A Deceitful Heart And A Volleyball Court
“God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 1:6
OUR GREAT GREATNESS (Or so we think!)
It’s quite revealing to have God Himself begin to show you the actual condition of your heart. If He does, you quickly begin to understand the truth of the words in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?” It’s absolutely amazing how we can fool ourselves regarding the reasons why we do things. I had a classic example with a volleyball court I built.
MY VOLLEYBALL COURT
I started a recycling company when I was sixteen. One day a couple years later while walking in our local park, I got a great idea: If I build a sand volleyball court for the city as a donation, it would be a great way to get publicity. The newspapers would cover it and everyone in town would hear more about my company.
I knew very well this would bring me more attention and more money. That sounded good.
Slowly I worked out my plan. The amazing thing is that by the time I contacted the city and began donating the volleyball court, I had totally deluded myself as to what my initial motives were.
As the reporters interviewed me and took pictures for the paper, I glowed as I told them of how I wanted to say thank you to the citizens of Vista for showing so much interest in saving trees (my business was paper recycling, so all the paper recycled saved trees).
Oh, it was nice to save trees and it was nice to say thanks, but that was not my real initial motive. But, by the time the newspapers came around, I had convinced myself that my motives were to help others and save trees. I liked people to think I was concerned.
Oh, the deceitfulness of my heart!
Being Purified
Philippians 2:13 is an amazing verse, “…for God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” God is working in our hearts in order that we might have new motivations—that we might desire what He desires. When we allow Him to, God purifies our heart of selfishness, pride, the need for admiration, and desires for worldly thrills and impurity. And He goes further.
Even our love can be tainted. We can be helping others, leading others and even praying for others and be doing it with impure motives. We can like to feel important or we can just like to lead. God purifies us even of these types of selfish motives. How? He frees us from many inner corruptions that we might have the great joy and freedom of truly having His pure love for others.
CREATED TO LOVE AND BE LOVED
We were created to genuinely love and to be loved. There is a profound joy that we can experience when people are on our hearts and minds rather than having all of life circle around ourselves (Philippians 1:3, 4 and II Corinthians 7:3). Having people on our heart, or “in our heart,” as the Bible says it, means that we are mindful of others all the time, even when we are absent from them (Colossians 2:5).
THE DROSS OF SELFISHNESS: We all have it 😞
Don’t despise the problems God allows in your life. I know it’s hard, but try really hard not to.
Many of our problems are allowed by God to purify us of the dross of secret selfishness. It’s like when gold is purified. The metal is heated up and the impurities come to the surface where the goldsmith is able to scrape them away. Similarly, when we turn to God in our problems, He produces in us what the Bible calls “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:9-13).
He makes us more pleasing to Himself and gives us purer motives to love others like it says in I Peter 1:22: “Since, you have in obedience to the truth purified your hearts for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.”
STRAIN BECAUSE OF HIDDEN SELFISHNESS
A wonderful thing about this working of God in us is that it brings God’s peace in many ways. Often people put unnecessary strain on themselves and others because of hidden selfish motives. Sometimes this hidden selfishness also causes people to react wrongly in situations which brings painful repercussions. Other times, people can experience anxiety, fear and even depression because their mind circles around selfish pursuits. But, when God works on hidden areas of selfishness in our hearts, we experience His wonderful peace in whole new ways.
The purifying work of God also brings us the deep satisfaction of being used by God to bring much of His joy and help to others. How? God changes us then uses our changed heart and desires for His glorious purposes. This blessing of God is far greater than the benefits of anything money can buy.
What a good reason to seek God for a changed heart!
“You render to each man according to all his ways, for You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men…” I Kings 8:39
God knows the hearts of every man, every woman and every child.
His desire is to change human hearts to be like His own
Don Miller
"All the ways of man are clean in his own sight, but the Lord weighs the motives.” Proverbs 16:2
The most important aspect of the Christian life is to want God to work in our hearts and to allow Him to do so by following Him fully. From this working of God in us comes everything else that God desires to do for us and through us.
Don Miller
“Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding, abundantly, beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us.” Ephesians 3:20
God works greater things than we’ve ever dreamed He would do when we first allow Him to work in us.
Don Miller