As we switch over to John’s gospel, chapter fourteen, the subject of having a healthy heart comes to the surface. Of course, the heart we are referencing is the spirit of a man and not the human blood pump. But, there are parallels between the two. You know when Dr. Christian Bernard performed the first human heart transplant, [we are talking about ‘healthy hearts’ today] the medical world basked in the glow of human achievement. Sick and dying people were given hope that in receiving a brand new heart, their lives would be extended. As great as this is, it pales in comparison to what God has done for His kids. He has been in the heart transplant business for a much longer time and, unique to His surgery, His patients live forever. When a new life enters the world, a new heart enters the world as well. There is no life apart from a physical heart. So it is with the Jesus follower: the believer receives a new heart when he says ‘yes’ to Jesus and receives a new life in Christ Second Corinthians 5:17 style. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation and with it he has a new heart.¹ In this week’s podcast, we look at aspects of our decision making that keeps our heart super healthy, vibrant, and strong — ‘Biblically Secrets to a Healthy Heart in God’ — that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.

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Why the Jesus Way Means Total Trust All the Time

 

Feelings and the facts of God’s Word are not the same. Stick to the facts — sidestep your feelings. Park them in the garage of God’s Word. Click To Tweet

Read the Notes

You can view a basic transcript of this podcast at the bottom of this section.

Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put it into operation.
This week’s call is:

Feelings and the facts of God’s Word are not the same. Stick to the facts — sidestep your feelings. Park them in the garage of God’s Word.

Join the Conversation

Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11). Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony.
This week’s question is:

Question: Share a story where refused to let your heart be troubled. Share the result of obeying God’s Word in the comments section below.

Episode Resources:

If you would like to know more about growing in faith, see the links below to listen to some of these podcasts.

1. Why Possessing Patience Is A Powerful Step to A Faith Filled Life [Podcast]
2. Why Praying in Faith Means to Believe You Receive [Encore Podcast]
3. How You Can Demonstrate Powerful Faith in God [Podcast]
4. Why Taking the Forgiveness Test Helps Your Faith in God [Podcast]
5. Faith and Prayer: Important Lessons to Know [Podcast]
6. Why It’s Important to Flow in Faith’s Domain [Podcast]
7. Scriptures to Feed Your Faith and Combat Fear [Podcast]

We are currently teaching in the Gospel of John. You can click on the links below to listen to some of these podcasts.

1. #S7-045: How Jesus Being Lifted Up Impacts Your Life [Podcast]
2. #S7-043: Are You Willing to Hear the Voice of the Lord? [Podcast]
3. #S7-042: Why Sacrifice Is Your Key to Significance [Podcast]
4. #S7-039: Are You A Passionate Seeker of Jesus? [Podcast]
5. #S6-015: The Value of Knowing the Gift of God [Podcast]
6. #S6-014: How to Conquer Prejudice the Jesus Way [Podcast]
7. #S6-013: What Does It Mean to Be Born Again from God? [Podcast]
8. #S6-012: Nicodemus: Is His Life a Positive Example to Follow? [Podcast]
9.  #S-018: How Not to Be A Minister of Condemnation [Podcast]
10.  #S6-019: Worshipping God: Why the Hour Is Here [Podcast]
11. #S6-020: More on Praising God: Why the Hour Is Here [Podcast]
12. #S6-021: The Big Scoop on Magnifying God [Podcast]
13. #S6-023: Amazing Pointers on the Road to Lifting God Higher [Podcast]
14. #S6-027: Why Jesus Shocking Bread of Life Statement is the Only Way to Heaven [Podcast]
15. #S6-029: Why Mixing Holy and Unholy Is Not a Good God Thing [Podcast]
16. #S6-032: Why It’s Never Wise to Not Obey God’s Will for Your Life [Podcast]
17. #S6-033: Killing Jesus: How to Walk the Talk in the Face of The Rising Tide of Opposition [Podcast]

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 47 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. He and his wife Sharon of 42 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic, you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

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Prayer

Podcast Notes

• Well, again welcome.
• Let’s pray.

Father God, we praise you and give you all the glory for giving us brand new hearts. For you are the God of the new creation man. Show us today how we can develop strong and healthy spirits as that we could walk with you in fulness. We appreciate your work in this vein in Jesus Name. Amen.

A Healthy Heart Stays Out of Trouble

John 14:1–4 (ESV) — 1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

• We can see right away in verse one that a healthy heart is one that stays out of trouble — let not your heart be troubled.
• This exhortation from the lips of Jesus has a history.
• Its source is a reference back in John thirteen where Jesus told the disciples that He was going away.

