Every Wednesday we’ll post a message having to do with doctrine and purity. Hope it helps.
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A Confident Heart
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. (I John 3:20-21)
Well, how can my heart not condemn me?
Searching it is unpleasant at best; mortifying when I really get into it, which I try not to. Not because I’m against self-examination, something I think we could all use a little more of, but because any honest look at my heart reveals a mixture of good and putrid. By God’s grace the love of Christ has been shed abroad there (Romans 5:5) but I also see bitterness, arrogance, violence and sloth floating around the cesspool within. So on my best of days, my heart will condemn me by displaying attitudes and tendencies that are ungodly in the extreme.
This is especially problematic when I have decisions to make. I want to know I’m acting with integrity, while simultaneously aware that my integrity is never pure, 100% grade-A stuff. There’s a mixed bag of motivations going on every time I counsel, speak, write, breathe. Some of them are noble: I want God’s will done in the lives of my hearers, I want to see impact for the kingdom, I genuinely care. Others are base: I want to look good, I want to be respected, I want to impress. Just a few days ago my lovely wife, referring to a speaking event she has coming up, said, “I woke up in a panic thinking I had no business speaking to anyone. I nearly cancelled!”
I had to admit that I’ve never – believe me, NEVER!- spoken at an event without having a last minute panic over the stupidity of me saying anything to anyone. My heart has often had pure elements to it, thank God, but it’s never been without significant, visible and persistent impurities. It condemns me.
And the condemnation drives me back to verse 20 above, a reliable place of refuge and hope. God is greater than my heart and knows all things!
A few of those “all things” I need to keep in mind:
- He knows my frame, remembering that I’m dust and pitying me in the process. (Psalms 103:14)
- He knows what it’s like to be tempted. (Hebrews 4:15)
- He knows the final outcome of my life and sees me, when this is all over, complete in Him, seated at the right hand of the Father. (Ephesians 2:6)
Knowing this and more, He shows me a more gentle, compassionate attitude than I show myself. He knows all my sins have been paid for and has no interest in tallying them up (Psalms 32:2) and He can therefore see me as I cannot see myself – complete, justified, even glorified. (Romans 8:30) He doesn’t condemn me, not because He’s a really nice God who overlooks sin, but because He’s systematically, technically and thoroughly judged my sins in Christ and can rightfully see me without them, within Him. My own heart condemns me only because of my limited view of myself. I’ve got part of the picture right, in that I see the sewage. Part of it I glimpse briefly, looking through a glass darkly and barely able to conceptualize the wonderful, holy concept that I am complete in Him. (Colossians 2:10)
More than ever, even as I say the words, I’m reminded of my need for the Holy Spirit to do just what He said He would do. I need to be guided into this truth, having it quickened to me, and being given the faith to receive it. May that be done in me, and us, today, so we can sing with integrity my favorite lines from my favorite hymn:
By God’s grace at last my sin I learned,
Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned.
‘Till my guilty soul, imploring, turned to Calvary.
Mercy there was great and grace was free.
Pardon there was multiplied to me.
There my burdened soul found liberty
At Calvary.
Comments
Lilly | Apr 11, 2012
So often I have this irrational fear that someone will rush from the sidelines to expose my lack of ability--my lack of the right to do what I am doing in any and every arena. Phony! But perhaps that helps us to rest more in Jesus and hide behind his robes. The truth is that however more my competence increased, I would still be in the same place. Dependent! One of my favorite hyms: "Pass me not, oh, gentle Savior, hear my humble cry . . . do not pass me by."
RF | Apr 11, 2012
Hi Joe,
I appreciate your willingness to take an honest look at the things in your life you find undesirable/base. But, this mind frame of "I'm whole in Gods eyes but I'll never really see it" is not healthy and leads to a very dualistic and unstable self image (as a man thinks in his heart...Proverbs 23:7). The Scripture from John 3:20 - 21 is pre-New Covenant and was made when the Old Covenant was in full effect. But under the New Covent (after the cross) there's no more condemnation for the believer (Romans 8: 1 - 17) . Who we REALLY are is righteous, holy, sanctified and all because of the cross and nothing to do with our efforts. Believers have every right in Christ to see themselves this way. We are His children and children of the King know exactly who they are whether they act like it or not. If believers started from this view point instead of looking at their flesh all the time they would find that their flesh would start lining up with who they really are....righteous, holy, and sanctified!
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