God Loves… Himself

Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, and the very thing required of them. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Why is this teaching so important? Why would one talk so much on one subject? One reason is that people should see the sin of their heart in order to be convicted of sin, thoroughly and deeply humbled, and then brought to faith by the work of the Spirit in their souls. A second reason is that it is good for sanctification. We should desire to see the sin that is there in our hearts and that we are blind to in order to pursue God and walking with God. A third reason is to help people see if they are deceived or not. The knowledge of sin is important as it enables people to see that their sin is far worse than they have ever believed and it is the real state of their hearts.

It is vital to know the sin of the heart and have it uncovered so that a person may have a pure heart and so see God as Jesus preached in the Beatitudes. It is vital to pursue the knowledge of sin in the heart because one that loves God will desire to die to sin and to mortify sin as Romans 8:13 tells us: “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This verse tells us that it is only if by the Spirit a person is putting to death the deeds of the body will that person live. This is to say that those who live according to the flesh are unconverted people who are still in the flesh and yet those who are striving to die to sin are those who have life.

It is vital to know the sin of the heart so that a person may repent from that sin and turn more and more to Christ. If we desire to please Christ, then we cannot love the things and refuse to repent of the things which He hates and died for. We cannot love our sin and love Christ at the same time and in the same heart. The heart is very deceitful and it will try to hide from sin and deceive us about what sin is, but if we love Christ we must stand with Christ against our own sinful hearts and seek Christ to overcome the power of our own deceits.

It is vital to know our own sin that we may be growing in humility. We must be humble as a creature, humble as a sinner, but also humble as a saint. But all saints (called of God and declared holy in Christ) of God are also creatures and sinners. If we think of humility as a growing in death to self-love and self-centeredness, then we can see that a growing knowledge of the sin of the heart will drive saved sinners deeper and deeper into humility and a greater growth in grace. A growing knowledge of how sin is so intertwined in the heart and choking out the life of grace (so to speak) should drive the sinner in utter helplessness and humility to look to the hand of God in Christ to do what must be done by grace alone.

It is vital to know the sin of our hearts if we are going to grow in the understanding of grace and the life of grace. We are commanded to walk and live by grace, but the heart that does not know its own sin will be walking and living by the power of grace and deceive itself into thinking it is living by grace. If we think of grace as simply that which God does to forgive sinners, we are falling far short of understanding grace. It is grace that we live by and it is grace that upholds us each moment. It is by grace that Christ dwells in His people and it is by grace that people are enabled to grow in holiness and share in the Divine life (II Peter 1:3-5). So if we want to know grace in the sense that we live by grace and walk by grace, then we must learn the sin of our hearts and grow in that grace.

It is vital to know the sins of our hearts so that we can turn from reliance upon that sin to a total reliance upon Christ each moment. The sin and the deceptiveness of sin will turn the soul to where it relies on self in reality, though it may give the credit to grace. But the soul must in reality rely upon grace and grace alone. It is the humbled soul that Christ dwells in and it is the humbled soul that loves holiness that relies upon Christ for its humility and its love for holiness. If we love holiness in a way that is not from Christ, then we are relying upon a holiness that is from self. If we have a form of humility that comes from self and not from Christ, then we are in reality relying on self for humility and so relying on our own efforts and works to obtain what pleases Christ. Knowing the heart and the sin of the heart is not an option, but it is truly vital.

Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, and the very thing required of them.  (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)                                     

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, It seems brutal to some that God would be so exact and His requirements so strict that a person that will do almost everything in religion but one would be lost. But the person that is holing on to one cherished sin is actually a person that has not truly repented of self and pride. That is a person that loves a sin for the sake of self so much that s/he is his or her own idol when s/he prefers self to God. This clearly is a violation of the Greatest Commandment and of the First Table of the Ten Commandments as well. That one sin, then, is not just one sin, but is the defiant act of a hardened idolater and enemy of God. It is a person that will serve self rather than serve the living God. It is a person that will do all for his or her own pleasure rather than do all for the pleasure of God. It is a person that will live for his or her own glory rather than live for the glory of God. It is, therefore, something that shows that a person is like the devil rather than Christ who spoke and lived exclusively for the glory of God.

Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

The passage (just above) in Matthew 7 is extremely instructive. Out of all the people on the planet, how many are truly seeking to get to heaven on the basis of Christianity? I doubt the percentage is all that high. However, out of the percentage of those who are trying to get to heaven based on Christianity, most of those have entered in through the wide gate and are on the broad road that leads to destruction. The narrow gate and the narrow path, on the other hand, there will only be few that are found on it. That narrow gate is so narrow that a person cannot get through it while holding to a cherished sin. The narrow path is so narrow that there is only room for the person and not enough for the person and a cherished or bosom sin. So instead of thinking ill of God on this account, we should see that true grace will truly change the heart of a person and they will repent of sin instead of holding to it with clutching fingers.

Luke 13:23 And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 “Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ 26 “Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; 27 and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’

When Jesus was asked whether just a few would be saved, He did not answer in a direct manner with a yes or no. He answered in a way that shows that just a few will be saved. He tells the people to strive to enter at the narrow door. Note, He did not say make a decision to enter at the narrow door, but to strive. Entering at the narrow requires effort and agony. It will require a lot of repentance from sin and a striving to know God. So one reason that one is to enter through the narrow door is because it is the only true door. A second reason that Jesus gives us is that many will seek to enter rather than strive to enter. They will be told to depart from Him as an evildoer.

