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REFLECTIONS
The heart of the matter

Richard Navarro

Jeremiah 17:9-10

God gave me a mild rebuke recently, reminding me that this year’s goals had become my idols, my preoccupation. Never mind that these goals included ambitious donations towards world missions and our church building program. God was not impressed with my plans for His work. He did not see as top priority the activities I had set out to further His kingdom. God was more concerned with the purity of my heart, and my heart had a lot of dark areas.

According to the world’s standards, I have reached high levels of success in my business in the past three years. But God was not impressed with these achievements either. He was more concerned with whether these achievements were done in the flesh or in the power of His Spirit. I may dream of doing great things for God, as if He needed my help, but God was more concerned with the answer to the question: For whose glory?

May God forgive me, when I make ambitious plans, and ask God to bless them, when I go about attaining them using my human skills instead of His divine power, and when, after all this striving has produced fruit, I take credit for it, forgetting that my gracious God may have chosen to give success to me in spite of myself.

But the heart is that way, isn’t it? Jeremiah said: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The next verse has the answer: “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind.”

By nature, the human heart is desperately wicked. We can cover ourselves in fine clothes and hide behind beautiful facades, we can go to church regularly, sing in the choir and look respectable, but deep down inside lies a rotten core. It is not just others we try to fool; we are even capable of deceiving ourselves. Theologians call this depravity.

The answer is to recognize our depravity and give our hearts – the core of our being – to God. Only then will we be truly His, and God’s light will penetrate and purify the dark areas of our hearts.

Reflections is a column of brief reflections on Scripture passages. This one is by Richard Navarro of Langley, B.C. Freelance submissions (200-250 words in length) are welcome.

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Last modified May 4, 2000.

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