A Settled Heart – Paul Chappell

“Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.”

Luke 21:14–15

The great issues of life are all determined in the heart. When our hearts are right, our outward attitude and conduct will be as well. When our hearts are wrong, it will come through. Jesus warned His disciples of the need to have their hearts settled before the days of trouble came. Many times we fail to pass a test or resist a temptation because we have not previously settled our hearts regarding a matter. The time to choose to do right is before the challenge comes, not when we are facing it.

Daniel was ripped away from his home and family as a young boy and taken hundreds of miles away from home. He was placed into a carefully designed program meant to take his devotion away from his nation and his God and turn him into a loyal subject of the Babylonian Empire. They changed his name, his clothing, his schooling, and even tried to change his diet. Their program had a great success rate, but it did not work on him, because Daniel’s heart was settled. “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself” (Daniel 1:8).

When we are put to the test, what we love most is revealed. Most of the other Hebrew young men who were taken to Babylon apparently went along with the program of their captors, but Daniel and three of his friends did not. They loved the God of their fathers more than they loved comfort or success or even life itself.