Saltwater Heart

Hear my cry, O God,

     listen to my prayer;

from the end of the earth I call to you

     when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock

     that is higher than I.

--Psalm 61:1-2

I’ve been praying over the past week or two for wisdom. I mean, who doesn’t want to be wise?

So of course, the whole time I was praying this, I was experiencing short term memory loss; I would pray in my car on the way to work for wisdom, and then I would get there and get really frustrated, angry, or impatient. I may have cussed at my computer this week. (No children were in the room, you’ll be glad to know.) I also may have complained about a few people. ….Ok, a lot of people.

I’ve gotten angry about small things, or self-critical about small things, and actually enjoyed indulging irritation and self-pity. I reacted suddenly and rashly to my emotions rather than the truth, and my saltwater words (see James 3:10-12) poisoned my speech, so that I was closing the way for God to give me the wisdom I asked Him for.

Here’s the next verse in James, coincidentally: Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. (3:13-15)

Ouch. Direct correlation between words and wisdom (or lack thereof). He just comes right out and says it: earthly wisdom is demonic.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere (James 3:17).

This definition of divine wisdom is the opposite of how I’ve behaved this week. Seriously--I’ve been like a walking PSA warning against worldly wisdom.

Just the week before, the pastor gave a good sermon on faithfulness. He talked about Joseph, and how he garnered lots of favor on the earth because of his faithfulness in small things. Following the spiritual principle Jesus told His disciples about later, Joseph was faithful in small things, and was put over much.

I feel that I have always been this way as far as work is concerned. I have been very faithful to do what I am asked to do, which is probably why I have had such favor (in addition to the fact that God just gives me divine favor in spite of myself).

So I was feeling good about the whole thing, until he brought up being faithful not just at work, but in relationships. That means acting in faith by treating others with the love Jesus gave us, according to His commandments.

I wrinkled my nose a little bit when the pastor started talking about this. If you are being faithful in relationships, you are not being selfish by indulging in negative emotions; you are not using harsh words toward others (even if, granted, they are not in the room). It’s one thing to be given a task and complete it well. It’s another to daily flee from the devil’s temptation to choose yourself over others, to turn your eyes away from God and glorify the mess inside of your earthbound heart.

Clearly, when you want wisdom, the go-to book is Proverbs. So this week, after the faithfulness sermon, I found this verse, which I thought pretty much summed it up for me:

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man.                           

--Proverbs 3:3-6

Steadfast love and faithfulness are paired in this verse. They work together; they are co-dependent. Steadfast basically just means stubborn refusal to give up your belief in the face of direct attack, so to have steadfast love is to cling onto love with every ounce of strength you have, no matter what—to insist on loving people in spite of what is going on around you….or how you feel. That’s faithfulness—both being faithful to God, and having faith in Him, because you believe Him when He says you’ll be blessed when you love people.

The kicker phrase in this verse: Don’t let them forsake you. In other words, don’t drive them away with your negative words, your self-indulgence. Salt ponds cannot yield fresh water. You can’t have your spiritual cake and eat it too.

Here’s the much more familiar, oft-quoted verse that follows right after this one in Proverbs:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Don’t lean on your own understanding. Ironically, THAT’S wisdom: to know nothing, and trust the Lord.

Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength,

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He is like a shrub in the desert,

and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

--Jeremiah 17:5-8

Thus says the Lord. Blessed is the man who not just trusts the Lord, but whose trust is the Lord.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to cease to bear fruit, even in drought. I don’t want drought to come and find me turned around spitting out saltwater. In order to bear fruit, I have to trust the Lord. This means not giving in to “bitter jealousy” and “selfish ambition.” I mean, I can sit there and indulge in those feelings all day. God won’t stop me. But in order to bear fruit for Him, I have to lay them aside. Those things are just emotions. They aren’t the truth.

For context, here’s the next couple verses in Jeremiah:

The heart is deceitful above all things,

                and desperately sick;

                who can understand it?

I the Lord search the heart and test the mind;

to give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.

--Jeremiah 17:9-10

The heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Those few words sum up what is wrong with the world. What is the cure, then, for a lying, deathly-sick heart?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts. Write steadfast love and faithfulness on the tablet of your hearts.

I think once something is written on your heart, it’s pretty hard to smudge off. Cure that desperately sick heart with overdoses of love, faithfulness, and trust.

