Speak to your heart...

          During the week I was fortunate to hear an interesting story about someone who had undergone open heart surgery. The patient’s pastor was allowed to witness the surgery and it turned out that the surgeon performing the operation was also a member of the church. The surgeon removed the heart, repaired it and put it back into the patient. He massaged that heart and did whatever he could to get it to beat but nothing happened. Now, get this, the heart was fixed, in good working condition but refused to work. Finally, the doctor went and whispered into the person’s ear and told them that the surgery was successful, their heart was repaired and made a simple request. He said: “Tell your heart to beat again.” Somewhere, deep inside that person, they seemed to get the message and their heart finally started beating.
         As the person telling the story started to use this to minister God’s Word to his hearers, I found myself getting pretty emotional. I felt that person speaking directly to me; God, in fact was speaking directly to me. Let’s face it, we all go through tough situations, situations that seem designed to break you and completely destroy you. At those times you may even feel as if you will never get over it. Yet, God is saying, you will live again, you will love again, you will get over it and through it. The challenging part is that even though God has “fixed” our heart, He has done His part, we have to do ours. We have to CHOOSE to live again. We have to CHOOSE to love again. We have to CHOOSE to try again. But I guess many times we simply CHOOSE not to.       
         The Bible says that death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and maybe sometimes our “tongue” is saying the wrong things – it’s speaking death instead of life and we may not even realize it. It may be speaking the reality of the situation instead of the TRUTH of God’s Word over that situation. The situation may seem dead but instead of confessing death we may need to speak life into our situation. There have been times when I have found myself speaking life into and over dead situations in my life. I refused to accept what my natural eyes and senses were seeing and feeling and instead chose to speak life, chose to speak God’s Word over and into my situation.
         So, maybe today you need to speak to your heart. It may “feel” dead, hopeless, lifeless, helpless. But guess what? If by Jesus’ stripes you are healed, then it means that your heart is healed. You can live again, you can get up and try again. You will survive. You will make it. Once you’re alive IT’S NOT OVER! Don’t let the devil dictate life or death for you. You speak life, you declare that it’s not over and that you are going to make it. Give your heart to God and He will fix it. But after He does His part, you will have to do yours and speak to your heart and tell your heart to beat again!

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