Are you strong?

We're not talking muscles, right?

Not talking your electrocardiogram even, not that heart.

We're not talking cholesterol or PSA count.

We're talking you.

When you strip away all the front of the makeup, the hairdo, the physique, the gait.

And all that's gone, you are you strong.

How can we find strength for life's challenges?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper turns to Hebrews 139 to show how the unchanging grace of Jesus

strengthens our hearts for faithful living.

This sermon was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 21st, 1997.

Verse 9.

Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened.

There's the key word I've latched on to.

It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

Now, get very clear, the strength being spoken of here is strength of heart, not body.

The heart, I believe in this context, is the you that is not material. The you that

loves, the you that gets angry, the you that grieves over a lost loved one, the you that makes

decisions, the you that's happy or sad, the you that is you that's not the body,

the you that will go to heaven or hell when you die. I think that's what this is talking about.

It's the same thing that Paul meant in Ephesians 316 when he prayed, I bow my knees before the Father

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