The Heart

The question I have to come face to face with daily is "What is going on in my heart?"

This is where we gotta start if we do in fact take Jesus seriously in the Bible because he's always always brutally going after it. It's a simple question but I think I'm too afraid for what God will expose if I constantly ask this question. But I must ask it and scripture seems to always ask this of me. To not do so would just be running away in cowardice and fear. The tendency is always for me to busy myself or try to justify myself with doing "good things," but that can't be right if the message of the cross was that we can't ever be good enough and that Jesus substituted his righteousness with our sin (and its just punishment) on the cross. To try to do more quiet times, help out more at church, tithe more, etc., in an effort to justify ourselves because of that deep dark feeling that something is wrong at the core of our being, would mean that "Christ died for nothing" (Galatians 2:21)! So ... what is really going on in my heart?

Somehow over the years, I've ran from the necessary biblical practice of self-examination and have thus turned to practicality and religion. It's the most ironic thing sometimes ... How I can use religion to run from God. And something inside me tells me I'm deep in this more than I know/want to acknowledge and come to terms with. So the question remains.

"What is really going on in your heart?"
-Before we busy ourselves with whatever it is we do, we've got to ask ourselves this. God help us.