"Loyalty" Kathryn Kuhlman "My Heart is Fixed"

My heart is fixed, O God. My heart is fixed. Those ten little words are recorded in the 57th Psalm. I have wept over them. I have rejoiced. I have thrilled. I've been blessed. And I know exactly how David the psalmist felt when he looked up and spoke those ten words. My heart is fixed. Oh God, my heart is fixed. The other day, I reminisced a little. I guess that... Goes along with getting older, you know. And I turned back the pages of my life, and it seemed that all that I've ever done in my lifetime has been just to preach and pray and work and pray some more, preach some more, work a little harder. Really, I mean that. Sometimes I wonder if I missed anything by not having the same kind of youth that thousands of young people have had. All I've known, few people realize that, all that I've known all of my life has been nothing but hard work. All that I can remember doing is preaching the gospel. You wonder why I know the Word of God as I do? It's because it seemed like since I can remember, I've searched the Scripture. I've been hungry for the Word of God. I've sought God. I've sought understanding of the things that are spiritual. It seems sometimes like all I've done in my entire lifetime is just Pray. One constant prayer. Being constantly conscious of his presence. That's the reason he said, real to me as the next beat of my heart. More real to me, very, very often, than the one whose presence I not only feel but can see only a few feet from me. sitting in a room. The things of God are real to me. I can never remember what folk call backsliding or having the slightest desire to ever leave the things of God or to ever stop preaching. are to take it a little easier. My heart is fixed, oh God. My heart is fixed. And when at the age of 14 I was born again in that little Methodist church in Concordia, Missouri, my heart became fixed on the things of God. And I've never compromised for one second. From that first sermon that I preached in Idaho, Zacchaeus up a tree. And God knows if anyone was up a tree, I sure was. And after the sixth sermon, well, let's say after about the fourth sermon, that I preached in Idaho, I felt that I had exhausted the supply. There was nothing more left in the Bible to preach about. But one thing I knew, I was sold on the things of God. Jesus was real to me. My heart was fixed. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, the psalmist said. One thing. I've had but one desire. My heart has been fixed on just one thing, and that is what I have sought after all my life. The nicest compliment that has been paid me for a long time was when someone wrote to me recently, and they'd been in those early services when I was so very young, so very inexperienced, and they attended some of those services in Nampa, Idaho, and Emmett, Idaho, Caldwell, Idaho, all those little country places. They were precious to me. That's what I got so much of my education, you know. I went to the school of hard knocks. And some of those knocks were pretty hard. And sometimes I wondered if I would ever recover from them. But I always did. I always did. Because I had a purpose. I knew what I believed, and I was so sure of my faith in him. My heart was so fixed. My loyalty to him was so complete that there was never a turning back for one moment. And a little lady wrote to me recently and said, I heard you recently. in the Shrine Auditorium. And you haven't changed in your preaching one bit from the time I heard you as a teenager. You've never added any of the bric -a -brac. You've never changed in your theology. You've never gone off on tangents. You've never resorted to fanaticism. No, beloved. Why should I? I've had the greatest teacher a person can know. The Holy Spirit. But the secret of it all is the fact that my heart was fixed in the very beginning. And I was determined to be loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know something? In these days of questioning of time -tested values in our society and the rise of a school of thought believing in the ethics of a situation rather than the ethics of steadfast truth, Good for us to look at one of the great virtues of life. That of loyalty. For without it, life is at loose ends. It just simply falls to pieces. Loyalty. We've gotten to the place where there's so little of loyalty left. Loyalty to each other. Loyalty to what we believe. Loyalty to principles. Loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ. That word loyalty has little meaning in these days because there's so little of it being practiced. Queen Mary gave some advice to her granddaughter Elizabeth of the United Kingdom. And this is what Queen Mary said to Elizabeth. Remember that life is made up of loyalty. Loyalty to your friends, loyalty to things beautiful and good, loyalty to country which you love, and above all, loyalty to God. You know, some folks seem to get by because of their cleverness. Oh, I've seen it. I've watched it. But an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. Let us think for a moment of just what loyalty really means. The word isn't used much. Kind of outdated. Outmoded. Like some other things, you know. But it still means a lot. What are we talking about when we talk about loyalty? Loyalty is something that is intangible. It's like love. You can