“Declare me innocent, O Lord, for I have acted with integrity; I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Put me on trial, Lord, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and my heart. For I am always aware of your unfailing love, and I have lived according to your truth.”
Psalm 26:1-3 NLT
David was looking for self-vindication in these first three verses of Psalm 26. He laid out before the Lord His unwavering trust, his integrity, and his life lived according to God’s truth. Surely he was a man innocent of any wrongdoing, as David asked the Lord to confirm. But that was only his perspective. Jeremiah prophetically set out what the Lord thinks of the human heart, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9). Of course, this doesn’t apply to a human’s physical heart, that amazing pump that keeps us alive for our “three score years and ten”. It applies to our spirits within us, that part of us where our emotions and desires dwell. The Bible mentions this spiritual organ many times and we can assume that even God has a heart, as we read in 1 Samuel 13:14. Samuel was speaking to King Saul, “But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command“. If David was a man after God’s own heart, this implied that everyone had the same. The problem is that sin, evil and wickedness has destroyed the perfect that God intended, and as Jeremiah wrote, mankind is universally cursed with a deceitful and desperately wicked heart. No exceptions even for David – look what happened when he spied Bathsheba taking a bath.
But David was keen to be vindicated and at this point in his life he wrote “test my motives and my heart”. He must have been pretty sure of his ground to write that. However, as we read in Jeremiah 17:10, God has His eye on everyone’s heart, “But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve“. Jesus had something to say about human hearts, as we read in Mark 7:20-23, “And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you””. Ouch! We all have a heart problem, no matter how much we try to deny it, and the NHS has no remedy available. We are unable to go and acquire a doctor’s prescription to cure a personal heart problem. No psychiatrist has a solution to the evil within a person; instead they can only try to fool patients into the conclusion that they don’t have a problem if they think a certain way. Quackery in God’s eyes. Jesus said that the problem of a failing heart exists within a person, but even they can’t see a problem because they have been deceived by themselves. We know the problems we have and we try and rationalise them so that we can live with our sinful hearts. Sadly, through our thoughts and intentions, we have a tendency to feed our heart on things that increase the evil within. We know it all. “Just one more glance” or “surely another … won’t matter” (fill in your own speciality). But an evil and wicked heart, suffering from all the conditions Jesus described, needs feeding, and that is where our hearts can be cleaned up, with much help from God of course. If we stop feeding our hearts with the things that destroy, then those qualities will shrivel and die. So if a thief stops dwelling on thieving, then his thoughts of stealing will gradually disappear. But there is only so much that a person can do and God’s help must be engaged.
Sometimes, people describe an emotional person as one who wears their heart on their sleeve. But aren’t we glad that all that is within our hearts is invisible to anyone we meet. I look at a random stranger and I have little or no idea about what they are thinking, and neither do they about me. But God sees all, and why He still loves human beings after that, instead of recoiling in horror at what He sees in our hearts, is one of life’s mysteries.
Ezekiel wrote, “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart” (Ezekiel 36:26). In the end it is only God who can fix human beings and that redemption process started with Jesus and our faith and belief in Him. Through His death at Calvary, He took on our sins and started us on the journey to acquire that new heart Ezekiel told us about. Paul wrote, “For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (Romans 10:10). Our heart surgery starts quite simply with Jesus. There is no other way to find a remedy for all the evil that is within us. The wise philosopher wrote, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” (Proverbs 4:23). Sound advice that we would do well to obey.
Father God, we lift our hearts to You, exposing all and asking for forgiveness and the surgery needed to clean up our inner beings. Only You have the remedies we need and we thank You and praise You for all You are and for Your unlimited love and grace. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 