"God is greater than our hearts."
The entire passage reads,
"This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we
set our hearts at rest in his presence:
set our hearts at rest in his presence:
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence before God."
we have confidence before God."
1 John 3:19-21
What does this mean to us? Well, first off, we're told that our hearts can be rebellious little suckers. Unreliable. Squirrely. Finicky. Play tricks on us. Tell us the wrong thing and then make us feel bad about it.
Our human hearts, apart from God's truth, will determine our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs according to our sin nature. They will come up with their own assessment of our selves, which will always be negative and condemning.
The way to have a healthy heart and healthy emotions is to infuse your system with God's word. Our hearts will lie to us (Jer 17:9), but God word is truth. Trying to get rid of unhealthy emotions without the powerful work of God's word applied to our lives is like riding a bicycle instead of driving a Porche. Yes, you may make some progress but think of how much faster and easier it would be with the Spirit of Truth fueling your journey.
I discussed these thoughts with my pastor and he reminded me of the three 'F's. Facts, faith, feelings. Once God's word invades our hearts, healthy feelings and emotions flow. Letting God define what goes on inside our hearts feels much better than when we try to figure things out on our own. When we have truth, we find rest. Remember, God knows everything. He knows how we feel and what we need to feel better. Our limited understanding just cannot compare to that.
One of the best ways to maintain spiritual heart health is to pray scripture prayers. I like the books "Prayers that Avail Much" by Germaine Copeland and "Praying God's Word" by Beth Moore. You can go straight to specific topics and pray scriptures directly related to your struggle.
Let's all make scripture a priority for our new year. Our hearts need to be nurtured by God. Try not to let more than two days pass without reading the bible or praying a scripture prayer. Our spirits need to be fed so that we can walk in godly confidence, peace, and strength. Our flesh gets plenty of food, how much do our spirits get? Say you had two rottweilers in the back yard, in separate cages. Every day you feed one of them a buffet meal but the other one you just throw a few morsels to. When those two dogs get out of their cages, which one is going to be stronger?
Love.
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