“Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses.” – 1 Timothy 6:12 NLT

Cain killed Abel with a rock. It’s a heart problem, not a rock problem. OJ, a black man, killed his wife Nicole, a white woman, with a knife. It’s a heart problem, not a skin color or a knife problem. One person gets angry and shoots another person. It’s a heart problem, not a gun problem.

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” – Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

Who can know another’s heart? Certainly not me; my “picker” has chosen badly too many times! I see what I want to see, and for years I was in ‘rescue’ mode, trying to save the next lost puppy (that’s a euphemism for a man, rather, a little lost boy in a man’s body). In the process, I lost money from buying things for them (computers, vehicles, tools, etc.); I lost emotionally through lies and cheating and affairs. My strays were not all men; there was a woman I befriended who thought nothing of using her friends to clean up her messes with their time and money and emotions. Through all of this, I forgot the faith I had grown up with, and wandered through it on my terms, without my Lord. Oh, I knew Him, and I prayed and called on Him for help, and He delivered me time after time, but I didn’t fully rely on Him.

Jeremiah had it right about the human heart. From the very beginning of humanity our hearts have gotten us into trouble. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). Their firstborn, Cain, murdered his brother, Abel. The Old Testament is full of man’s deceitfulness, and even within the twelve men privileged to be with Jesus on earth there was the deceiver, Judas. Every man’s heart, every woman’s heart, is full of deceitfulness and wickedness. If you don’t believe me, just look at the around you. Everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone deceives. It’s in our DNA, from the beginning. The GOOD NEWS is that we don’t have to sit back and take it! We have the Power of Jesus, the Power that calmed the raging sea, the Power of the burning bush, the Power that rolled away the stone that was holding His body in the grave…. we have access to the good faith, the true Faith, that comes though Jesus Christ. It is up to us, to those who have that Faith, to share it with the world. Fight the good fight. Hold tight to the LORD. Declare His Love and His Faithfulness to your world, without being self-righteous or condescending. Remember that there, except for the Grace of God, goes me, or you.

Don’t let your HEART problem keep you from the Great Physician, Jesus Christ.