The Word of God is truly amazing! To think that God used sinful men to write His completely inerrant and infallible Word is remarkable. God breathed out His Word through a few people so that all of His people would be blessed with the beautiful, heart transforming, true story of redemption that is the Bible. As Paul says, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
We desperately need the Word of God for every situation and every second of our lives. We are creatures of instinct and habit. This wouldn't be a problem if our instincts and habits were always right and God glorifying; however, if we're honest typically our instincts and habits are prideful, idolatrous, and all out sinful. Ever since the fall of man (Genesis 3) this has been the case. All of mankind are now sinners by nature; meaning that we are sinners at the very core of our being.
Author Jerry Bridges says, “what the Bible calls the heart...[is] the very core of our being...the center of our intellect, affections, and will.”1 If the core of our being is the heart, ever since the fall, the hearts of mankind have been truly sinful. Jesus said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander" (Matthew 15:19).
The Bible tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it" (Jeremiah 17:9)? Naturally the hearts of man are in a state of rebellion against the God and King of the universe, but in His great mercy, through the gospel, by the power of the Spirit He redeems and restores His people.
God says in Ezekiel 11:19-20, "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God."
When we heard the gospel and repented and believed we were saved and God transformed our heart. By God's grace we are no longer enslaved to our sin, now by the power of the Holy Spirit we can live to the glory of God.... If you're like me at this point you're probably saying to yourself, "I'm a Christian, and yet my heart is still wicked. More often than not my heart leads me astray." This is because of the already-not yet factor of the Kingdom of God and the Christian life. For example, Jesus is already King of kings and Lord of lords but the world does not yet realize this; but there is coming a day when, "at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).
For us in our walk this has massive implications, but perhaps the one that we have to deal with most is what Paul calls the old man or old self. On one hand Paul says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin" (Romans 6:6-7). And on the other he says, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death" (Romans 7:24)? So in one sense Paul has already been delivered from his sins, but in another sense not yet. This is where we as Christians find ourselves. We are already righteous in the eyes of God but not yet righteous here and now. We are already free from sin but that freedom has not yet fully been realized.
Because this is our current condition our hearts still cannot be trusted. Even as Christians our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. So if we can't trust or understand our heart as the Bible says, what do we do? God says, "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 17:10). In every situation we need to allow God to search our hearts and make sure our motives are pure and not sinful. This begs the question then, how do we allow God to search our hearts? The answer: the Bible... "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
We must allow God's word to discern our hearts and then transform, lead, guide, and direct our hearts. When we do this, this gives us a gospel-centered approach to life. Along with this we need other Christians around us to evaluate our hearts and to help us understand and apply Scripture properly. I praise God that I have a wife and some godly best friends who are ready and willing to speak truth into my life and go after my heart with the gospel as often as I need it (which is constantly).
It is our sinful instinct to allow pride to take over and get defensive when our motives are questioned, but we must battle this if we are going to fight the good fight and become more like Jesus. Our pride tells us we are the king and no one has any right to question us. But the gospel tells us that Jesus is King and we are wicked and sinful and desperately need our motives questioned and godly council.
1. Jerry Bridges, The Transforming Power of the Gospel (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2012), Inside Cover.
