When speaking with Pharisees, Jesus quotes Isaiah saying,
”This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
Matthew 15:8-9 ESV
If circumstances changed and by God’s sovereign will you ended up in some far off country with no friends and no family, would you still spend time with God. Do you spend time with God, even now? Or do you simply say the right things and do the right things? Have you given him your heart? How about lately?
God looks on the heart…
”But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”“
1 Samuel 16:7 ESV
”I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Jeremiah 17:10 ESV
”If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.“ Psalm 44:20-21 ESV
”Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!“
Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
May we truly love the Lord your God with all our heart. And may God bless us his children with the understanding of what a blessing it truly is to be reconciled to him through Christ Jesus, and to be loved by him. ~ amen
