God Loves… Himself

Nothing is more unknown to man than himself. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

The heart of man, being more deceitful than all else, cannot understand itself and therefore man does not truly know himself. Psychology or any science cannot reveal man to himself, but instead the heart is so deceitful that those who try to understand it apart from God’s revelation of it are deceived in that way as well. The more any person tries to understand his own heart apart from the Word of God and the illumination of the Spirit the more that person will be deceived. The person may find out many things about the heart and even its evil, but even those things will deceive the heart and hide it from itself.

One reason that the heart of man is so unknown to him is that the heart deceives man about how hard it is to know the heart. Men are proud and think they are smarter than they are and so they are quite easily deceived as to the nature of their own hearts and into thinking that they know who they really are. While it may be scary to sleep in the same house with someone who is unknown, people have no idea of who they really are. They have no idea of the things that they are capable of. Since man does not know his own heart, he is not as nice as he thinks he is and is not as in control as he thinks he is.

It would be terrifying to be in the same house with a stranger or even one that you had known for a long time but didn’t really know, but then have the other person to become someone you were totally afraid of, had no control over, and simply clueless about what made them tick. That is the human soul that comes to a realization of its own heart after being so deceived by it for so long. Man is deceived about what morality is and about true religion. Man is deceived about his own motives and desires. So if God in His mercy opens the eyes of a person to see his or her own heart, that person will be shocked and sickened by that heart. How shocking it is to see the depths of evil that are in your own heart. How shocking it is to see that you are capable of any crime as well.

Because human souls don’t see their own hearts they don’t see their need of Christ as Savior from every single thing they have ever done and they don’t see the need for grace in their souls to do one right and spiritual thing. So those who so blinded to themselves by their own hearts are blinded to their utter and desperate need of Christ at each and every moment. So they walk in their own wisdom perhaps even thinking that it is the wisdom of Christ. They walk in their own strength perhaps even thinking it is the power of Christ. Oh the desperate need of human souls to know more of their own hearts so that they can see their utter need of Christ each and every moment of each and every day. But it remains true that nothing is more unknown to man than himself. Not many, however, are willing to look in their own hearts and see what is there.

This entry was posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:59 am and is filed under The Sinful Heart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.