The HEART - Good or ....

Monday, April 17, 2023

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?  Jeremiah 17:9

I was passing a church sign the other day and, being a “church-a-holic”, I could not help myself; I had to read the message on their sign.  

Being quite familiar with Jeremiah’s verse about the desperately wicked heart, I immediately thought WHAT?

I tried to give a benefit of the doubt to the one who handles their signboard.  Perhaps the meaning was that we all know what’s in our hearts, where we hide all those secrets that we’d be ashamed to let others know.  But what kind of “Christian message” would that be….unleash all your doubts and sins on whoever will listen?  Perhaps the sign referred to a saved person, living a life of following Jesus, opening his or her heart of love, so it will let out a testimony of faith…how Jesus saved a lost sinner? 

Honestly, in kindness, I would love to have stretched until I found a suitable Biblical match for that signboard’s message, but came to the conclusion that dog would not hunt!  The signboard custodian may have meant well, but the theology is so Hallmark, not Christian.  It reeks of I’m OK; You’re OK, and that is NOT OK if you care at all about an honest interpretation of either God’s Word, or that which is our human nature, a deceitful and desperately-wicked heart.  If you care what Jeremiah actually said about the human heart, it matters.

A better message, especially in a world run amuck with sin and darkness would be:  

Open Your Heart and Let He Who IS Truth Come In

For You Today 

If you’re a church signboard-keeper, this bit of sniping I’ve aimed at poorly-thought-out messages could make you mad.  I hope not…it’s designed to be a wake-up call that your job is important…you’re representing Christ to the many who drive by every day.  Do that job well!

If you are not a signboard custodian, let’s not waste this thought:  Your life, and how you live it, is also representing Christ to a lost and dying world as the only hope.  The world has enough darkness…let your life’s light shine brighter than the noonday sun!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Following the Leader  and  A Light Shines in My Heart  

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©