines of the heart. We want to go out and make a big difference for God, but we have no power because power comes from the disciplines under the surface.
Only 10% of success in life is determined by what’s visible-what you do that people can see. Only 10% of your success in life is determined by what’s visible; 90% of success is determined by what you do behind the scenes when no one’s looking.
You want to run a marathon? Well, you don’t just go to the marathon that day and say, «I’m going to run the marathon. I’m going to compete. I’m going to run that 262 miles, and it’s going to be great!» No! Ninety percent is behind the scenes when no one’s watching-training.
It’s the iceberg principle. The most influential person who ever walked this earth followed the iceberg principle because He created the iceberg principle. He created icebergs. Jesus Christ! I mean, think about it: The first 30 years of His life, He spent preparing for ministry, and then three years He did public ministry. But in those three years, because of the preparation in the 30 years, He changed the world.
He spent less than 10% of His life in the public eye; 90% of Jesus' life was spent in total obscurity. But that’s where the power came from! There’s power in the iceberg principle, and it comes down to practicing the disciplines of the heart. Delighting in God’s heart, and then practicing the disciplines of the heart.
The disciplines mentioned in Scripture are the discipline of a daily time with God. Sometimes I feel like spending time with God; sometimes I don’t. But when I do it anyway, that’s when the feelings come along. It’s not about feelings; this is about following your true heart, and your true heart will drag your feelings, and powerful feelings will come about. But it’s not about feelings -it’s about faith and taking steps of faith.
So, the discipline of a daily time with God: We’re going to really focus on that-focus on the heart, spending time with God every day for just a few minutes if that’s all you’ve got before you go off into your day. But I know what’ll happen: «Too busy today! I’ve got too many things to do.» Sometimes I think, «I’ve got too many things to do for You, God, than to really stop and listen and spend time with You.» How ridiculous is that?
The discipline of a daily time with God, and then the discipline of weekly worship. That’s what you’re doing if you’re one of our campuses or you’re connected online. Weekly worship; God wants you to connect in weekly worship because you need a recalibration each and every week. And you need the discipline of fellowship. That’s why you need to be in a life group.
God says it’s so important for you to be in a life group-a small group, large group for worship, small group for fellowship-doing life together, having fun together, being there when you’re going through good times and bad times. You’ve got to get connected; it’s a discipline. Sure, at first you may not want to do it, you don’t have time, but then you get connected, and then you’ve got lifelong friends and you love it!
Then there’s the discipline of tithing. It’s putting God first in your finances. It’s a discipline! You don’t just give when you feel like it, when you’re motivated, when you’re moved. No! You give because you love God and you put Him first. And you know that His promise is true-that He’s going to give you back more than you could ever give. And you get to see God work in these really important areas of your life.
These disciplines really come down to where the rubber meets the road. How you spend your time, how you spend your money -that’s the test of the heart. If you want to know where your heart is, look at how you spend your time and look at how you spend your money. That is where your heart is; that’s the test of the heart.
And so we have to put God first so we can follow our heart because He begins to change our hearts. Now, I want us to look back again in Acts 13:22. God says, «I’ve searched the land and found David, son of Jesse. He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.» So, He says, «He’s a man whose heart beats the rhythm of my heart.»
And here’s why: He obeys me-He obeys me! This guy obeys me. He just believes me; he just trusts me. Whether he feels like it or not, whether he understands it or not, he just does what I say because he knows I know what’s best. He’s a man after my own heart.
When you delight in God’s heart and practice the disciplines of the heart, it changes what happens on the surface of your life. It becomes evident for all to see. You see things on the surface level that are coming from something deep down, and it’s something powerful and lasting and eternal.
And that’s what you’re about, Woodland Church! That’s why we have all these ministries at Woodland Church-because it comes out of the heart of this church: the heart of love for Jesus, the heart of love for others. And that’s why we do what we do. That’s why we put all the resources we do in our missions and ministries to raise up the next generation, raise up the poor and powerless, and raise up the gospel of hope-our only hope!
That’s why we do what we do. That’s why so many of you have volunteered to make a difference, to be the hands and the feet of Christ. Just in the last three weeks, our disaster relief ministry has been doing amazing work in the Hill Country. You see, already the media has left; now they’re just focusing on controversy, but they’re gone. You know, all the nonprofits — they’re leaving, but the churches in the area are there because the church stays and makes a difference.
So we connect with churches, and we stay because it takes months to rebuild, and we stay, and we rebuild, and we restore, and we love people. And it’s been amazing. We’ve sent a team; we’ve got a team there right now doing amazing work restoring. I want to show you a little clip of last week-one of the homes that we did. We had to take it all the way down to the studs. It was just totally overwhelmed with the flood.
