A Fixed Heart

"My heart is fixed O God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise." Psalms 57:7

Today I want to take the opportunity to praise God for a fixed heart, to praise God with a fixed heart.

There are two definitions of the word fixed that I want you to consider.


First of all, to be fixed is to be set, focused, to be steadfast, unmovable. To be fixed is to have your mind made up about something. When it comes down to God and how I feel about Him, and my love for Him, and my commitment to Him, and my devotion to Him, my heart is fixed. My heart is fixed on loving Him. I will not fall in love with another god! I will not fall in love with someone who will turn my heart away from my God like King Solomon did.

Solomon was like so many other people in the church who love giving good advice but not taking it. The Bible says that he fell in love with strange women who succeeded in turning his heart away from his God. (1 Kings 11:1)

My heart is fixed on serving Him. I will serve the Lord with gladness! (Psalms 100:2)

The second definition of the word fixed that I want you to consider is to be healed.

My heart is fixed as opposed to being broken. I know what its like to praise God with a broken heart. I know what its like to serve Him with a broken heart. I know what its like to live in constant pain, to have pain so bad that you feel like giving up. You feeling like quitting. Some have even contemplated suicide because their pain was so bad.

But I come to tell you that God is able to heal the broken heart. Psalms 147:3 says He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. I believe that if you commit your heart to God that He will fix it! God will fix it!

In closing Psalms 112: 7 says ..."He will not be afraid of evil tidings for his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." Evil tidings come in the form of evil thoughts, or sometimes evil words spoken by someone.

But when your heart is fixed, you don't have to be afraid! Just keep trusting in the Lord!

Until next time the Lord bless you and keep you!

Faith as a Function of Prayer

Matthew 17:19:21

"Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, 'Why could not we cast him out?' And Jesus said unto them, "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbe it this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."


A lack of faith is a sign of a weak prayer life. Jesus Christ advises us how to address unbelief: through prayer and fasting.

On a human level, how do we build trust, faith, and loyalty? Will we have faith in someone we do not know? Can we be loyal to a stranger? We build confidence in others through repeated contact with them over time—close and frequent communication. As we get to know them, to see them in action, to see their characters, we eventually reach a point where we can have trust and faith in them and in their behavior. It’s no different with God.

Prayer provides the repeated and continual contact with God that we need to get to know Him. The prayerful person becomes the faithful person, not the other way around. Hebrews 11:6 illustrates this point: "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Notice the condition in this verse: God is not the rewarder of everyone, but "of those who diligently seek Him." Faith comes from diligently, actively seeking Him, consistently and with zeal. Prayer is a major tool in seeking God along with studying God’s word, and fasting. Those who prove their diligence by doing these things are the ones rewarded with the faith to overcome (I John 5:4) For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.


Those with a weak prayer life have weak faith (Matthew 17:19 – 21)
Those with weak faith are easy to commit sin (Romans 14:23) and are promised death (Romans 6:23). That is just how important earnest prayer is as part of a solid foundation, especially during the end time. As I Peter 4:7 instructs, "But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers."

Romans 6:23…For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 14:22, 23..."Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because [he eateth] not of faith: for whatsoever [is] not of faith is sin."


Luke 18:1 …"And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint..."
Concerning our habits of prayer, "always" does not mean we should pray every single minute of the day. "Always" means that we should be faithful to our regular times of prayer. Concerning the time of prayer, "always" includes the fact that we should pray in both good and bad times. Sadly, some pray only in a crisis, and others forget to offer a prayer of thanksgiving when God has intervened to solve a problem or provide a blessing (I Thessalonians 5:17, 18). Regarding the spirit of prayer, "always" means we should be continually ready to pray, praying whenever a crisis hits or a need arises. Because they reveal our priorities, good habits of prayer show dedication to God and strengthen our relationship with Him.

I Thessalonians 5:17 &18…Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Appreciating Your Own Value (Part 1)

2 Corinthians 4:1-9
As Christians, we should not be waiting on somebody else to appreciate us, and place value upon us. We need to value ourselves, understanding in our own sight and in our own minds that because of who we are, and because of what God has done through His son Jesus Christ, we are valuable. We need to come to understand that we have high value and are a treasure in the Kingdom of God, and have a treaure within us. When the Scriptures talk about "earthen vessels", the Bible is talking about us! We were made from the earth, and the treasure of God, is within us!