only understand it as you see it in action. Oh, sure. Volgens had them written about love. There are those who think that they have analyzed love and can tell you all about it. But in the final analysis, you can only understand love as you see it in action. Because it's something that you do. Love is something you do. And it's also true of loyalty. It's something that is intangible. But it's something you do. It means faithfulness. It means allegiance. It means devotion. It means so many, many things. It means that if one is loyal as a friend, you'd stake your very life on the loyalty of that friend. That's right. When we say that we're loyal to an idea like democracy or to a cause like the Christian faith, or to an institution like the church, we mean that we believe in it, we have confidence in it, that we're willing to stand up and be counted even when the chips are down. I remember something that my oldest sister Myrtle said one time, and I never forgot it. Oh, Dear me, she may have forgotten that she ever said it. But she said, you know, Catherine, in jail or out, I'm with you all the way. You know? Now, she never had to prove that loyalty, you understand. But, you know, it's kind of like that. In jail or out, right or wrong, or like the man said years and years ago, you know, I have so much confidence in you that even if I saw you do something wrong, I would think that my eyes were deceiving me. Loyalty. When we say we're loyal to a person, we mean that we know him. we have confidence in him, we'll stick by him through thick or thin, and that we're glad to be known as his friend, and that we'll not let him down. And when you know that you have that person's loyalty, you'll go through hell not to disappoint that one. See, it works both ways. That person... who has confidence in me, that person who is loyal to me, I would literally go through hell before I'd let that person down or have that person be disappointed in me. And it's just like that. I want to live up to, I want to be the kind of person and even a... better person than they know that I am. I want to be even bigger than they think I am. When we say we're loyal to God, We mean that we believe in his presence, that we believe that he is the creator, that he is the sustainer, the redeemer of our life. It means that we're determined to let this faith be the distinctive thing about our own life as well as our relationship with others. That's what the psalmist is saying in this 27th Psalm. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. What the psalmist is saying here is, I pledge myself in diligence to my God. My heart is fixed. I'll be loyal to him at any cost, at any price. The waters have been deep, and I would not tell you that there have not been temptations. I would deceive you if I told you that it wasn't. easy way or an easy life, I would lie to you. But I also want you to know that I've never been disappointed in him. Never once. Never once has he ever let me down. Never once has he betrayed my trust, my confidence, my loyalty in him. You see, loyalty is much more than a casual interest in someone or something. It's a personal commitment. In a foul analysis, it means, here I am. You can count on me. I won't fail you. It's a positive attitude. There's nothing negative about it. There's nothing negative about loyalty. It's aggressive. As we noted a moment ago, it is a quality of life that a person must have if his life is to amount to anything. Oh, sure, there are many stories of great loyalty, of a man for his country, or a disciple to a cause, or one person for another. And one of the most beautiful stories that has ever been recorded is found in the Old Testament in the book of Ruth. Some hung back, refusing to accompany Naoma to her homeland. But Ruth, the girl from Moab, stood firmly at her side and speak some beautiful words that had become engraved in the language of loyalty where the Christian faith is known. Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee for whether thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, Ought but death part thee and me. Mm -hmm. It may be a loyalty to a great cause that challenges a person like Nehemiah, rebuilding the wall about Jerusalem and saying, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down. The loyalty of which we've been speaking, the loyalty that is born out of faith and confidence and that always enriches life. I am sure that is what the apostle had in mind when he wrote to the Philippians saying, Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely. and whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. I want to just say something. In a time when things are changing, and we're forgetting, the real values in life. As we think of loyalty, how important it is as to where one should put one's loyalties. There's certain guidelines that I think will help first. We must be on guard, lest... A minor loyalty lead us to sacrifice a major one. Sometimes I think we are compromising and we're sacrificing to minor loyalties rather than to be true to a major one. Second, We must be careful lest a little loyalty to one's family, one's profession, one's class, one's race be pressed at the expense of a larger one. Third, we must remember that first, last, and always our supreme loyalty is to God. Never sacrifice your loyalty to God.