The Gospel of Peace
Discerning the Heart
Since the heart is the most important aspect of our being, we should know more about the heart than anything else.
But we are void of understanding.
That is why we reduce our relationship with God to rules and regulations.
Law does not allow a person to understand their own heart.
Nowhere does the Bible give us the right to judge the heart, or the motivation, of another.
We cannot even properly judge our own hearts, much less the heart of another.
The Bible says the Word of God will discern, or judge, or sift our hearts.
The Word of God is the mirror that we should use to understand our own hearts.
If we look into the Word and put it into practice with love as our motive, our deeds are revealed as light or darkness.
By walking in the love described in God’s Word, we put our hearts to rest in God’s presence and drive out all condemnation.
When people leave a church because of legalism where a church or pastor kept them in line with judgment and condemnation, they fall apart.
They get to the place where they do not want to go to a church, pray, tithe, or anything.
When they had no one to browbeat them, they stopped serving God.
When the element of fear was removed, they found that they were not really in love with God.
These people are:
- Not in a loving relationship with Jesus.
- Not in a relationship in which Jesus and the Father come to them and manifest themselves.
These people are living under law and know very little of the goodness of God.
Many of these people have never experienced the real repentance that brings a change of mind and heart.
There has been only the repentance that abstains for fear of the results.
These people:
- Though doing good works, are backslidden in their hearts.
- They serve God, but not from the heart.
- They are only offering lip service.
This does not challenge their salvation; it only questions the joy of their salvation.
Pro 14:14 The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.
The condition of your heart is filling your life with good or bad things.
All may look good on the outside, but what’s on the inside?
Every person who grasps this message goes through a major upheaval in the inner man.
Love demands proper attitude and motives.
Are you doing something to gain acceptance, position and etc.?
Or are you doing something because you love God and love people?
Love does not work by law and obligation.
The Gospel of peace requires a right heart.
This message will produce havoc in a person whose heart is not right before the Lord.
You have a heart problem if this message produces:
- The attitude of loose or ungodly living.
- Take advantage of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
The problem is not the message.
Pro 10:29 The way of the LORD is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.
The heart is the seat of our emotions and our will.
Emotions:
- Come from different sources.
- Can be stimulated from the spirit or from the flesh.
- Can be deceitful.
- Is not a stable indicator of the condition of our heart.
1Jn 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1Jn 3:19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
1Jn 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
1Jn 3:21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
Verses 18-19 say that the only way to know we are in truth is by loving in both word and deed.
Walking in love can settle the issue when our hearts condemn us.
Works do not earn me a position or favor with God.
But the fruit that comes forth because of my relationship with God helps to assure my heart.
It becomes a mirror of the inner man.
When our heart does not condemn us:
- We have confidence.
- We receive whatsoever we ask.
Confidence is an important part of faith.
We must first have a confident expectation of God.
We must have confidence of our own standing before God.
1Jn 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
Some people would quickly say, “See, you must keep the commandments to get your prayers answered.”
The context here is walking in love.
Keeping the commandments does not earn answered prayer.
Keeping His commandments assures our hearts.
1Jn 3:23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
Believing on Jesus and walking in love fulfills the commandments of the Lord.
The way we live, in regards to our beliefs on the Lord Jesus and walking in love, reveals the condition of our hearts.
We don’t have to relate to the Lord and His people if the “right” way in order to avoid judgment.
They are things we do because of the love of God in our hearts.
If you hear this message of love and peace and feel it gives you a license to sin, your heart has been revealed.
Now you know:
- Why you have struggled in the past.
- What you have really been dealing with.
Truth will reveal the condition of the heart.
It will sort out the real motives and intentions.
Heb 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
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