So basically what happened this week was that I prayed for wisdom; and the Lord said, “If you want to grow in this, we’re going to have to get a few things out of the way first.”

It’s not that I have been particularly emotionally-indulgent and self-focused this week. I haven’t suddenly gotten worse about this. I think that God just used certain circumstances to highlight these sins in me that were already there. He just gently brought it to my attention. And, I’m sorry to say, I wasn’t very faithful to respond in humility. I saw my behavior, and acted even worse.

I admit it: sometimes I enjoy being angry. Like Jonah, I sit under the fig tree and remain happy in my anger. Or I’ve consciously let my stress and anxiety spin out of control, instead of curbing it, because curbing it was too hard—and, let’s be honest, once you open a box of chocolates and start eating them, it’s really hard to stop. Sometimes self-righteousness—“I have a right to be angry about this! I have a right to be anxious about this!”—can taste just like chocolate, even though it is making you sick.

Enough of this. I will always be irritated and upset by daily things—that’s just life. But I am far too old to indulge my negative emotions. As my good friend Jennifer would say, “That’s just straight-up stupid.” It doesn’t honor the Lord.

Let’s revisit that definition of heavenly wisdom from James in the Amplified Translation.

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity).--James 3:17

I think that about covers it, don’t you?

The one thing I can say for my negative emotions was, at least at the beginning, they were sincere; but when I began to indulge them, they became lies, untruth, because they weren’t founded in my trust in God. They were founded in my trust that my flesh knew what was going on better than God did—and my belief that I had a right to indulge them.

It’s time for a change. I can feel God calling me to a new level of spiritual maturity—a new pair of spiritual shoes. When you have a worn-out pair of running shoes that don’t work anymore, you can sit down and refuse to go on. Or you can put on the new shoes He offers.

When I began this blog, I compared my journey first to a walk, then to a run. Now I feel like my Father is holding out a pair of climbing shoes. I don’t know if you have ever worn climbing shoes, but they are very uncomfortable to walk in. However, if you are going to climb, you need them. “Put off the old shoes,” Jesus is saying to me. “It’s time to climb.”

Give me a leg up in prayer, if you don’t mind. I’m clinging to the rock that is higher than I.

Are you naked?

After some heavy Bible-reading last night after I posted, I just have to crank out another few pages about something very important. And that something is nakedness.

Nakedness is a pretty common theme in the Bible. Lot’s daughters got into trouble looking at his nakedness, as did Noah’s son. The soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ clothing. All around the world, people wear clothes. They may be different styles and different degrees of coverage, but we all put something on ourselves. We all attempt to cover ourselves in some way. So nakedness must be important.

In yesterday’s post, I was writing about the Garden and the Fall. When Adam and his wife ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the first thing they noticed was that they were naked.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her [like, right next to her, watching her—way to go, Adam], and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

                                                                                --Genesis 3:6-7

Now, these were perfect people. This was a man and a woman made in the likeness of Jesus. And they still did this thing. And when they did it, they, like middle-schoolers having a nightmare about showing up to school without clothes, became hyper-aware of the fact that they were naked.

Their solution to this problem? Sew together a few fig leaves to cover themselves up. If you’ve ever seen a sixteenth-century statue, you know what a pitiful covering fig leaves are.

But don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we try to cover ourselves with fig leaves? When we realize we have sinned, or even when we realize how imperfect we are, we attempt to glaze over our shortcomings by justifying ourselves or self-deprecating……….spiritual fig leaves.

I guess Adam and his wife thought their fig leaves were pretty pathetic too, because the next thing they did was hide.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.—Genesis 3:8

Um, He’s God….He can see you.

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

God already knew what Adam had done…and was seeking his company anyway.

And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

At least Adam didn’t lie here. He probably didn’t have much practice with lying, being originally righteous and all.

God’s response to Adam here is interesting. He does not accuse. He already knows everything. He only asks questions.

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

As I said before, God already knew the answer to both of these questions. See, Adam and his wife (later to be named Eve) had not ever been accused before, because they had never sinned before. They didn’t know they were imperfect before God, because, honestly, they probably had not been thinking about themselves too much before that point. They had just been enjoying God. But when they sinned by disobeying God, they knew that they were naked, because they knew that they were capable of sin. They knew that, compared to their Beloved, they were flawed, unholy, inadequate—naked.

