Check Your Heart

When someone has a physical checkup, the doctor will use a stethoscope to examine their heart. It’s also important for people to know the status of their spiritual hearts. Sometimes when I’m evangelizing, sinners try justifying themselves by saying, “God knows my heart.” Yet Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” 

Fortunately, one who becomes born again has a supernatural heart transplant. Ezekiel 36:26-27 promises, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

Believers should still occasionally examine themselves to maintain a clean heart. An excellent time to do that is when taking communion. 1 Corinthians 11:28-29 commands, “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”

Other verses that talk about examining our hearts include…

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting..” - Psalm 139:23-24

“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.” 
- 2 Corinthians 13:5

“Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else.” - Galatians 6:4 (NIV)

The late John Paul Jackson stated, “We are life long students of the ways of God...trouble starts when we think we have graduated.” If the Lord reveals you’ve been doing things for the wrong motive, there’s no reason to feel condemned. Just repent and move on.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.” - Psalm 51:10 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition) 

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