“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.
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 affected, we live a lie. Most self-centred decisions have negative consequences for others; thus, sin.
Truth stands between us and sin; it’s the 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.
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.
Our only chance of living a life of integrity—where respect is close to common place—is to attack 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 is the only attractive way of living life; that is, to grasp that truth must always have its way.
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, and the more that awareness is known the better the truth can cling.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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