The prophet Jeremiah talked of how easily the heart can be deceived, that sin originates in the heart and how from the time of our birth we are inclined to sin. It seems odd to think of our heart being deceitful and leading us astray from God.
Jeremiah 17:10 says, “But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.”
How often do we assess the motives of our heart?
For Jesus followers, it’s a great spiritual discipline for us to invite God to search our hearts and reveal to us where we are blinded by our own junk. Perhaps we’re justifying an area of sin in our lives and don’t see the division it’s causing between ourselves and God because we haven’t allowed Him to show us that what we’re doing (or not doing) isn’t His best for us. Perhaps we’ve settled for an area far less than His best because we don’t feel as though it matters, we take His grace for granted, or could it be that we don’t value His ways above our own?
The glory of God can’t manifest in an area where we’re chained to sin. The enemy works at crippling us as a result of any form of sin - whereas God liberates us and continually draws us towards the freedom that we can have in Him. King David learned that repentance was a gift that enables us to draw close to God. As we allow God to search our heart, repent of our error and allow Him to continually cleanse us, our heart is free to meditate on things above. The desires of the heart are changed when the heart is cleansed from the bondage that the enemy traps us in – the result of choosing sin over God’s best for us.
“How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt
and innocent of great sin.
May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
- Psalm 19:12-14 (NLT)
May our prayer today be reflective of our heart’s desire to be aligned with the ways of our Holy God and His Spirit within us. May our mind comprehend the freedom that awaits us when we surrender to His ways. May the true motives of our hearts be exposed, so that we may experience the nearness of God’s presence in us.
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