Matters of the Heart #3 — Overcoming Heart Failure and Choosing God First

Matters of the heart decide whether a believer grows or quietly stops living. In this third message of the series, Dr. William P. Hohman teaches how to overcome heart failure, those moments when your heart seems too small for what life has put on your plate. His answer is to know how much God loves you, keep your heart tender before Him, and choose Him first. It continues from Matters of the Heart #2: Trusting God With Your Heart.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on November 17, 2021, the morning after the first snow of the season. Dr. Hohman had been ministering in the Twin Cities the week before. He explains that the series grew out of his earlier teaching, Help God I Want to Change, because many people believe Christianity means they never have to change.

Everything God placed on the earth, he says, has the ability to grow, and when we grow it eventually shows on the outside. When we choose to stop growing, we stop living. This message tackles what makes hearts fail and how they grow again.

A Call to Greater Consecration

Dr. Hohman opens with the snow. You can hear rain on the roof, he says, but you cannot hear snow; you simply wake up and it is there. Jesus said people could read the sky for the weather but could not discern the times (Matthew 16:2–3), and the Lord’s coming will be like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2).

He believes God is asking for a greater consecration of His church, and he says the Lord is speaking it to him as much as to anyone. The church is told to wake up and keep its lamps trimmed and filled with oil. Knowing Bible stories or calling yourself a Christian is not what readies you, he says; being filled with the Holy Spirit is.

He points to the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25:1–13. Five went about their business half asleep. Five saw what was happening and made a greater commitment, and their lamps were full. When the foolish asked for oil, the wise could not give theirs away. Consecration, he says, is something nobody can do for you.

Overcoming Heart Failure

Every one of us, Dr. Hohman says, will come to a place where it seems we do not have what it takes to deal with what is on our plate. That is heart failure. When our hearts stop growing, we stop receiving. But a hard place does not mean life is over; it means our hearts can be positioned to receive more from God, because God is greater than our hearts (1 John 3:20).

One of the greatest causes of heart failure, he teaches, is thinking God is mad at us. God is not mad at anybody; he says God is not even unhappy with you but ecstatic about you. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10), and he does it by putting thoughts in your head.

He shares that he has known seasons of heart failure himself, when he wondered whether he could survive mentally, emotionally and physically. He stayed committed whatever he felt. His reasoning is simple: if God could show anger toward you, then Jesus did not really redeem you, because all the anger was put on Jesus. God’s plans are to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11), whether you are five or ninety-five.

The voices saying God is mad, you are ugly, or you have finally ruined everything do not stop by entertaining them. They stop when, even in the hardest times, you press through to hear again that God loves you. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, who does not change (James 1:16–17). If He did not withhold His own Son, how much more will He freely give us all things (Romans 8:32)?

We are redeemed from the curse of the law, which he describes as poverty, sickness and spiritual death (Galatians 3:13–14). We are also redeemed to something: delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Colossians 1:13). That, he says, is where we have to camp.

Time Wounds, but God Heals

Dr. Hohman warns that the corruption of this time is what the devil uses to break believers down and bring on heart failure. Years ago he heard that in the end good would be called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20), and he says it is happening now, with part of the church falling for it. He has a will from God that tells him what is good and what is bad, and the truth sets us free (John 8:32).

In Genesis 3:14–15 God told the serpent that the woman’s Seed would bruise his head. Dr. Hohman teaches that head here means authority: Jesus crushed Satan’s authority. Satan is now all mouth, a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, and believers resist him steadfast in the faith (1 Peter 5:8–9).

But the serpent would bruise the heel. People say time heals all wounds, yet he says time only makes you forget; time is corrupted, and only what is incorruptible can heal. We are born again of incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23), and God sent His word and healed us (Psalm 107:20). His summary: time does not heal all wounds; time wounds all heels.

Whatever job, marriage, children or relationship you have, you will be wounded, often by people who never meant it. Even a favorite restaurant can let you down. Grow bigger than that, he urges, and let the Prince of Peace keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). Those who love God’s law, nothing causes them to stumble (Psalm 119:165).

