In His Presence #31: Heart Check

In His Presence · #31 · 18.05.2020

And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

Deuteronomy 8:2

Deep within the heart of man lies the secret to the man himself. It’s the path to understanding his thought pattern, his character and who he really is but most importantly, his regard for God and His commandments.

For the LORD to determine the measure and extent to which you love Him, He looks into the heart. To know what’s hidden in there, He exposes man to rather hostile, harsh and rude environments that sort of shock one into reality.

He introduces the withholding strategy. In this, He releases blessings in proportions smaller than usual for daily living at times withholding completely. Take for instance, if your monthly income is 500$, He lets it reduce to 250$, then to 150$, then to 50$ until eventually He takes it all away.

Then He casts you into the middle of your driest spell ever and watches you from a distance. During this time, visions and dreams become rare, even when they come, they never seem related to what you are going through or even expect to hear from the LORD. When you seek His voice, you are met with total silence.

The Holy Spirit withholds your every source of joy and anything you were holding on to just to make sure you are completely cornered. When you reach the point where you can’t take it anymore, then you are ready to open up. This is when He pays careful attention as you release your heart to Him.

If instead of trusting Him by offering praise, thanksgiving and worship to Him who sits upon the throne, you start grumbling, complaining, blaming Him, whining etc. because of how hard and tough things are, then know today that He really knows what is in your heart. Friend, you just walked right into the LORD’s trap.

The wilderness is the only proven place for the LORD to check what is in your heart. The Israelites have been there, so has David, Job, Daniel including our LORD Jesus. The List is endless. If He hasn’t sent you there yet, He will. Soon. Not as a one off but every other time He needs to check your heart and only He decides how long that lasts.

Your Friend,
Pastor Mark A. Odeke
FWTHS – pastormark@fwths.org