“For out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
— Matthew 12:34b (NRSV).
Despite our apparent turn toward God
in repentance (assuming all who read are Christians), we have wickedness as a
core quality, and this most ardently known via our thoughts for our own ends.
Our hearts (our otherwise hidden
motives and intentions) are revealed by our words and actions.
No proper Christian can refute
this. Our only defence is to abide to the truth; to be accountable to
it. Truth is the finalising corrective for sin. It’s the only way.
Practicing
Such Truth
Before we make our decisions, first,
we should check our motives.
If decisions are self-motivated and
we have freedom to make them, then all is okay. But the moment we make a
self-centred decision and others are ill-considered, we live a lie. Most
self-centred decisions have negative consequences for others; thus, sin.
Truth stands between us and sin; it’s
our greatest defence of holiness.
Practicing such a thing as truth is
motivated within the heart, but it’s made available via the mind, and a
conscious mind that’s honed to always look for the truth, come what may. We
must be committed, each moment, to God.
To achieve the practice more or less
continually takes a heart and mind, first, devoted to training toward these
ends. God leaves it to our will. We must want it bad enough.
The motive to do this is quite
simple. We’ll never achieve a sustaining honour without doing it.
The Heart
Cannot Be Hidden
The truth in Jesus’ statement above
is that we can quell our hearts for only so long, and as a fool is thought wise
for keeping silent (Proverbs 17:28), they cannot hold out from blurting for
long. So it is with us if our hearts—in some ways—are rotten even a little;
and they are.
Our only chance of living a life of
integrity—where respect is close to commonplace—is to root-out the sinful
vestiges of the heart, building upon the inventory within our moral warehouses.
The achievement of this may mean,
however, that our sin will pertain to great momentary pain as we recognise it,
for we’ll learn to truly hate our sin. In this state, never does God’s
grace mean more!
A Heart Home
to Truth
The best spiritual landscape for the
Christian is finding God’s will; being in it, in its attractive way of living
life; that is, to grasp that truth must always have its way. This is wisdom.
This is recognising the power of sin
over us—to know that we cannot cap the heart.
But we go on beyond this paralysing
trend. We must address the heart at its source, being real with God and
with life. As Sy Rogers would say, “We must tell on the sin or it will eventually tell on us.”
A heart home to
truth is aware of its sin,
The more that awareness is known the
better the truth can cling.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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