#178 – The Right Kind of Heart

Yesterday on The Morning Meditation we looked at A Crucial Message for the Man of God and we saw that Paul told the man of God what to flee, follow, fight, and lay hold of.

Today on The Morning Meditation:

THE RIGHT KIND OF HEART

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

John Gill comments about the fixed heart: “Firm and sure heart, trusting in the Lord, believing that he should be saved by him out of his troubles; So, in a spiritual sense, a heart fixed and established, or that is firm and sure, is one that is assured of its salvation by Christ, rooted and grounded in the love of God, firmly built on the foundation, Christ, and has its affections set on him; and is unmoved, from the hope of the Gospel, and the doctrines of it, by whatsoever it meets with in the world. It may be rendered, ‘my heart is prepared’, or ‘ready;’ that is, according to some, to receive good or evil, prosperity or adversity, at the hand of God.”

THE RIGHT KIND OF HEART IS A NEW HEART

David says, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed . . . ” The word “fixed” means, “to bring something into being with the consequence that its existence is a certainty.” — Theological Workbook of the Old Testament p. 964.

David might have just as easily said, “LORD, my heart is fixed, not by me, but by you. You have given me a new heart. It has so changed me that I can do nothing but praise you.” This participle is in the passive voice which means that David received this “fixed heart” from a source outside himself. This heart was “God created” and given by grace.

We are born with a heart totally out of sink with God. Jesus said in Matthew 15:18 20, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man:"

Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

The language of Jeremiah is what we would call tough. It is impossible NOT to understand what he is saying. This is the heart of the natural man who can do things that are appalling. If one thinks he is right by what he does, he has been deceived by his own heart. No one is justified in the sight of God by his own good works. But this is what the flesh wants to believe. God has everywhere refuted man’s faith in his own goodness. Psalms 51:5, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me."

The new birth gives us a new heart. This is the new nature in contrast to the old one that we received by the new birth. I am afraid that people throughout the church have come in without being born again. They are no more saved than the drunkard or harlot, etc. Next,

THE RIGHT KIND OF HEART IS ONE THAT IS FIXED

One has to have a fixed heart to go to heaven. And I cannot repeat this too much. We cannot fix our own depraved hearts. Read this verse again slowly and put your mind in gear while you are doing it. Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" For an unconverted man to disagree with what this verse says is to argue with God. We just cannot win in an argument with God. If we are going to be saved, we must accept God’s diagnosis. When we do that, He will come forth with healing in His wings. Malachi 4:2, "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. . .”

David said, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise."

Spurgeon said, “One would have thought he would have said, "My heart is fluttered;" but no, he is calm, firm, happy, resolute, established. When the central axle is secure, the whole wheel is right. If our great bower anchor holds, the ship cannot drive.”