Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Search me, O God, and know my heart!


Relationships take time. And as time passes, we can decide whether we want to go to the next level with a person and eventually open up to them. This doesn’t have to be a boyfriend or girlfriend thing; this can apply to many relationships.
Hopefully, we all have someone we can tell our deepest and darkest secrets to; someone we know can keep our confidence. Friends like these know when there is something wrong with us, even when others don’t. They have been our friends for so long they can sense our mood without even talking to us. With an acquaintance, it’s different. We might tell them a little about our life, but we usually let them know all of the good stuff; we almost wear a mask for them.
Ironically, we sometimes try to wear this mask for Jesus. When we pray, we might ask him to forgive us of our little sins and ask for good things to happen to us, but we never ask him to search us. We don’t tell him to look deep down in our heart and see if there is anything within us that needs changing. We hesitate to open up in this way because it’s uncomfortable. When the Holy Spirit searches us and convicts us of sin, we rationalize it away. Or, we have been living our life with a particular sin for so long, that it just becomes a part of us and we are calloused. We forget that Jesus already knows what is in our hearts (John 2:23).
Jesus is waiting for us to invite him into our hearts and cleanse us of our grievous ways. We can’t hide our sins from Jesus; only keep them from the healing power of His presence. And by holding our sin so tightly, we do nothing but embrace our own death, while pushing away the author of life. We should daily pray as the Psalmist does, and ask God to search our hearts. We should open ourselves up to the real healing that only God can give.
Have you let Jesus look into your heart lately?

source: shortdailydevotions.com