Adam set the precedent for all humanity in the way that he answered God’s questions. He turned around, pointed one accusing finger at his wife and another at God, and said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Adam responded like a little kid who breaks something, points at his sister, and exclaims, “She did it!” From that moment on, we have all tried to justify ourselves by condemning others.

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?”

And the woman points her finger, too: The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

In case you haven’t noticed, everyone in this scenario is pointing a finger of blame except for God. They’re using one hand to hold up their pitiful fig leaves and another to point at each other and say, “Look…she’s naked!”

I had been wondering why the world is the way that it is—why the world condemns every one of us. Why we blame each other to get out of things. Why we constantly justify ourselves. Why I self-condemn whenever I encounter imperfection in myself. We’re addicted to it.

God took me all the way back to Genesis to explain this: that we all know we are naked, and we are struggling to cover ourselves, instead of asking Him to cover us.

After God questions the woman, He turns right back around and curses….the serpent. The devil was the first one He cursed. I think that shows God’s merciful nature—He knew who was really to blame. Then He laid a curse on His beloved. How it must have wrecked His heart—yet it would be against His just nature not to banish them from the Garden.

But note what He does next. Before He even drove them out of the Garden, …the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them (3:21).

He clothed them.

It was probably pretty nightmarish for Adam and Eve to watch God make clothing. They had never seen death before, and probably couldn’t even conceptualize it. But here He was, slaughtering an animal before them. It was probably horrifying beyond their imagination. But it was how God clothed them. He covered them then, with the first animal sacrifice the world had ever known.

Skip a few hundred pages forward to the Gospel of John. In chapter 8, we find the story of a woman caught in adultery. I bet you know it well. The people pick up stones to kill her, but Jesus says the oft-quoted line, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (8:7). Then He bent down and wrote some stuff in the sand. We don’t know what it is He wrote, but many people say it was the Law—all the principles those stone-throwers were supposed to be living by. One by one, they dropped their stones and walked away, until the woman was the only one left. (If I were her, I would’ve already run away…but I guess she was fascinated by Jesus.)

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”—8: 10-11

Before this, Jesus had been minding His own business—the people brought her into the temple where He was teaching and demanded of Him, “Moses said we should stone her. What do you say, Jesus?” They brought her to be put to death, as was required by the law that came out of the curse on Adam and Eve. 

They brought her there to point a finger of condemnation at her before all, to uncover her nakedness. When Jesus gave His famous response, I think what happened was that the people had to admit that they were naked. And they fled home to feverishly sew together some fig leaves. As for Jesus, He said, “I don’t condemn you.”

God does hate sin, and He does not want us to run around sinning all over the place. But this is what the Bible says: For God did not send his Son in to the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:17-18). When we call Jesus “Lord,” like the adulterous woman did, He is able to put some new clothes on us. Heavenly robes, in fact.

However, most of us react to that by acting like a toddler getting out of a bath: we run around naked, slippery-wet, through the whole house, while our Father chases us down to wrap us in a warm, soft, clean white towel. If we condemn ourselves, we don’t trust in Jesus’ righteousness; we continue to sew our own fig leaves.

Let’s look at the story of the prodigal son. This is a guy who basically told his dad that he wished he were dead so he could have his inheritance, and then he took his inheritance and blew it all on a sinful lifestyle. But then he realizes he should return to his father in humility, asking only to be made a servant.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”—Luke 15:20-21

And the father looked at him and pointed an accusing finger at him, right? Nope: But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet….”

The first thing the father does for the son is clothe him. Not only does he clothe him, he clothes him in his finest robes, and sets his seal on his hand by giving him his ring, and puts shoes on his feet so he has freedom to walk.

Self-condemnation always pours out of self-righteousness. When you condemn, you are saying that you are wise and you know what deserves to be condemned. Even when you condemn yourself, you are sewing together fig leaves, thinking they are adequate to cover your nakedness.

Like I said before, there is such a thing as godly grief over sin, and we should confess our sins. What I am saying is that we shouldn’t dwell on our nakedness. We shouldn’t live in false humility, like the prodigal son. He realized he would be better off at his father’s—and that’s why he returned with a supposedly humble spirit, not because he was genuinely sorry. Yet the father accepted him anyway, rejoicing at his return.  

God knows everything; His wrath against you would be far more than you could imagine. But He has given us His son, so that we can stop condemning ourselves, stop wearing fig leaves and animal skins—and put on the robes made for a holy people. Stop pointing at yourself, justifying yourself or talking down about yourself; confess that you are naked; and put His robes on.

