God Knows Every Heart

John 2:23-25 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. NKJV

It is so common to hear well intended people speak of a person they know having a good heart or they will see some horrific act reported on the news and ask what would make that person do that. These sorts of statements are not rare but typical of human beings everywhere on the earth. The fallacy of ascribing individual people with good hearts is so sown into human thinking that it has become second nature. The way we determine the people with the good hearts is by the things we see them do (that appear good to others) or the things they do not do (that would harm others).

Many years ago I thought this was what determined if a man were good or not good. I remember a man I worked with for over 12 years on a daily basis and I did not socialize with him after work (except for the times when we were required to travel together for the job), but during work and travel for work, when many of us would use profanity, get angry, tell dirty jokes, etc. I never witnessed him do any of these things. I said this man Ron is a very good man. He told me he believed in God and that he was a Mormon. I never heard of Mormons but he explained to me what they believed and I assumed that he was a Christian. I thought I was a Christian because I got baptized and was a Church member and I believed in God as well even though I lived a hedonistic life style every single day.

The point of these two extreme illustrations is that no matter what is being displayed on the outside; God (Jesus Christ) knows the true condition of every human heart (the inner man; the real you). We all have heard the saying, “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” Well, we can add to this and say, “You can’t fool God anytime.” There is only one reference in the entire Bible of “good heart” and it is found in the following verse:

Luke 8:15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. NKJV

Adam Clarke’s commentary on Luke 8:15, “The good ground, because it is good, strong and vigorous, continues to bear: bad or poor ground cannot produce a good crop, and besides it is very soon exhausted. The persons called the good ground in the text are filled with the power and influence of God, and therefore continue to bring forth fruit; i.e. they persevere in righteousness. From this we may learn that the perseverance of the saints, as it is termed, necessarily implies that they continue to bring forth fruit to the glory of God. Those who are not fruitful are not in a state of perseverance.”

This is our Lord’s explanation of the parable of the sower and here He refers to the “good heart” as the one who receives His Spirits regenerating work of new birth. You know there are billions of people on this planet that do good things for themselves and for others, but they don’t have a good heart, but on the contrary they have an evil heart because it has not been made new by God’s regenerating work.

“For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham.” Oswald Chambers

Sincerely in Christ,

Clifford D. Tate, Sr.

Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle e-books now and will be available in a couple of weeks @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…