Jeremiah 17:9, 10
Charles Spurgeon once said, “The heart is deceitful; more than the devil”. Unsaved man can never live by what he says his heart wants, for it is full of lust and lies. Filmmaker Woody Allen married his ex-wife’s adopted daughter, whom he had helped raise since she was a little girl. When a reporter confronted him about the relationship, he replied “The heart wants what it wants”, and therein lies the problem.
The heart of man has been tainted since the sin of Adam in the Garden. We are incapable of making moral decisions that line up with God’s morality, since we are “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). God promised that He was the searcher of man’s heart and that He would judge man according to who he was on the inside. This dooms man to judgment.
There is good news to go along with this dreadful news, thank God! Jesus came and lived the demands of God’s holiness to perfection and then sacrificed His life for you and I. God has taken His wrath out on Jesus so that we can accept salvation by faith through the finished work of the cross. When we do this, we are clothed in robes of righteousness and set free from sin. Look at the New Testament’s assessment of the believer who has accepted Christ by faith:
“And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:10).
“For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
You are the completed one in Colossians and you are the perfected one in Hebrews, if you have accepted Christ by faith. This is the best news of all good news for it means that God has accepted you independent of your ability to earn it or to keep it. Now you have a clean heart which can hear from the Father with no fear of wickedness or evil tainting your decision. Paul said, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Unregenerate man cannot know the things of God because their hearts are wicked, but look at the next verse: “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (2:10).
God is obviously still in the searching business, even after we are saved. However, now that we are His children, His searching is for different purposes. He cannot be looking for more sin, for Jesus has paid for all of our sins in His blood at the cross. On the contrary, the Spirit is searching the deep things of God to reveal them to us. Paul said of the Holy Spirit, “And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). Again, the Spirit is searching the heart of the saint, but not to find sin. Instead, He is finding the will of God in each of our lives.
Your heart is clean if you have accepted Jesus by faith. If you have not, your heart remains locked within sin and transgression, and you will stand alone at the judgment, defended only by your ability or inability to keep God’s laws. Won’t you accept Him who cleans the heart and sheds His love into it? He loves you friend, more than you will ever know!
Charles Spurgeon once said, “The heart is deceitful; more than the devil”. Unsaved man can never live by what he says his heart wants, for it is full of lust and lies. Filmmaker Woody Allen married his ex-wife’s adopted daughter, whom he had helped raise since she was a little girl. When a reporter confronted him about the relationship, he replied “The heart wants what it wants”, and therein lies the problem.
The heart of man has been tainted since the sin of Adam in the Garden. We are incapable of making moral decisions that line up with God’s morality, since we are “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). God promised that He was the searcher of man’s heart and that He would judge man according to who he was on the inside. This dooms man to judgment.
There is good news to go along with this dreadful news, thank God! Jesus came and lived the demands of God’s holiness to perfection and then sacrificed His life for you and I. God has taken His wrath out on Jesus so that we can accept salvation by faith through the finished work of the cross. When we do this, we are clothed in robes of righteousness and set free from sin. Look at the New Testament’s assessment of the believer who has accepted Christ by faith:
“And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:10).
“For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
You are the completed one in Colossians and you are the perfected one in Hebrews, if you have accepted Christ by faith. This is the best news of all good news for it means that God has accepted you independent of your ability to earn it or to keep it. Now you have a clean heart which can hear from the Father with no fear of wickedness or evil tainting your decision. Paul said, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Unregenerate man cannot know the things of God because their hearts are wicked, but look at the next verse: “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (2:10).
God is obviously still in the searching business, even after we are saved. However, now that we are His children, His searching is for different purposes. He cannot be looking for more sin, for Jesus has paid for all of our sins in His blood at the cross. On the contrary, the Spirit is searching the deep things of God to reveal them to us. Paul said of the Holy Spirit, “And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27). Again, the Spirit is searching the heart of the saint, but not to find sin. Instead, He is finding the will of God in each of our lives.
Your heart is clean if you have accepted Jesus by faith. If you have not, your heart remains locked within sin and transgression, and you will stand alone at the judgment, defended only by your ability or inability to keep God’s laws. Won’t you accept Him who cleans the heart and sheds His love into it? He loves you friend, more than you will ever know!
