My goshh I am so tired today! Last night's Jesus time seriously just... it's making my eyes feel like raisins instead of grapes. That doesn't even make sense! But last night was so intense! Really just inspected my heart to find whatever is there that's keeping any distance between me and God. My self-centeredness, my lack of love for others, and actually laughing at jokes that should make me grieve the lack of purity in today's world. That's what really stuck out to me.
So pray for me as I'm asking God to and taking action on purging myself of all these stupid habits that hold me back. There's nothing I want more than for my heart to be one with Christ's. To get to that point, I know I need to continually be inspecting my heart. A regular prayer is going to be Psalm 139:23.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me and know my thoughts:" (KJV)
In the Bible In Basic English version, I love how this thought is worded.
"O God, let the secrets of my heart be uncovered, and let my wandering thoughts be tested:".Psalm 26:2 says,
"Examine me, O Lord, and try me; test my mind and my heart." (NASB)I don't think I pray these things enough! I need to really emphasize it. David sought God to examine his heart, instead of being his own decider of whether or not he was good enough. He went ahead and went straight to the ultimate judge, Who is known for zero tolerance for any kind of sin. Too often when we're examining our own hearts, we let a ton of junk slide because it's not like we can detect sin very well if we're used to living with it. Our sin nature gets in the way and is totally comfortable with it there. When we honestly turn to God and ask him to clean out our hearts and examine us, He pulls through.
I used to think these verses were David saying, "Look, God, no sin!" and just inviting Him to check it out. Kind of like having your parents approve of your room when you're done cleaning it. I realized last night that I was totally wrong. It's David asking God for His honest opinion, asking Him to point out the secret sins even he himself had failed to notice. He wrote and prayed it so heart-felt...fully? Hahaha. That's so not a real word. But anyways. You say this whole-heartedly... and God will answer it. He'll let you feel inside your heart that there's something there keeping a little wall of separation. You sit there and meditate on it, and compare your actions and motives to God's actions and motives... anything that falls short needs to go. Self-love (the conceited, proud kind!) is one of the biggest ones we have to get past. There's a balance you have to find that usually lands on self-respect enough to keep out of stupid situations, but the focus is more because you want to honor God with yourself, not because you have some kind of reputation to keep up. It's not your reputation you have to keep up, it's Jesus' reputation you're protecting.
This is what's on my heart!
Hope y'all got something out of this.
Love and blessings,
~Natalie.
:)
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