Secret Places

In my last blog, I talked about decision making and how when it comes to making decisions, God expects us to be spiritual people who focus upon spiritual decisions utilizing spiritual principles. If any of the leadership within our body read my last blog, they would have recognized the practices of increased prayer, searching the scriptures and seeking what would be most glorifying to God. That is the policy that the leadership adopted several months ago whenever important decisions needed to be made that could have huge spiritual or financial impacts on the body.

I shared that because over the last several months, Karen and I have adopted that same policy when it comes to making spiritual and financial decisions within our own home and we know from practical experience that it truly works. As a person who too often allowed my emotions to lead my actions, I have had to learn to allow God to be in control of issues that fall into his realm of expertise and ultimate final judgment. Of course, God doesn’t expect Christians to be totally catatonic when it comes to things going on around them. He expects us to react when he leads us to react and he expects us to speak out when things don’t line up with the Word or nature of God.

I alluded to this post in my last blog because I felt that God gave me both topics at the same time several mornings ago while I was lying awake in bed. When this topic first came to me, I really thought that “Secret Places” was going to be about physical places. As I was doing some labor intensive work out behind my house, I was “talking” to God at the same time and asking him for direction when it came to writing this blog. It was then that God revealed to me that what I had envisioned as “Secret Places” and what he intended were two different things. He was talking about the “secret places” that nobody except God could visit. It is the secret places of the heart.

I have chosen several verses from Psalm 139 because they tell us that God knows everything, including our thoughts and motives of the heart. I left some verses out because it is rather lengthy, but it doesn’t change the meaning of the message. (Psalm 139) ¹Lord, you have examined me and know all about me.² You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts before I think them.³ You know where I go and where I lie down. You know everything I do.⁴ Lord, even before I say a word, you already know it.⁵ You are all around me—in front and in back—and have put your hand on me.⁷ Where can I go to get away from your Spirit? Where can I run from you?¹¹ I could say, “The darkness will hide me. Let the light around me turn into night.” ¹² But even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as light as the day; darkness and light are the same to you. ²³ God, examine me and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ See if there is any bad thing in me. Lead me on the road to everlasting life. New Century Version (NCV)

When my family travels long distances, we frequently listen to the dramatization “Affabel, Window of Eternity” by John Bevere. One of the most enlightening statements comes from one of the rulers to a person who is getting ready to stand before the King (God). She says, “Your rewards depend on what you say and what you do. Not only will your words and works be examined, but the motive behind them. You will also be judged by the thoughts you embraced.  Do not forget God’s judgment is righteous, testing the mind and the heart. Man's judgment is in light of the visual world but God's is based on a different light.”

 

The problem with the Secret Places of the heart is that as humans, we can’t truly tell what is there. There are some awesome men and women of God who we wouldn’t even suspect because they are extremely quiet and meek and work under the radar of our Christian detectors. They have good hearts and do good things for God and get little or no recognition for their work here on earth. On the other hand, there are those other people out there with evil hearts. Oh sure, we can sometimes see the fruit that an evil heart produces but sometimes people can be really good actors/actresses and can deceive a great multitude of people for a long period of time before the truth is revealed. Especially dangerous are those people who have learned fluent Christianese and church practices through decades of Church attendance. That is why it is so important to adopt a spiritual decision making policy in your own lives and to seek the Holy Spirits guidance. Here is the bottom line; if something doesn’t feel right, sound right, or look right, perhaps the Holy Spirit is telling you that it isn’t right.