But I wanted to show you this because here’s what our team does: After we tear it down to the studs and we start putting sheetrock back up and doing everything before we do, we write Bible verses there and just let them know that it’s all about the Lord. It’s all about Christ, and we’re doing that constantly over these last three weeks.
We want you to volunteer. We’re going to keep doing that because it’s going to take a long time. One of the amazing couples was an elderly man and his wife, and the man actually saved his wife out of the flood. It was up to her neck. He got her out somehow; their house was gutted. So we’re restoring their house, but they also had this RV that was basically a mobile library for children -that was a ministry that they had.
Somehow, someway, they found it a mile down. And here it is; it wasn’t damaged in the flood, except some of the books were wet. And so we’re restoring all the books. We’re sending them all these books and Bibles for the kids, and they already started their ministry again with this mobile library. But there are so many stories I could tell you that happen each and every week through the ministries and missions of Woodland Church.
But it all comes out of love. What you see on the surface comes out of the heart of Woodland Church-a heart of love that you have, a heart of love for people. David was a man after God’s own heart. He had a heart that beat to the rhythm of God’s heart. But there was a time that he failed to guard his heart. He allowed lust into his heart, committed adultery, and murder. This guy that was a man after God’s own heart failed miserably.
But then he repented and returned to the heart of God, and he said, «God, create in me a clean heart.» He came to God and just surrendered and asked for forgiveness. And God says, «If you return to me, I’ll return to you.» I don’t know where you are at right now, but maybe you feel like David-that you haven' t guarded your heart. You’ve let some things into your heart that have been so destructive to your heart, to your life, to relationships.
But you can return your heart to God. You can return to God with all your heart, and He will return to you. He’s the God of the second chance. And maybe that’s what you need to do today-return to God. Just return to Him and let Him cleanse and forgive and realign your heart with His heart. Get connected to others who are going in the right direction so you can walk with victory.
And I know some of you today have a broken heart. What do we call our deepest hurts? Heartaches! We’ve all had wounded hearts-every one of us has had our heart wounded and broken. And that’s because Satan fears your heart. His greatest fear is someone living from their heart because there’s so much power in that.
So Satan fears your heart, and he wants to wound your heart. From an early age, he’ll do everything he can to try to hurt your heart, even if it’s someone saying something on the playground that you still remember today. That’s why we’ve all experienced broken hearts. We’ve all experienced wounded hearts because Satan wants to take you out of the game. He wants to take your heart out of the game because he’s afraid of your heart.
But look what it says in Psalm 147:3: «He, God, heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.» The good news is God is the healer of broken hearts. He is the healer of wounded hearts. And maybe today your heart is bleeding, your heart is broken, your heart is crushed. Maybe it’s the loss of a loved one, or maybe it’s been a betrayal and a loss of trust. Maybe it’s just been a loss of passion or a loss of a dream-maybe it’s the feeling of rejection.
But your heart’s been broken; your heart has been crushed. And you’re going, «How in the world can I live from my heart? My heart is bleeding.» Take that broken heart and give it to God, and God says, «I will bind it up, and I will bring blessing out of it.»
The people that I know, when I look at their life and I see such beauty, such peace, and strength and courage, are people whose hearts have been broken the most. But they’ve turned those hearts over to God and let Him bring healing and strength. And God brings blessedness out of brokenness; He always does. You give Him your broken heart; He’s right there to bring healing today.
I want us to bow together because I don’t know where your heart is at right now. Maybe you just have a hurried heart, and you’re starting to lose heart. You just need to stop right now and be still and let God love you. Stop and be still, and let God strengthen your heart and align your heartbeat with His heartbeat.
Dear God, we come before You today and ask You to forgive us for being so busy doing things on the surface level that we neglect the heart issues. But, Lord, we commit to You this fall that we want to really focus on our hearts. We want to focus, Lord God, on our relationship with You so our hearts can come in alignment with Your heartbeat so that You can give us wise hearts to make wise decisions.
You can give us peaceful hearts in the middle of all the stress. You can give us, Lord Jesus, a heart of love to build lasting relationships. So, we pray, Lord, that You would help us focus on the heart. We give our hearts to You today. We ask You to renew our hearts and strengthen them, Lord. I pray for those who have a wounded heart-that You would bring healing to it today.
I pray for those, Lord, who haven’t guarded their heart and let something in their heart that’s taken them away from You. Help them come back to You today. And I pray for those who have never received a heart transplant-that they would right now receive that heart transplant from You, a new heart, and receive Your salvation by praying this prayer silently to You:
Dear Jesus Christ, I need a new heart. Forgive me of all my sins and come into my life. Give me a heart transplant and help me live from my true heart. I receive your free gift of heaven, and I believe in You with all my heart, for it’s in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.