John 13:33 (ESV)— 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’

• Jesus also told them they could not immediately follow Him to that place.
• Now, this had been customary for the 12 disciples.
• They hung out with Jesus for three and one-half years.
• Jesus would wake up from His sleep and then the adventure would begin.

Matthew 9:35 (KJV 1900) — 35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

• John would lean over to Peter and say, ‘Where are we going today, I wonder? — which city — which village?
• Peter said, ‘I don’t know — let’s just follow Him and see.’
• And off they would go, following Jesus as He followed His Father in heaven.
• Today, it is the same though we don’t have Jesus with us physically.
• He sent the Holy Spirit to live in as and to be our leader and our guide.
• We get up in the morning and off we go.
• Jesus followers are just that – followers.
• We follow the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit hears from the Father God.
• Now, at this point in Jesus ministry – this is a different statement coming from His lips.
• “I’m going to a place that you wouldn’t be able to just get up from your sleep and follow.”
• That disturbed the disciples an enormous bunch.
• For 3 1/2 years, following Jesus from one place to another is all they knew.
• This course change weighed the disciples down.
• Their hearts were troubled.

Healthy Heart: Don’t Be Troubled Definition

• So Jesus, first thing — right out of the chute in John fourteen, tells His handpicked followers: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’
• The word ‘your’ is plural grammatically speaking which means that ‘your’ refers to all disciples everywhere.
• God’s commandment to you via the lips of Jesus is ‘don’t go there — do not let not your heart be troubled.’
• The word ‘troubled’ here is not just a casual word, and with that thought here is the Definition of the Day.
• The word ‘troubled’ means to cause inward turmoil, stir up, disturb, unsettle, or throw into confusion.²
• That’s a gigantic pile of messy words there.
• Another reference, the TLNT [Theological Lexicon of the New Testament] adds to this that the word ‘troubled’ [tarassō] means to agitate, to move, or to panic.
• So, with these two lexicons, you can compile a list of what the word troubled means and along with this, an understanding that this is never where you want to let your heart go.
• Here’s the list.
  • Inward turmoil
  • Stir up
  • Disturb
  • Unsettle
  • Throw into Confusion
  • Agitate
  • Be Moved
  • Panic
• Let not your heart be any of these.
• God is a precise God.
• Do any of these definitions describe your current state?
• Do you have inward toil?
• God said – ‘don’t let your heart go there.’
• Now, think of all the people and their situations that could drive your heart to be in turmoil.
• Situations with the spouse could do it, certainly the children can — family? absolutely they can drive you to inner distraction.
• You know some people think, [I’ve run into them,] that it’s a badge of honor to be troubled.
• They think that’s how you display love.
• You’re supposed to be upset, distraught, wring your hands, and worry and that if you’re not showing these attributes, then you don’t ‘really love me or care.’
• Well, you must not have read this verse in Job five?

Job 5:22 (ESV) — 22 At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the beasts of the earth.

• You may say “I see nothing funny about destruction and famine.’
• Or, you may say ‘I don’t feel like laughing.’
• The ‘feelings’ part is where people get confused.
• Feelings and facts are two entirely different things.
• I didn’t say you wouldn’t have feelings about things.
• I’m saying feelings and the facts of God’s Word are not the same.
• Stick to the facts — sidestep your feelings.
• Park your feelings in the garage of God’s Word.
• That means we choose to look at things from heaven’s standpoint.
• For example, Psalm two.

Psalm 2:2–4 (ESV) — The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

A Healthy Heart Knows How Big God Is

• God laughs at these puny obstacles.
• Have you tried laughing at cancer?
• It’s puny in God’s sight — it’s totally nothing.
• We think it’s so big — God thinks its a thimble of nothingness.
• During car rides throughout the pines of East Texas, a little girl often observed her surroundings and asked big questions about God. “Is God bigger than that tree, mama?” “What about the road? Is he longer than that?”³
• You need to really, truly, know the answer — How big is our God?

Psalm 86:8–10 (ESV) — 8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. 9 All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. 10 For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.

• And with this thought, here is the Quote of the Day.

In 1990 the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its mission, was about to leave our solar system. As it did, NASA scientists turned the spacecraft’s camera and took one last photograph of Earth from a distance of about 3.7 billion miles. What the image revealed was startling. Dubbed the “Pale Blue Dot” by astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan, this photograph shows Earth as a tiny dot, about one tenth of a pixel in size, suspended in the vast emptiness of space. In his reflections on this photograph, Sagan wrote: “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives … on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam… No one knows exactly how big the universe is. Scientists estimate that it contains hundreds of billions of galaxies, and that the average galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars.