Entering through the narrow door or entering through the narrow gate is not something that many are willing to do. They will hang on to some cherished sin whether it be family, business, money, or perhaps a lust of the heart. This shows the wickedness of the heart that it will deceive itself and hang on to sin rather than repent and enter through the narrow door. This shows what a wicked heart it is that will refuse to bow to the living God and hold on to some sin rather than enter into life. What a hard and wicked heart it will take to do so, but it seems that many have one.

Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, and the very thing required of them. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The Scriptures are quite clear as to the nature of true repentance, though it is the case that many prefer to limit the whole of Scripture to one definition. It is easy to repent if all that means is to change your mind about an intellectual belief of the moment, or perhaps some external behavior. It is easy to repent (in the big picture) if one just needs to quit the obvious sins and start attending church and going through a few motions. It is relatively easy to repent for one to become quite stringent in their religious activity. But this is not the repentance that the Bible requires. Look seriously at the two verses from Matthew 7 just below.

Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

In this passage Jesus is telling people that there are only two ways for people who are “seeking” to enter heaven. Just to be clear, there is only one real way, but Jesus sets out the two ways that people try to enter on. Why must we enter through the narrow gate? It is because there is the wide gate and a broad way and that leads to destruction. Many enter through that and go to destruction. The one real way to life is the small gate and the narrow path. Only a few find it. These verses should chill our souls. It is not just that out of the whole population of the entire world that just a few will be saved, but that just a few who are actually looking for salvation will be saved. In other words, we have a large percentage of people who are not on the broad road or the narrow road.

In the context of Matthew 7 (just a few verses after) we also have the following passage:

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

We should see this passage as some of those on the broad road. The broad road includes those who have a correct theology and even some who appear to have miraculous gifts. But their problem is that they never truly repented of some sin or sins because they are told to depart from Him because they practiced lawlessness. This should strike at the heart of those who continue in sin regardless of how small they think it is. It should also strike at the heart of those who are not concerned to cry out to God to show them the sin of their hearts. The words of the passages from Matthew 7 would awaken us if we were not so dead and hard in sin and not led astray by so much false theology. For some reason, even after reading verses like this, people can say “amen” and go on leading comfortable lives while they are on the broad road. People are so blind as to which road they are on because they judge themselves and the road they are on by things other than the whole of Scripture.

People ask themselves if they believe some facts rather than dealing with their own heart to see just how much they have repented from and are willing to repent of. It is not just that people must repent of sin, but that they must repent of their self-righteousness and of their pride and self-centeredness. People may have to repent of their religion, of loving their families too much, and of all sorts of good things that they do to impress others. But they will not repent of the one thing required of them and that is whatever it is that the love the most. They will not repent of all things but all things but one or a few. But that is no repentance at all. Those on the broad road can be very, very religious and have repented of everything but one or two things. But it is still the broad road.

Some will mortify themselves in many things, and so almost every thing in religion but one; unfortunately, that one is the test of their obedience, and the very thing required of them. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

This is a vital point and possibly cannot be stressed enough. People will go to great lengths in the denial of self (so-called) and yet they will not deny self at the very point it must be denied. The Pharisees are excellent (in a manner of speaking) examples of this. They were stringent in denying themselves things that could be denied in the strength of self, but in reality they were doing it for the purpose of self which is to say for the purpose of bringing honor to themselves. In other words, they were not really denying self as self but instead were appearing to deny self while doing it all for self. To put it even a different way, they denied an external self in order to exalt the religious self in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. Pride is pride regardless of the realm it is in.

Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 “Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.

Jesus used some strong language to cut to the issues of the heart in that day and therefore all periods in human history. He was very clear that people must give up all things in order to be His disciples. This is not a teaching that is popular in the modern day when God is thought of in terms of what He will do for people if they will follow Him, but in fact people must deny themselves and all that they are and have in order to follow Him. It is required, according to this text, that a person hate his closest family members and even his own life in order to be a disciple of Christ. I would argue, though without much detail in this medium, that what is being taught here is that a person must follow Christ even if people (family included) thinks it amounts to hatred of the family. It is not a real hatred intended in the text for the close family members, as we know Scripture teaches that we are to love them. But it is not just hyperbole to make a point, but instead it may appear to others that we hate people if we follow Christ as Christ commands us to follow Him.

The teaching of Christ, when set out with some degree of illumination by Thomas Adam above, shows us that the demands of Christ cuts far deeper than some can imagine. It also shows us what a mockery of Christianity and discipleship many are teaching today. It is not that one is a Christian (follower of Christ) if one is willing to raise a hand, pray a prayer, and walk down an aisle, but instead it is one that denies all and bows in submission to a new Master and that Master is Christ. It is Christ that must be loved supremely and above all other people and things if the person is to be a true follower of Christ. One cannot be a disciple if one does not give up all of his or her possessions. Wow, some will exclaim, that sounds like works. No, it is a work of grace in the heart. Others will complain that this is impossible, and to be honest it really is for the natural man. But the heart that has Christ as its life owns nothing because Christ owns that person and all of that person’s life and possessions. Whatever that one thing is that a person will not mortify is a demonstration that the person is still the master of self and Christ is not the Master. Everything but one thing really means no thing in reality. How easy it is for the heart to deceive itself into thinking it has denied all when in fact it has denied nothing but Christ.