1) Paul says," Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have recieved mercy, we faint not."
What ministry is he talking about? He's talking about the ministry of the new testament, the new covenant. In the preceding chapter, Paul discussed how even though the light of Moses was great, the light of the Gospel is greater. If you recall from the old testament, the children of Israel could not even look upon the face of Moses, for the glory of God was so bright upon his face. But that light, Paul says, pales in comparison to the glory of God in Jesus Christ. Moses had to hide his face from the people so that the glory he possesed would not blind the people. But the glory that Moses possesed is considered dim when compared to the glory that we carry in Jesus Christ. That's why we need to get rid of low self-esteem and poor self images, for we carry a glory because of Christ who is in us, and whom the Bible says is "the hope of glory".

The Bible says that "the letter killeth but the spirit makes alive." We have the ministry of the new covenant, a ministry of grace and mercy, which allows us to "faint not". That is the reason we can keep going day to day. Not because we've been so great or "good little Christians", but because each morning we are met with God's mercy, which is new every day. We can keep going another day because we have recieved mercy! Each day, all things are made new, which means even if yesterday was absolutely horrible, today is a new day! Think back to when you were in school. Did you ever mess up a problem or a sentence on a piece of paper and erase it so much it left holes in the paper? Did your teacher give you a new, fresh sheet of paper to start over on? That's what God does for us! Every day we start off with a new sheet of paper, the mistakes and mishaps of yesterday don't count! Stop for a moment and rejoice; thanking God for a fresh touch, a fresh annointing, a fresh perspective, a clean slate.

2) So, what is this treasure that we have in us? It is "the light of the glorious gospel of Christ." This simply means it is the revelation of who we are in Jesus. "Light" is revelation and is again the reason "we faint not". Because we know who we are, we can have the strength to keep going after we hear disappointing news, after we've had a bad day and things did not go as we planned, it is what helps us to get up the next day and keep moving foward.
Jesus told a parable that taught us that "men should pray always and not faint." There's something about knowing who we are in God that keeps us from fainting. It was David who said in Psalms 46 "God is our refuge and strength.....therefore will not we fear, thought the earth be removed, and though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea....the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge." That means our world can fall apart and we can still rise erect in the morning, and still be the men and women God has called us to be. Everthing in our lives could be going crazy, yet because we know who our God is, we can still praise and thank Him in the midst of the chaos.

3) Because we know who we are in Christ, this gives us the ability to renounce "the hidden things". (see Psalms 19 which talks about presumptous sins and hidden faults) To renounce means to reject, give it up, to relinquish it, to forsake it, to abandon it, to hand it over, to disown it. The Bible says we can "renounce the hidden things of dishonesty." In order for Jacob to embrace Israel, he had to let go of being Jacob. He had to renounce everything that had to do with his former name. He had to stop answering to it. The angel of the Lord told him, "your name is no more Jacob." Because we have Jesus Christ within us, we are new creatures with new names, and therefore we must stop answering to the old labels our past places on us. Answering to the "names" of our pasts only causes us to act out those negative things we did before.
And because we renounce the hidden things, we are not "walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully..." We aren't using the word of God as a way to manipulate others or trying to deceive anyone.

4) The revleation of who we are in Christ is the truth the enemy doesn't want us to know. In verse 3 and 4 it says," But if our gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost....In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Have you ever tried to introduce someone to the Lord and they just didn't "get" it or just didn't understand what you were trying to say? It's because they are lost, and it's most likely not their time to receive salvation. Satan, being the god of this world, has blinded the minds of non-believers, and they are unable to see the truth, or their need for God, because they have set their minds on something other than God's will for their lives. They are also blind to the knowledge that they are in the image of God. The enemy doesn't want us to know that we were created in the image of God. Instead, he wants us to hold onto every "fleshly" aspect of who we are naturally, embracing all the negative things and sins passed down from our natural parents and grandparents. He wants us to focus only on the DNA of our ancestors and allow that to keep us from striving to be who God called us to be. But again, remember that the Bible says that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This means we have the DNA of our Heavenly Father, we have God's DNA in us! We don't have to try to look like God, we were already made in His image! God has a DNA that is holy and righteous, that is annointed, that is full of power, is full of strength and might, full of whatever it is that you need to make it in this life. Because God is creative, then we are creative, because our Father is victorious, so then are we! It was Daniel who said,"...but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits."(Daniel 11:32). The spirit of weakenss, or giving up isn't in God's DNA, and therefore is not in ours! Because God does great things, then it's in us to do great things! If God can create things out of nothing, then why shouldn't we be able to do the same?

We need to start carrying ourselves in the image of our Father. Start appreciating your value and the treasure God has placed in you today.