The Lord has a way of letting me/us know that we have gotten off track from where I/we need to be. Tonight I picked up my bible and asked the Lord to just show me what I needed to read tonight. Lately I've been feeling that something was just a bit amiss in my walk with Him. Romans 2 is where I started. When I got to verse 16 I read this...
Romans 2:16 NLT
16 And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.
Secret life....those two words caught my attention. My study bible says this:
Literally...the hidden things. Scripture frequently stresses that God will judge people according to their thoughts and intentions.
Then I started following the scripture trail;
1 Samuel 16:7, 10:9, 10:26, Psalms 139:1
As I read these verses it was brought out to me that God sees a person from the inside out. He sees my true character. He doesn't care about anything except where my heart is. God knows why I do what I do....my intentions or motives for my actions. Only God and myself know the true reason I am doing or saying something and I will be judged on those things....my thoughts and intentions....as you will be on yours.
Secret life....those two words caught my attention. My study bible says this:
Literally...the hidden things. Scripture frequently stresses that God will judge people according to their thoughts and intentions.
Then I started following the scripture trail;
1 Samuel 16:7, 10:9, 10:26, Psalms 139:1
As I read these verses it was brought out to me that God sees a person from the inside out. He sees my true character. He doesn't care about anything except where my heart is. God knows why I do what I do....my intentions or motives for my actions. Only God and myself know the true reason I am doing or saying something and I will be judged on those things....my thoughts and intentions....as you will be on yours.
1 Samuel 16:7 NLT
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
God knows the secrets of all of our hearts....
I read many scriptures and they all talked about the same thing....God searches and knows us by our heart and we will be judged on what we have in our hearts. The reason we sin is because of what we have in our hearts. The Lord constantly examines our hearts and secret motives. We too need to do that and ask the Lord to help us to keep our hearts turned towards Him and to help us to not have secret sin....which in actuality is only a secret to other people not to God. Everyday we need to ask the Lord to help us to see the sin in our heart and then ask the Lord to forgive us of this sin and help us to flush it out of our life for good! Without His help we can find ourselves being tempted time and time again by the same things if the Lord doesn't help us to lay it down at His feet and leave it there.
After I had read many scriptures I went to my e-mail and saw a devotion that had been sent to me. This was one of the things it said....
Repentance is a condition of our heart whereby we recognize our sin and, in desperation and sorrow, turn and cry out in faith to God for help...the help of forgiveness which only comes through Jesus Christ.
Joel 2:12-13
"'Even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love."
In the time we are living in it is so important to make sure our hearts are right with the Lord. Returning to the Lord with a repentant heart....daily....is so important. The Lord is full of grace and mercy but we have to go to Him and ask Him for His forgiveness. He just wants our hearts to be turned to Him.
Here is a list of scriptures to read....
Luke 16:15 Matt 23:28 1 Chron 28:9 Prov 24:12 Deut 4:29-30 1 Kings 8:39
Jer 17:10 John 2:24-25 Jer 11:20 Romans 8:27 Ps 7:9 Is 29:13 Matt 15:7-9
"until we see JESUS....face to face"
God knows the secrets of all of our hearts....
Psalm 44:21 NLT
21 God would surely have known it,
for he knows the secrets of every heart.
for he knows the secrets of every heart.
I read many scriptures and they all talked about the same thing....God searches and knows us by our heart and we will be judged on what we have in our hearts. The reason we sin is because of what we have in our hearts. The Lord constantly examines our hearts and secret motives. We too need to do that and ask the Lord to help us to keep our hearts turned towards Him and to help us to not have secret sin....which in actuality is only a secret to other people not to God. Everyday we need to ask the Lord to help us to see the sin in our heart and then ask the Lord to forgive us of this sin and help us to flush it out of our life for good! Without His help we can find ourselves being tempted time and time again by the same things if the Lord doesn't help us to lay it down at His feet and leave it there.
After I had read many scriptures I went to my e-mail and saw a devotion that had been sent to me. This was one of the things it said....
Repentance is a condition of our heart whereby we recognize our sin and, in desperation and sorrow, turn and cry out in faith to God for help...the help of forgiveness which only comes through Jesus Christ.
Joel 2:12-13
"'Even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love."
In the time we are living in it is so important to make sure our hearts are right with the Lord. Returning to the Lord with a repentant heart....daily....is so important. The Lord is full of grace and mercy but we have to go to Him and ask Him for His forgiveness. He just wants our hearts to be turned to Him.
Here is a list of scriptures to read....
Luke 16:15 Matt 23:28 1 Chron 28:9 Prov 24:12 Deut 4:29-30 1 Kings 8:39
Jer 17:10 John 2:24-25 Jer 11:20 Romans 8:27 Ps 7:9 Is 29:13 Matt 15:7-9
"until we see JESUS....face to face"
Hi Chelle, its a thought one needs to pay attention to. I need to examine my heart, I need to know that should the Lord expose my inner thoughts, could I bare it? Be proud of them? Scary thought
ReplyDeleteGreat scriptures and post
God bless
Tracy
Thank you fro this nice and well written post. And thanks for the list with bibleverses.
ReplyDelete