October17, 2017 HEARTS REVEALED
1 Corinthians 4:4-5: “I am conscience of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore do not go on passing judgement before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts, and then each man’s praise will come to him from God.”
We are not able to judge or determine the motive of men’s hearts, but some certain day, when Jesus returns, He will make known the motives of the hearts of men. Because we cannot determine the motive of a man’s heart, Paul warns us not to pass judgement on another person based on what we may think is the motive of their heart in any particular situation. Note that Paul was not aware, or conscience of anything in his own heart that was wrong or displeasing to the Lord, but he goes on to say that he was not acquitted by his own evaluation of his heart, but only by having his heart examined by the Lord. For the one standing before a judge in a court of law, it does not matter what his own opinion is, but only what the judge renders; the difference however, is that the Lord is the perfect judge who never makes a wrong judgement. It is amazing that Paul was conscience of nothing against himself. It should be our desire to live with a pure conscience, and we can, just as Paul did. Even though the Lord is the ultimate judge of what is in our heart, we should be alert to the condition of our heart. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 we are told to examine our hearts-“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you-unless indeed you fail the test? We have been given the Holy Spirt and one thing He does is to guide, or lead us into the things of the Lord, and by obeying the voice of the Spirit in us, we can have a pure or clean conscience. We must see that we are called to work with God as He works in us-we have a part to play. As believers, we are called to be actively involved in being spiritually healthy. We see this call to action in Philippians 1:9-10: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” It should be a sobering thought for us to know that someday the Lord will bring to light the motives of our hearts, but even though it is certainly a sobering thought, it does not have to be a fearful thought. Living with the awareness that the Lord will reveal our motives, should serve as a safety net, or the motivation to live in such a way that our hearts are pure. We all at times have a thought, or perhaps a motive, that does not honor the Lord, but if we are quick to realize that and we reject and turn from that thought or motive, we are continuing to walk in purity and the Lord is pleased. Let us not miss the last part of the verse-if we live with pure heart and our motives honor the Lord, we will be praised by God! We were all born into sin and we all have things in our past that were ungodly, but God has forgiven us and cleansed us from our sin and we no longer have to live with a defiled conscience! Let us live with the realization that Jesus is in us and let us be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit in order that we may live in a way that pleases Him. By so doing, we will have a clear conscience and a pure heart, with no fear of having the motives of our heart revealed.
Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Blessings,
Buddy
RSS Feed