August 23 - Word of God Judges the Heart

August 23 - Word of God Judges the Heart
Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Our hearts can be fickle things.  There are times when we probably wish they were as empty as the Tin Man’s, so they wouldn’t be so broken.  The emotions that rage through our lives seem to erupt from the heart, ranging from joy to fury in record time. We experience deep sadness and happiness that sometimes fills us to bursting.

The wizard says to the Tin Man, “As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart! You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. I could have been a world figure, a power among men, a - a successful wizard, had I not been obstructed by a heart.”

Without a heart, we would feel nothing.

Because our heart’s emotions drive so much of our behavior and we are so easily swayed by anything that makes the heart feel good, if even for a moment, it is also easy to find ourselves on the wrong side of God.  The heart drives us to selfishness; always working to make the world happy and easy and right for ourselves. It takes a lot of will to live beyond the demands of that desire.  Our judgments aren’t necessarily very good when it comes to what the heart wants.

Throughout scripture, we are constantly reminded to guard our hearts, to be alert to the way our heart is drawn to things of this world.  In Hebrews, we are reminded that God is the only one who will judge our heart.  The word of God … Jesus … is alive within us. It is He who actively works in us day by day to bring our hearts back to God.

The wizard’s final words to the Tin Man are: “And remember, my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.”

It really isn’t about us in the end, is it? It is about how we’ve made a relationship with Jesus Christ and with the world.