Brandon: Let God be the strength of your heart

With my son John Scott’s heart issues, I have been thinking about “hearts” much of the time these last few weeks. The Bible has hundreds of scriptures in regard to “hearts.” But I like especially Psalm 73:26: “ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” That tells me that even though a heart may be weak, the Maker, God, gives it spiritual strength from day to day to go on. So the question is: Is God the strength of your heart?

If God is not the strength of one’s heart, that heart can become hardened. The Bible gives a good example of that. The writer of Mark records that when Jesus was about to heal the man with the withered hand, the Pharisees were watching His every move and Jesus was amazed at how hardened their (the Pharisees) hearts were. They were big on keeping rules and regulations but were lacking in mercy. The Pharisees were looking for any opportunity to trap Jesus. Instead of finding the greater good in Jesus’ work, these leaders were hardened to what Jesus was trying to do. (Mark 3:1-5) Their hearts were hardened.

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Matthew Henry’s commentary sheds some light on what I might say is the opposite: not having a hard heart. He wrote about Mark 3:14-19: “The saints’ privilege is, they are made partakers of Christ, that is, of the Spirit, the nature, graces, righteousness and life of Christ; they are interested in all Christ is, in all He has done, or will do.”

So a hardened heart would mean not doing what Christ would do. We who call Him Christ are partakers His nature, His grace, His righteousness and the life Christ led. Sadly we all at times manifest hardness of heart in our everyday living. In other words, the above characteristics are far sometimes from the actions of our daily lives.

This hardness of heart is manifested in words we hear every day. It can be stubbornness: “I will never forget what she did to me and even though she says she is sorry ... I will never accept her apology.”

It can be stinginess: “What does that church do with my money? That pastor makes entirely too much money and he is always calling for money for some mission fund.”

It can be showing no mercy when you don’t know the circumstances: “If those people want to eat, they had just better get a job.”

It can be showing no mercy when you do know the circumstances: “Well, he made his bed ... let him lie in it.”

It can be having no grace: “Who does she think she is ... trying to impress everyone ... she came from nothing.”

It can counting on your own fabricated righteousness: “Well I know I lead a better Christian life that 95% of the other people.”

It may bad words that roll off your tongue when your guard is down. “What are you thinking, you *******! Get a life!”

It may be bad words when your guard is up. “Come on ... try that one more time and I will show you who’s boss!”

Many people let their hearts get hardened to the circumstances of others; then some people let their hearts get heartened in regard to their relationship with the Father. That is, they believe that all they are is on their own merit and cannot see the faults in their own lives.

When we fail to show mercy, fail to think in the Spirit, fail to think as Christ would think and fail to remember as believers that our righteous standing comes only from Him and not from anything that we have done or anything we deserve, we are poor examples of God’s grace.

Years ago, the singing group Petra had a song titled “Don’t let your heart be hardened.” The second line went, “don‘t let your love grow cold.” I agree with Petra; when our hearts grow hard, our loves grows cold. Then how valuable are we to the Kingdom of God? Not much I would say.

Judy Brandon writes about faith for the Clovis News Journal. Contact her at:

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