He quotes C. S. Lewis, the British novelist and apologist best known for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” Lewis warned that a heart locked up safe to avoid being broken becomes unbreakable and impenetrable, but also unredeemable. Our hearts, Dr. Hohman says, all have to stay open.

A New Heart of Flesh

Jesus came as Redeemer to bring us back to our original place of fellowship with God. When we give Him our hearts fully, we become new creations and He gives us a new heart. Ezekiel 36:26 says He will take out the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. That new heart, Dr. Hohman notes, is far more tender than the old one, which is why new believers can seem so easily hurt.

Reading the same verse in The Message, he highlights a heart that is God-willed, not self-willed. That is the decision point. A God-willed heart keeps going back to Him and presenting itself. A self-willed heart holds on to itself and licks its own wounds, telling everyone what was done to it. Healing cannot come that way, he says; it only causes greater festering and, in time, heart failure.

If we keep the heart from God it hardens again, but if we keep bringing it to Him, He matures us until nothing offends us. That is not becoming callous; it is being moved with compassion. You cannot be compassionate while licking your own wounds. God wants us to be a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24).

He tells of someone who had been like a thorn in his flesh for years. When that person had a need, he met it. They broke down, asked whether he would really do that for them, and later got born again. To this day, he says, they call to tell him good news. Love conquers all, and God’s love must flow through our hearts, not through our heads or feelings.

That is why the key text says to keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). In the New Living Translation it reads guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. Above your money, house, business, children and body. Our greatest strength, he says, lies in the tenderness of our hearts, and guarding it is one of the central matters of the heart.

Early in ministry, his own pastor told him, “William, you gotta grow a turtle shell. Keep your heart soft.” He came to see it: be tough enough that people’s words do not wound you, while your heart stays soft enough to help them. He adds a practical habit. He refuses to watch news before bed, choosing the Word instead, and he counsels couples not to go to bed angry, because the mind keeps working all night.

Worth-Ship: Choosing God First

The greatest test of your life, Dr. Hohman says, is not failure but success. When you are broke you have nothing to do but believe God. Success gives you options, and there lies the revealing of true worship: true worship cannot be proven where there are no choices. Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, and a sacrifice implies a choice.

Abraham had choices when God told him to take Isaac to Moriah, and he still went, trusting that God would provide Himself a lamb (Genesis 22:8). Aaron, by contrast, gathered the people’s gold and made a golden calf (Exodus 32:24). He uses a picture: if one woman lived among ten thousand men, every one of them would say “I love you,” and it would mean little. If she chose one of them, it would mean everything.

Paul acknowledges there are many so-called gods and lords, yet for us there is one God and one Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:5–6), and the first commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Those other gods, he says, are often a paycheck, a job, a pet, hunting, fishing or sports.

He gives the word itself as the key: worship is worth-ship. You worship what you count most worthy, and true worship is choosing Him. He compares it to children picking sides for a game. The child picked last still plays but never runs home excited. God always leads us in triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14), so why make Him an option?

He draws the contrast from his own ministry travels:

In the parable of the great supper (Luke 14:16–24), the invited guests made excuses: a field, five yoke of oxen, a new wife. The master filled his house with the poor and the lame instead. God, he says, wants people who genuinely have choices to say He is bigger in their lives than anything else. If He is not picked first, He was not really chosen.

At Your Word: Peter’s Nets and Matters of the Heart

In Luke 5:4–7 Jesus borrowed Peter’s boat to preach, then told him to launch into the deep and let down his nets. Peter had fished all night, caught nothing and already washed his nets, a tedious chore. These fish fed at night, and it was bright daylight. Peter had a choice: follow his feelings, his knowledge and his family trade, or answer, “Nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.”

He obeyed, and the nets began to break. Both boats were filled until they began to sink. That, Dr. Hohman says, is what God wants to do for you when you pick Him first. If you stop doing what He asked because He gave you something, your worship has shifted to the gift, and heart failure will follow.

He then reads Hebrews 3:14–15: we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. To overcome heart failure, he says, put Jesus first and give Him the worth that is due Him.

Being born again, he explains, is not only accepting God’s commitment to us two thousand years ago; it is committing ourselves to Him now. It will not be perfect, but every day you say, “Today I’m committing all to you, Lord,” and little by little your heart grows stronger. Abraham never regretted his sacrifice, and through Christ the blessing of Abraham and the promise of the Spirit come to us by faith.

