“The heart is deceitful above all
things and it is extremely sick; Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?” --Jeremiah 17:9
We continue with our discussion
of the heart. Last week we discussed the
morally good heart. This week we venture
into the deceitful heart. First, we must
understand “deceit”. Deceit is when we
take action or practice deceiving those around us by concealing or
misrepresenting the truth. Many folks
even deceive themselves so well they can be convincing to others their own
beliefs and actions of the heart.
I use as an example collateral
damage. When others do to you that
brings harm, the one harmed reacts to the hurt.
A deceived heart begins to justify their actions to harm the one that
did the collateral damage. The true
heart takes responsibility regardless of circumstances for their own actions and turns to Jesus for their hurt
(Philippians 4:13).
There are many scriptures
defining the heart. As we mentioned last
week the heart is the whole person, thinking, acting, remembering, feeling; all
our human activity. God works within the
heart; we may have a tender, soft heart or we may have a heart of stone
(Ezekiel 11:19). We must understand how
our heart deceives us.
One may say, “I don’t have a hard
heart.” When we reject God’s teachings,
we have entered the Harding of our heart.
We do this to ourselves. For
instance if you have unforgiveness in your heart that unforgiveness grows into anger, bitterness, and resentment . The
longer it stays within our heart, our heart begins to harden (Matthew 6:15).
Sometimes God hardens our
heart. I use for example the Pharaoh of
Egypt (Exodus 7:3, 9:12). Why did God
harden Pharaoh’s heart? Could it be that
God uses the hardened heart to show His mighty power; He is God all Glory and
Honor to HIM. Paul had a hard heart
toward Christians and God used him to bring the Good News to the Gentiles (Acts 22:19-21).
You may say what has this to do
with prayer? I had rather come to the Thorn
of Grace with a true, clean, and pure heart (Psalms 51:6) than a heart of stone, wouldn’t
you?
Let us pray for those in darkness
and let Christ bring them to the Living Water (John 7:38) and His light (John8:12).
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