Our deceitful hearts

Last Sunday Pastor Perry quoted Jeremiah 17.9, which says:

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

When it comes to faith, our hearts, our emotions, can be poor indicators upon which to base our decisions in life. At times, we might feel far from God, whereas he's always close to us. (James 4:8) At other times, we don't feel any kind of distance from God, but we ought to because our actions have broken our fellowship with God.

About one hundred years ago, an author named Finley Peter Dunne coined the phrase "Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable." I believe 1 John 3.19-24 speaks to this idea. There are some who need the comfort of knowing that even though they feel afflicted by guilt over their sin, God loves them deeply (Ephesians 3.16-18). These people need to know that if they belong to Christ and have asked for forgiveness, there is no condemnation for them (Romans 8.1; 1 John 1.9). Even though their hearts condemn them with guilt, they can know that "God is greater than our hearts" (1 Jn. 3.20).

Others among us, however, don't feel the guilt we ought to because of self-deception. Read Jeremiah 17.9 again if you don't think it's possible. Sin breaks our fellowship with God, though our relationship with God can never be lost. Think of a disobedient child: they will always be children of the parent, but sin and rebellion breaks fellowship until there is repentance and restoration.

The best place to be is in a right relationship with God, in which sin is dealt with and repented of, and we can live boldly for God. We can have the kind of relationship described in 1 John 3.21-22, where it says, "if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God’s presence. We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." This kind of life is not about self-gratification or asking so that we can please our human pleasures (James 4.3), but John is talking about a life lived to bring glory to God. This kind of living is all about asking "What can I to today to please God and advance his agenda in the world?" If we ask for things in keeping with this line of thinking, we can be sure God wants to give us what we ask for.