For years, I would experiment with outfits, putting on different combinations of clothing to express the personality I wanted people to think I had. We have all done it. We have all agonized over our wardrobe, trying to look our best, because we didn’t believe His righteousness was enough; or, thinking we were unworthy of attention, settled for frumpy clothing as a kind of false humility, because we were too scared to don His righteousness.

Here’s the Gospel, folks. We are born naked. We know we are born naked. But we don’t have to live under the curse of the Garden, wearing these old stinky animal skins made from slaughtered flesh. We have Jesus’ robe of righteousness. All we have to do is come to Him and call Him Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

—Jeremiah 31:33-34

No longer do we have to point condemning fingers at one another—or ourselves. He has forgiven our sin, so that we may approach His throne and know Him, just like Adam and Eve did. And in this restoration, in this redemption, we don’t have to be scared when we hear the sound of God walking in the Garden. We are wearing Jesus’ robe of righteousness. And we are not naked anymore.

( P.S., I really hope someone Googles the word “naked,” and this blog pops up.) 

There Is Now Therefore

…set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.—1 Peter 1:13

Grace is my middle name. …I mean, literally: it’s my middle name. I think in general, I’m quick to forgive, quick to extend grace to others. But there is one person that I find very hard to give grace. I know her every thought and motivation, and I can anticipate her mistakes. It takes a lot for her to earn my approval. This person struggles to earn my favor, and in return, all she hears from me is, “You should’ve done more.”

In case you haven’t guessed already, this person is me.

I have realized, under the influence of my high-pressure job, that I struggle with the opposite of grace…. A hairy little thing called condemnation.

Stress brings out your worst qualities, and apparently, I have a paranoia of making mistakes that people will not forgive me for. I imagine these complicated scenarios in which something goes horribly wrong, and it is all my fault. I create situations in my mind in which I damage other people so much that they refuse to love me anymore. I destroy their trust in me.

I know, this sounds like a Hallmark movie and not like real life. Unfortunately my imagination is more in line with Hallmark movies than with reality.

I feel guilty about the fact that I am not superhuman—that I am not everything I expect others to expect me to be. In my mind, I justify every little thing I do, even though no one will ever ask me why I did it. Zealously, I deal with every little inadequacy I see in myself by self-deprecating—telling other people, with my own lips, how bad I am at things. I have to ask 1,000 questions to make sure I am doing everything “right.” I visualize every possible mistake, anything anyone could point a finger at me for and proclaim, “Aha! It’s all your fault!”

Adam is my forebear. Like him, I am thinking of reasons to justify why I ate the fruit before God even asks me. I believe, apparently, in my heart of hearts, that everyone is out to accuse me, to call my bluff. This is why I hold my breath when I see a cop, even if I’m not speeding.

The world is out to accuse us and condemn us. At every turn, it demands that we justify our every action to prove that we are “worth” something. It punishes us when we make mistakes. It judges everything we do, and then condemns us for feeling judged. My generation grew up under a rhetoric of “self-esteem,” where “everyone is a winner”—which was, for us, an unceasing backdrop of hollow noise while we struggled to “be all that we could be,” and failed.

So it is only natural that I would want to protect myself by condemning myself before the world has a chance to.

True, there are a lot of protocols at my job, a lot of things to remember, a lot of mistakes that could turn into a huge headache for more than one person. So a little worry is normal. But I worry less about the mistakes themselves, and more about “letting people down.”

Right about now, you are thinking I am a crazy person. It’s true that my subconscious self-condemnation can go a little overboard. But examine your own heart. I bet you will find some issues with self-condemnation that make you just as crazy.

There is such a thing as godly grief over your sin. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death (2 Corinthians 7:10). This kind of productive, spiritual grief is not what I am talking about, and I’m not particularly aiming to define the “worldly” variety of grief (that’s for another post, folks). I am not really talking about condemnation from sin as much as I acondemning heart, a “spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7) that does not come from God; a recurring guilty thought pattern that constantly hovers over you because you feel you are unworthy.

m talking about having a

“I should have worked harder,” self-condemnation whines. “I should’ve worked longer….someone has a right to accuse me of not caring enough….What is wrong with ME?” 

And who do you think we are thinking about the whole time we are going through this cycle of doubt, guilt, condemnation, and deprecation?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be free of this spirit of fear and self-absorption. It’s not who I am in Christ.

