What's Really in Your Heart?

 As long as things are going well for us, we can sail through life and do pretty well. When we are seeing good things happen, and we are not running into obstacles, we can tend to put ourselves on automatic pilot. Then, we stop trusting God the way we should. It is when the trials come that we are jolted back to the realization that we need the Lord every minute of every day, so we can never allow our heart to depart from focusing on Him.

I am afraid that is what King Hezekiah did near the end of his life. He had been successful because of God's blessings, so he showed off to the people who came from far away Babylon. (II Chronicles 32:31) "When ambassadors from Babylon arrived to ask about the remarkable things that had taken place in the land, God withdrew from Hezekiah in order to test him and to see what was really in his heart." I believe God does this to us at various times, too.

When we become a Christian, God is always with us. The Holy Spirit comes to live in us. However, there are times that the Lord goes silent and draws back from being as close to us, as He usually is. He is still there, but He does this to see if we will draw near to Him, or if we will go on our own way for a while. When we go our own way, we do not think well, and we make the wrong kind of decisions. This leads God to have to convict us of our independence, which is not very pleasant.

God does this to test us. God's tests are not to get us to sin. He tests us to see what is really in our heart. He knows already, but He wants us to stop and see that our heart is out of full fellowship with Him, so we will repent and learn our lesson. Then, we will not get away from God, even when He is silent and tests us. We will keep pressing in to God, because we know we can't live without our daily walk with Him. He is our life and strength to live in righteousness every day.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read II Chronicles 34-36 and Ezra 1-2.