If the universe is indeed God’s creation, then it seems logical that it would be created in a way that reflects his magnitude. It would be much like the ancient Hebrew psalmist who wrote: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Indeed, the universe is so massive that we struggle to comprehend its size. Perhaps this was done so that God’s eternal power and divine nature could be understood from the things he created. In other words, so we could get a glimpse of just how immense God is.

Could it be that in power and majesty God is bigger than anyone can imagine? Could it be that God is showing humanity something about himself through what he created? Could it be that, as German philosopher Friedrich Schiller remarked, “the Universe is one of God’s thoughts”?”⁴

• Cancer shrinks in His Presence.
• It is dust on His scale.
• In His Presence is fulness of joy.
• Rotted flesh turns healthy soft, and supple, and beautiful when it comes into contact with God.
• He is Jehovah Rapha — always has been always will be.

Healthy Heart: You Are in Control

• It’s not a badge of honor to be all down in the dumps — it’s a badge of unbelief.
• Jesus said this ‘Let not your heart be in turmoil.’
• Get the message — It’s in red in your Bible.
• He said, ‘Don’t let it be distressed, unsettled, confused, agitated, moved off its position in faith, or panicked.’
• And that’s the key ‘let not’ your heart be troubled.
• That means you are the deciding factor.
• You can ‘let it’ or you ‘cannot let it’ — it’s your choice.
• Think of all the situations that could drive your heart to a ‘troubled’ condition.
• If your heart is troubled right now, stop reading and deal with that.
• That’s vital.

Healthy Heart Walks in the Light

• All of us must walk in the light that we have.
• That’s what Jesus said — that’s what the Psalmist said.

John 8:12 (ESV) — 12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Psalm 119:130 (AMP) — 130 The entrance and unfolding of Your words give light; their unfolding gives understanding (discernment and comprehension) to the simple.

Psalm 56:13 (ESV) — 13 For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.

• Walk in the ‘light of life.’
• Another way of saying this is: ‘If you walk in the light, your path remains light.

A Healthy Heart Respects Even the Smallest of God’s Commands

• Your light will be small and your path dim until you make the decision to obey God even in the smallest areas.

Matthew 5:18 (ESV) — 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

• The KJV says jot or tittle.
• When Jesus speaks about “the least stroke of a pen” (“one jot or one tittle” in the King James Version), you recognize that this is an idiom.
• Let’s break off here and explain what on idiom is.
• It’s words that have a meaning attached to them that can’t be literally deduced from the words that are used.
• Take for example the idiom ‘raining cats and dogs’ meaning that it’s pouring rain outside.
• Well, why didn’t you just say that?
• It’s more colorful to say raining cats and dogs but it doesn’t mean German Shepherds and Persian Cats are falling from heaven.
• If that was literal, it would be a literal mess.
• So, getting back to the quote.

When Jesus speaks about one jot or tittle, you recognize that this is an idiom meaning “to the most microscopic detail.” The yod is the smallest Hebrew letter, and it looks like a large apostrophe:יִ Calligraphers embellish it with a tiny hook, or a “thorn,” called a kots. Remarkably, this Hebrew idiom is still in use today. Former Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mufaz declared that he would hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for fighting terror al kotso shel yod, “to the thorn of a yod.”⁵

• So back to John fourteen ‘let not’ — two words that are very small.
• The remainder of John fourteen will be blind to us unless we act on the first two words of verse one, ‘let not.’
• If God said ‘let not’ or don’t do a thing, then that means that you can.
• It means you can make your Fathers face your focus.

Healthy Hearts Look Up, Not Down

• People who are down on the inside look down — they act down.
• People who ‘let not their heart be troubled’ look up — they ‘act up,’ if you would, as opposed to allowing their hearts to be disturbed.
• Now, this is a wonderful place to be — one that we must strive to live in.

Healthy Heart: More Proof that We Are Responsible

• So, if you let your heart get troubled or refuse to let it as you should, in either case — let or do not let — the responsible party for the condition of your heart is you?

Proverbs 3:1 (ESV) — 3:1 My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments,

• There it is again – ‘let your heart keep my commandments’ — this is your responsibility.
• Your will is involved.
• And with that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.

