Tag: heart is deceitful

You Need a Counselor with a Capital “C”

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Do you feel like you need a counselor? Is your heart heavy or confused? Can you picture yourself sitting in a comfortable chair as you attempt to respond to the suggestion, “Tell me all about yourself”?

How could you ever fully explain yourself to someone else? Even if we had an infinite amount of time to reveal what we know of our experiences from birth to present, we could not disclose everything about ourselves; for we do not know! Our memories are not comprehensive or perfect. Our understanding of the effects of life’s experiences on us is severely limited. We cannot possibly tie together the vast intricacies of our emotions, and the motivations of our hearts remain largely a mystery to our frail minds.

Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV) instructs us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Not only can no other human being – no matter how compassionate or educated – comprehend us, but we cannot understand ourselves. Our tainted hearts deceive us, as they are sick from sin. We need Someone greater to figure us out.

That is exactly where the famous Christmas verse comes into play. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6, ESV). In the original Hebrew language, the word “wonderful” means “a wonder, a marvel, an extraordinary thing.” Jesus is the only Counselor who is more than ordinary – greater than human frailty and limitations. He is God the Counselor.

God the Counselor knows everything! Picture the human heart with all its cracks and fissures. Think of all the aspects of your being that you cannot fathom. Envision the hurts and confusion. Now picture God the Counselor knowing every part of your heart – pouring His love into every crevice and filling it with His healing salve.

When Jesus prepared to leave this earth, He said the Father would send us a Helper to be with us forever – the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17). The Holy Spirit is fully God, the third Person of the triune Godhead. He is our Helper – or Counselor. You do not need to go to His office for help; He is with you now. When you sincerely pray, He will intercede for you, since you cannot possibly know how exactly to pray for every circumstance (Romans 8:26-27). He is your Advocate, bringing you closer to God and into His will. He is your Counselor, healing you in ways you cannot see. He drives everything about our personality into alignment with God’s will as we believe and ask Him to. In ways unknown and quite mysterious to us, the Holy Spirit is doing the repair work necessary for our well-being, our wholeness.

Ephesians 3:16-19 assures us that God’s love – through the Holy Spirit – descends deeper into our heart than human comprehension. While we calculate volume in our three-dimensional space as length times width times height, God tells us His love goes to a fourth dimension – a depth beyond our grasp. His healing goes infinitely far beyond the help of any human, to exactly the level we need.

Your proper understanding of our Wonderful Counselor is vital in order for you to act on the promise. Equipped with this truth about our Counselor, meet with Him now – wherever you are. Ask Him to fill in every crack and crevice of your heart . . . and to make you part of God’s unbroken, perfect will.

Unlike any human counselor who can only make suggestions based on severely limited comprehension, God gives commands. He can rightfully tell us exactly what to do, for His knowledge of us and our circumstances is perfect. Rejoice in His Word, the Bible, because its instructions are for your healing. It is the Word of the Counselor, with a capital “C.”

Forget the Eye Chart

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My mom sat in a chair surrounded by expensive equipment, waiting for the ophthalmologist to examine her dilated eyes. In coming to the eye doctor this day, my mom was being proactive with symptoms that might indicate a tear in her retina – a rather critical problem. She had read the eye chart already and gone through the preliminaries of the appointment before the dilation. As we now sat waiting for the examination of her retinas, my mom joked, “I won’t be able to read anything the doctor wants me to see now! My eyes are so blurry!” I responded quickly, “Well, that’s how you know things are serious. . . the doctor doesn’t care anymore about what you can look at; he now cares about what he can see in you!” As soon as I completed my comment, it hit me. This is a direct analogy for the work of God in our deluded hearts.

We may think we can assess the nature of our true condition by “looking at the eye chart of our life.” However, we are unable to stare at some standard and rightly discern our heart’s motives and actions. Sin has affected us more gravely than we realize. This is not an issue of a simple eye exam to prescribe the right glasses’ strength. This is a crucial probing into the back of the eye – into the inner workings of the retina. God must peer deeply into the heart and expose what we cannot grasp because of the blurriness sin and self-righteousness have caused.

The Bible is clear about our dilemma in Jeremiah 17:9-10 (ESV), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 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.” God is telling us that we are incapable of examining ourselves because the heart or “eye” with which we probe is sick to begin with! We need the Doctor to examine us from the outside in – to explore the depth of us for who we really are.

And so my mom’s blurry eyes were examined by the ophthalmologist with all his powerful equipment. The report came back “good.” In the case of my soul, God has investigated and found many problems that my heart could not see. I am thankful! I need the Doctor of my soul! For, when He found the issues, I was able to cry out with Jeremiah, “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved” (Jeremiah 17:14, ESV).

God Almighty – the Doctor of my heart – has looked in, explained the sin problem and healed me with the blood of His Son, Jesus. Keep probing, God! I need You, not the eye chart.