“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” {Proverbs 4:23}
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” {Jeremiah 17:9}
We all love to believe we are good. And why not, who wants to think of themselves evil or wicked? That would be too depressing. The sad part about thinking too much that we are good though, is that we can end up being lost. Jesus Christ said that there is only one who is good, that is God. {Luke 18:19} If we think too much we are good then we wouldn’t need God or want Him too much. We’d be relying upon our own righteousness and our own ability to please Him rather than going to Him all the time.
This is essentially what is going on in our world today, especially in Christianity. Once we believe we have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior and confessed our sins to Him and swore in our hearts to live for Him, we think we’ve arrived. So many of us stop repenting and confessing our sins to Him. Some churches actually believe once you have the Holy Ghost you can’t sin anymore, that sin cannot have power in you anymore. If you sin woe to you, you have backslid. Yet John the Beloved, the apostle who leaned on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper had this to say:
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. {1 John 1:8}
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. {1 John 1:10}
Then he said, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” {1 John 1:9}
Apostle Paul was very much aware of the fallen nature of man, and he lamented over his own struggle for perfection. He wrote,
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” {Romans 7:23-25}
Thinking too much of our own goodness is going to bring us to hell. Sorry to be too blunt about it, but it’s true. And yet, at the same time I don’t want us to feel that we have no hope. We do. Jesus Christ gives us hope. He said in His word,
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” {Matthew 11:28-29}
The Lord wants us to keep looking to Him. He wants us to actually come to learn who He is. He just doesn’t want us to find forgiveness once or twice from Him and go on our merry way. He also wants us to take the time to learn that He is meek and lowly in heart so we can find rest upon our souls. Rest in Christ is one of the greatest things we can ever discover in this life. Without rest we would all get sick and die. Likewise in the spirit realm if we don’t come to learn to abide in Jesus Christ every day and commune with Him in our hearts and learn who He is, we will never find that perfect rest that He wants us all to have. Furthermore, we will end up sick and we will end up spiritually dead. The Lord said that unless we abide in Him and He abides in us we can’t bear fruit. He said without Him we couldn’t do anything. If we want to live spiritually we have to abide in Him. Abiding in Him simply means coming to Him all the time and talking to Him. Basically making Him our home where we stay and find rest and grow and live.
Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace. In Him we will find life. If we rely too much upon our own strength and righteousness we will soon fall. We don’t have enough strength and goodness in our own selves to save ourselves. If we did, Christ wouldn’t have come down and died for us. It is only through Jesus Christ we will find our rest and the cleansing of our hearts and our souls everyday.
No one else besides God can really know truly what is in our hearts. The Bible states, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.” {Proverbs 21:2}
In Jeremiah the Lord tells him, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” {Jeremiah 17:10}
Because we will all automatically think we are right, it is important to bring our hearts to the Lord. It is important we talk to Him about it. We cannot be lazy about it.
I don’t know about you, but when I take the time to commune with the Lord and talk to Him about myself, He reveals things to me that I don’t even realize are there in my heart. The more I spend time with Him the more I would realize for example that I have a scornful heart. Having a scornful heart can be very subtle sometimes. There are the outright scornful attitudes we have when we make comments like, “Oh, please, she thinks she’s the only one who has problems.” or, “I do everything around here.” But then when your heart actually scorns someone inside and you don’t even know it, that’s when it can get really tricky. I have found myself laughing at someone in my heart without even realizing that I just did that except that the Holy Ghost pointed it out in my spirit. Thank the Lord for it because then I quickly repented and said to the Lord, “I’m sorry Father. Please forgive me.” If we don’t take the time to know who Jesus is, who is going to point out our sins to us so that we can find forgiveness? No one.
Oh, there are probably people out there who will be more than willing to tell you about your sins and what you might be doing wrong, but will you be humble enough to listen to them? I don’t think so. If there’s anything, we will be more than willing as well to tell them what’s wrong with them rather than accept there’s something wrong with us. But with Jesus Christ, He does such a beautiful job of bringing us to want to be like Him that when He does point out what we’re doing wrong, we find ourselves repenting. We don’t feel condemned at all. We will be more than willing to be right with Him because we love Him and want to be like Him.
John the Beloved tells us, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God did not come to our world to condemn us but to save us. That’s why it’s essential that we bring ourselves into His presence and talk to Him about our hearts, and to have the Lord help us make it right and holy before Him. Watch the heart because it can be very deceitful and as Prophet Jeremiah puts it, it is desperately wicked. Who can know it? God alone.
“But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” {1 Corinthians 9:27}
“O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” {Matthew 12:34}
“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” {Matthew 15:11}
“For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies.” {Matthew 15:19}
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” {Romans 8:2}
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” {John 8:36}
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” {John 8:32}