Almost everyone is aware of the statement attributed to President Harry Truman that “The Buck Stops Here,” but does it? [What is that? — It’s a statement of responsibility.] There are people who will not accept responsibility for their actions. Included in this group are criminals and sociopaths. The war trials at Nuremberg brought out this idea. The Nazi war criminals claimed they were just following orders. “We really did not want to exterminate the Jews. Hitler made us do it.” The criminal says, “I am a product of society. They are to blame, not me.” The wife and child abuser says, “I was raised by abusive parents, so do not blame me; blame them.” The denial of guilt does not remove or negate the responsibility of it. In our society today we are just as sick as they were then. No one wants to accept responsibility for anything. Everything is relative, so do what you want to. It is O.K. Well, friends and neighbors, that is plain junk. It just ain’t so. Of course, anyone can play the game of denial. It all started a long time ago. Genesis 3:1–19 tells us that Adam ate the forbidden fruit and God held him responsible. Adam said, “I am not responsible. You know the woman you gave me, remember her? She gave me fruit from the tree and I did eat. But do not blame me [She’s responsible], you gave her to me [What’s Adam saying? — You’re responsible God — if you hadn’t given me this woman.] so blame her, [blame you] but not me [I’m not responsible.].” God then went and asked Eve, “What have you done?” Eve said, [I’m not responsible.] “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” “The devil made me do it,” was Flip Wilson’s favorite line. [Did any of that work? – No!] God held them both responsible for their actions. He will hold us responsible for ours. The soul that sinneth shall die. When we sin, let us ask God to forgive us, and then we should take the consequence that goes with it.[Thank God that consequence was taken care of at the Cross.]⁶

• We are responsible for the state of our heart.
• Let’s keep reading in Proverbs three.

Proverbs 3:2–3 — 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.

• Here’s another ‘let not’ statement: Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you.
• Again, take note of who the responsible party is for having a healthy heart.
• Stedfast love is covenant love.
• There are certain protections that you have if you stay in the Covenant — if you don’t let it forsake you.
• Read Deuteronomy 28:1–12 to know what these protections are.
• If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
• Blessed shall you be in the city,
• You will be blessed in the field.
• Blessed with children
• Your occupation will be blessed.
• Blessed when you come in and go out.
• Your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you.
• The Lord will command the blessing on your storage and in all that you undertake.
• Your homes and possessions will be blessed.
• You will be holy and people will be afraid of you.
• You will abound in prosperity.
• God’s Treasury will open to you.
• You will have such abundance that you lend and not have to borrow.
• Impressive list wouldn’t you say?
• Why would anyone want to forsake all these blessings?
• It takes a messed up heart to do that.
• So, what the Lord is doing here is what dads often do — show their kids how to get from point A to point B.
• It takes some instruction.
• Throw a little teaching in there.
• Season this all with coaching.
• He is showing us how to get to life — ‘let not your heart be troubled.’

A Healthy Heart Hears the Coach

• We need to dial in and listen and hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the church.
• If we don’t listen — If we turn down coaching, if we don’t hear and do, then our hearts will be in a mess.
• The world is jacked up man — some in our country are jacked up, full of fear and anxiety — no backbone — no spine.
• The slightest thing takes them down.
• They have to trust in animals to cope with life.
• Come on man — trust in the Lord.
• Being co-dependent like this is not strength — it’s not the sign of a healthy heart.
• It’s weakness.
• We need to listen to our coach!
• The Lord is a perfect coach and He is never wrong.
• Every play that He calls will produce a touchdown.
• He never fumbles nor falters.
• He is God alone!
• The point is — the deciding factor for a healthy heart is the person you see in the mirror every morning when you comb your hair.
• If that fella will just listen to and act on what God said, it will work out for him/her 100 times out of a hundred.

Healthy Heart Trusts and Stays Hooked to God

• Getting back to Proverbs three ‘let not stedfast love and faithfulness forsake you’.
• Keep reading at verse 4.

Proverbs 3:4–5 — 4 So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

• There’s more responsibility here, don’t skip past these verses.
• Trust your heart over your head.

Proverbs 28:26 (ESV) — 26 Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

• Doing the opposite is not a sign of a healthy heart.
• A healthy heart trusts.
• A healthy heart is not afraid to trust — it’s not afraid to put itself out there because it knows that trusting is God’s realm.
• And, God has never let a man down yet who has really trusted His Word — never!
• Choosing to trust — to put yourself out there is your part.
• God’s not going to make you trust Him with all your heart.
• No, this is your part.
• Do not lean on your own understanding — that’s your part as well.
• There is a choice here to be made.

Proverbs 4:23 (ESV) — 23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

• I think you’re getting a good picture here.

1 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

• What is this Father’s house?
• The Father’s house — houses the Father’s Presence.
• It is wherever the Father is.
• That’s a vital distinction because there’s coming a day when heaven will be moved to earth.

Revelation 21:1–4 (ESV) — 1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

• The Father is packing His bags — He is coming home.
• I trust you got something out of this podcast.

Now Father God, thank you for the marvelous privilege of ‘let not.’ We thank for it and we choose to trust you instead of ‘letting our hearts be troubled.’ We thank you in Jesus Name.

• Biblically Secrets to a Healthy Heart in God.
• You guys have a great God week and we will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.

Three Ways You Can Know That You Are Trusting God

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