Preparation of the Heart

Prov 16:1
The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

If you will prepare your heart then you will never have to worry about your actions, as long as your heart is right, as long as your heart is prepared you will never have to worry about what you are going to do or what you will do.

Because here is reality, you can not operate differently than what the condition of your heart is and the problem is that for the most part we as children of God are more concerned with our actions and the responses of those actions than we are with the condition of our hearts which is the cytoplast of our actions

Christians are constantly trying to control there actions when the real problem is their inner heart and if we would have understanding we would see that the process needs to be reversed, it is not our actions that need to be addressed but the condition of our heart and if we would deal with the condition of our heart then our actions which are the problem would be alleviated.

Prov 23:7
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.

When your heart becomes fixed on the things of God, then you no longer have to be concerned or worried about your actions

Isa 26:3-4
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:

When your heart is fixed then your heart is not mixed.
It is not mixed with anxieties, with unbelief and doubt, with bitterness or resentment.
It is fixed on the Lord.

Listen to Paul,
Acts 20:24
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

None of these things move me, I am not moved by things that are going on around me, I am not moved by what other people are doing to me, I am not moved because my heart is prepared and my heart is fixed on God

And the result is perfect peace because you trust in Him.
When you walk in that place of perfect peace you trust in Him and then that perfect peace has a direct way of showing how all the other things that are taking place in your life are in order because of that trust.

If you are having a tough time trying to understand the importance of what I am telling you, then you need to understand that this is where it all begins, this is the starting place of your relationship and to the degree that you get this is going to be the degree as to how you will walk in it.

Heb 3:12-13
Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

These scriptures have been written for our instruction, take heed or in other words beware that your heart does not harbor the evilness of unbelief.

Unbelief here is being described as an evil heart

Take heed, beware that you are not hardened through the deceitfulness of sin
Unbelief and hardness of heart is being described as an evil heart and the result of these two is a departing from the Living God and what it means is a departing from the life and the seed of God.

Now this needs to be addressed because I do not believe that there is one person who is reading this who wants to depart from the Living God but even though you do not want to, even though you have no desire to, you still will.

Why?

Because of unbelief and hardness that is in your heart, it is these things that cause you to depart from the Living God

The things that cause you to depart from God are not the things that are external but the things which are internal.

Mark 7:18-23
And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

How is it that people fall away and fail in the Lord, how is it that people forsake and depart from the Lord and furthermore what is it that is going to keep you and I from falling away, from departing from the Lord.

The answer is very clear,
2 Chr 12:13-14
So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah an Ammonitess.
And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD.

And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord. His heart was not prepared to seek the Lord and because it was not prepared he did evil and this is the reason that we do evil as well.
The reason that people walk away from God, get frustrated with God, give up on God is because they did not prepare there heart to seek God.

Your flesh, your actions follow your heart, the reason you do the things that you do, the reason that you hate the things that you hate, the reason that you can not change the direction that you are going in is because your actions reflect your heart.

Within your heart is the root problem to your actions and this root problem makes you struggle and strive against the very things that you really desire to do in your heart. And when there is that struggling and striving, when there is that root problem in your heart you literally have to force yourself and fight with yourself not to enter into that which you know is wrong.
You need to deal with your heart.

Prov 4:23
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.