Heart Check

April, 2004

by: Jeff Jones

Have you ever had one of those moments when a profound truth hit you like a ton of bricks, a truth that you had been taught before, yet for one reason or another it had been stored away in a hard to access file in the back of your brain, so that you never really caught its full significance (or at least forgot about it for a while)? Well, I had one of those moments recently, when I was re–confronted with the simple, but oft forgotten truth: God cares about what's going on in your heart. God cares about the inside over and above the outside.

This is something I've known for a long time. In fact, any Christian who has been a Christian for even a little while knows that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart. Yet, I have personally found that it is very easy to merely go through the motions, to put on an outward show, to be all caught up in our Christian duties (while laking genuine godly desires), to be all form but no substance, etc., etc., etc. All our outward observances and duties, however, do not mean a thing if our hearts are not right before the Lord. Here are just a sampling of verses that attest to this: Deut 6:4-6; Psalm 19:14; Isa 51:7; Matt 5:27-28;23:23,27; Mark 12:28-34; Rom 2:5;10:8-10. I'm sure there are many other verses that come to your mind, but beyond knowing what God wants, ask yourself if you truly have a heart that genuinely seeks to fear, know, love, and serve our God.