Guarding Matters of the Heart This Week

Dr. Hohman closes by inviting everyone to lift a hand and make a greater consecration, praying, “God, forgive me for putting things and putting people before You.” Here are practical steps drawn from the message:

• Silence the lie that God is angry. When condemning thoughts come, deliberately read and listen to Scriptures about His love until His voice is louder.
• Stop licking your wounds. Bring each hurt to God instead of rehearsing it to others, and let Him keep your heart tender.
• Grow a turtle shell, keep a soft heart. Refuse offense while staying moved with compassion, even toward someone who has been a thorn.
• Do the hard thing first. Put what God asks ahead of what you like, and end each day with the Word rather than the news.
• Pick Him first. Name one rival god in your schedule and give that time to worship this week; true worship is a choice.
• Answer “at Your word.” When your experience says it will not work, obey anyway, like Peter letting down his nets.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 You can’t hear the snow coming
• 1:09 God is asking for a greater consecration
• 4:09 Wake up: the ten virgins
• 6:43 Why this series: hearts have to change
• 9:13 Everything God made can grow
• 10:25 Heart failure and thinking God is mad at you
• 12:53 All the anger was put on Jesus
• 15:22 Every good and perfect gift
• 16:49 Good called evil and evil called good
• 19:26 Genesis 3: the serpent’s authority crushed
• 20:27 Time doesn’t heal; time wounds all heels
• 23:04 Offense and C. S. Lewis on vulnerability
• 25:32 A new heart: Ezekiel 36:26
• 28:18 God-willed, not self-willed
• 30:36 Blessing someone who had been a thorn
• 34:12 Proverbs 4:23: guard your heart
• 36:39 Grow a turtle shell, keep your heart soft
• 41:52 Success, not failure, is the greatest test
• 43:16 Romans 12:1, Abraham and Aaron
• 47:06 One God and one Lord: 1 Corinthians 8
• 50:53 Picking sides: worth-ship
• 57:12 The great supper: Luke 14
• 1:01:31 Peter’s nets: Luke 5
• 1:04:47 Hebrews 3 and the call to consecration

Matters of the Heart Series

This message is part of an eight-part series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: Matters of the Heart #1: Guarding the Spiritual Heart and the Principle of the Seed
• Previous: Matters of the Heart #2: Trusting God With Your Heart
• You are here: Matters of the Heart #3 — Overcoming Heart Failure and Choosing God First
• Next: Matters of the Heart #4: A Heart That Remembers

Frequently Asked Questions

Does God ever punish His children by making them sick?

Dr. Hohman teaches that God chastens those He loves, but that chastening in no way means making you sick or putting evil into your life. God does not tempt anyone with evil, and every good and perfect gift comes from Him. He argues that if God could still pour out anger on a believer, Jesus would not truly have redeemed us, because all of that anger was placed on Jesus.

Is wanting God’s blessing without changing really salvation?

Not according to this message. Dr. Hohman says many people think Christianity means they get to stay who they are and receive everything from God, like a child who never grows up. He teaches that being born again means committing your life to Jesus, not only accepting His commitment to you. Hearts must change and keep growing for the life God wants to show up.

What is the turtle shell he mentions?

It is advice from the pastor who mentored Dr. Hohman early in ministry, when people’s demands and criticism weighed on him. The idea is to grow a hard outer shell so that what people say and do does not wound you, while keeping your heart soft toward God and people. That way you can still help someone and have compassion on them no matter how they treat you.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Proverbs 4:23 — keep your heart with all diligence
• Matthew 25:1–13 — the ten virgins
• 1 John 3:20 — God is greater than our heart
• Genesis 3:14–15 — the Seed who crushes the serpent’s head
• Ezekiel 36:26 — a heart of flesh
• Romans 12:1 — a living sacrifice
• 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 — one God and one Lord
• Luke 14:16–24 — the great supper
• Luke 5:4–7 — at Your word
• Hebrews 3:14–15 — do not harden your hearts

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message encouraged your heart, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep choosing Him first.