insight
• What evidence is there of this? Are you overcoming
areas of deficiency or weakness?
• Are you conquering sin or just living with it?
• Are you growing in your prayer life, your knowledge
of the Bible and in your Christian witness?
THE HEART
The true state of our heart, what is actually happening inside us,
is the real indication of who we are and how we are developing
spiritually (Mark 7:21-23). But how do we get to understand or
even become aware of the true condition of our heart?
Remember, these are not meant to be intimidating questions.
We are here to help one another, not to pile on guilt.
Jeremiah 17:9 says that “the heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked, who can know it?” God is the only one who sees our
heart, so we need to turn to him. But how?
GOD’S PERFECT KNOWLEDGE OF OUR HEARTS
God knows us completely and invites us to get to know
him. God knows everything we have ever done, imagined or
thought. And he still loves us! He has opened his heart to us
and he invites us to open up to him. Understanding God’s
unconditional acceptance and affirming love is the foundation
of all self-examination. God’s perfect knowledge of us
(Psalm 139) encourages us to allow him to shine his light into
the darker aspects of our inner life.
Larry Crabb, Christian author and counsellor, offers three
suggestions to help us engage in the right kind of inner
reflection, three ways by which we can begin to discover the true
state of our hearts.
1 God’s Word
Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of
joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions
of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all
are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must
give account. (ESV)
2 God’s Spirit
Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my
thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead
me in the way everlasting! (ESV)
3 God’s people
Hebrews 3:12-13
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil,
unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,”
that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
(ESV)
By looking at our lives in honest openness we can help one
another grow so by 2020 we will have a healthy church of
disciples, faithfully serving God and reaching out to others.
8 Revival Times January 2017