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.—Ephesians 4:17

Self-deprecation is one of the most subtle forms of pride, and, therefore, one of the most dangerous. The condemning heart has a wrong perspective. It is the result of a lack of trust in God.

The truth is, we trust other people more than we trust God. When I walk down the street, I trust the general population not to mug me or hit me with their cars (which I should apparently not do, since I almost got flattened the other day by an SUV). I trust my coworkers to do their jobs so I don’t find myself with extra work.  And these are all other humans, people who also came from the bloodline of the first man—the guy who pointed the accusing finger at his wife when God asked him why he betrayed Him by eating of the fruit. He ate the fruit, in reality, because he didn’t trust what God said to him. Instead, he believed the serpent—the accuser. We trust—we believe—a world full of finger-pointers rather than the One who made us.

There is a deeper evil at work here. You see, if I can blame myself for things, then I am still in control of them. I may have messed up, but I am the person pulling all the strings, no matter how tangled they get. The anxiety I feel is a result of my belief that I am responsible for everything—which is (whether subconscious or not) the manifestation of my unbelief in God.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.—Philippians 2:5-7

When I blame myself for things (most often things that haven’t happened), I am trying to feel in control—counting equality with God “a thing to be grasped.” That puts a new perspective on it, doesn’t it?

Jesus, on the other hand, is completely humble. He didn’t walk around on earth in a cloak of false humility, like I do, speaking about how unworthy He was and how many mistakes He made. When people complimented how good He was at something, He probably didn’t respond with a list of reasons why He wasn’t good at it.  Instead, He probably just shrugged and said something like, “Um…I thought we were talking about my Father?”

In short, Jesus didn’t believe or speak any lies. “His face was toward Jerusalem”—He “was not ashamed,” for He “knew whom He had believed” (2 Timothy 1:12).

And we should have the same response.

And  I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.—Revelation 12:10

So…What part do we have in overcoming the “accuser”? He is conquered by the blood of Jesus, and by “the word of our testimony”—our belief in Him. In other words, when the devil points an accusing finger at you to get you self-focused, you need to remember that the only part we have in escaping this condemnation is to trust Jesus, and confess our trust. Jesus did the hard work. It is finished.

There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.—Romans 8:1-2 (You were waiting for this verse, right?)

Paul says here that there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who are good enough, perfect, never make mistakes…right? No. Read it again. “…for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Period. If you believe on Jesus, you’re clean. So stop trying to make yourself dirty because you’re afraid of what   the world might say.

The accuser in the Garden wasn’t God. All He did was ask Adam questions. The accuser was the one who said, “You will not surely die.” It was a lie. But hallelujah, now the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from death! The accuser of the brothers has been thrown down!

I don’t have to self-deprecate to bring glory to God. Do you know who brings glory to God?.......God does. He doesn’t need us to talk about how awful we are to make Himself bigger. Newsflash: He’s already bigger.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord (2 Corinthians 10:17). When you are sitting around talking about how unworthy you are, that’s not boasting in the Lord. And what’s more, it’s actually disagreeing with what God says you are. (I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to disagree with God.) Believers, He has made you righteous through His blood.

Sure, it might be true that you’re inadequate. Actually, it probably is. But when you speak about it, you are not believing wrongly about yourself so much as you are believing wrongly about God. You are saying that you are in control (false), and that you are much more worthy of attention than He is, because you are giving yourself first place in your thoughts. You are saying, in short, that He is not who He says He is—a Father who loves you, and who is worthy of all of your praise.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.—1 John 3:18-20

This is one of the most perplexing and beautiful verses to me. That’s why I saved it till last—it’s the punch line in the Great Joke on the devil. John has just finished giving what appears to be a behavioral mandate: love people genuinely, with actions instead of words. By our deeds, by following all the “rules,” we can “reassure our heart before him”…right?...Well…. He knows everything, people. He invented “everything,” in fact. You don’t have to sit there and justify everything you do. He already knows why you did it—whether you tell Him the truth about it or not.

And He loves you anyway.

So stop tangling yourself in a web of your own lies and move on. He knows every sin we have ever committed, will commit, or have thought about committing. YET: no matter how much we have and will fail, we can still “reassure our heart before him.” Why?

Because He is “greater than our heart.” Praise the Lord, we don’t have to rest in ourselves, no matter how adequate and/or inadequate we are; we can rest in HIM. And He is more than enough.