The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10
LEARN
Growing up I was a klutz. I seemed to always have a broken bone, stubbed toe, or would run into people on the regular. As much as I don’t like to admit it I can be quite clumsy and aloof at times. It is a running joke in my family that my stepdad and I are like magnets because growing up we would always run into each other in the kitchen- and speaking of the kitchen, my Mom’s glassware seemed to get the brunt of my clumsiness over the years! Now as a married woman, I purchase my glassware based on how thick the glass looks in case I drop it or bang it against the kitchen sink it at least has a fighting chance.
Maybe you aren’t accident prone like I am PHYSICALLY speaking but if you think about it, we are all accident prone SPIRITUALLY speaking. All of humanity is in a fallen state, and we all are sinners. Spiritually speaking, we trip and fall often, yet many of us go on as if we are somehow immune from our clumsiness. We purchase the thin glassware, pridefully believing that we have nothing to worry about, only to come home and find it already broken and our hands bleeding from the cuts as we try to quickly pick up the broken glass before anyone sees us. These open wounds we have are hidden due to pride, insecurity, shame, and a false belief about God and His grace.
I am here to attest to you today that if you try to hide your spiritual wounds they will start to get infected, and not the kind that you can just put some ointment on and call it a day- these infections go deep, and can only be helped by seeking the correct medical care.
So, if you are hiding some spiritual wounds today, it is a good time to take note because in this action you are actually revealing something about your heart. Generally speaking your heart is saying something in the form of “when I sin it is best to ignore it and move on instead of confront it, ask for forgiveness, and seek God to come bandage the wounds. God is ashamed of me, and if I go to Him with this mess he will just be angry and disappointed in me. He must be, because I am angry and disappointed in myself. All I am is a failure, and nobody loves failures.”
KNOW
The blessing of God is that He sees our self-inflicted wounds and tells us to show them to Him. His whole reasoning for Jesus dying for us is so that we would be freed from having to hide our wounds. How sad would it be for us to inevitably kill ourselves from not seeking proper treatment because we didn’t think the doctor would want to help us. Christ not only is our healer, he gives us the freedom to come to him not matter the reason. He won’t turn us down, and he will never withhold love from His children.
DO
Do you take your spiritual health seriously? Are you willing to show Christ your scars and ask for help?
Our state is sinful and fallen so we need to recognize each day that we have to check on the state of our heart. So today, take your spiritual blood pressure to see if you are veering into an unhealthy zone and fight to heal your heart so it can continue to be molded more into Christlikeness.
