A message from God: The transgression of the wicked resides in their hearts.

In the first devotional I wrote on Psalm 36:1, I made the point that preaching must travel through the ‘heart’ of the preacher if it is to move other hearts. That surely is a true point. If your message doesn’t stir your soul, how can you expect it to move anyone else’s?

However, in the course of studying this psalm, I have come to see that verse 1 can be alternatively rendered as above. I read somewhere that the psalmist may be referring to the pleadings, the arguments of sin within his own heart. We will readily understand this. We all know how sin argues its own case within us, and if we give it the time of day, we will, if we’re not careful, allow it to win the argument. This is the paradox Paul wrote about in Romans 7: 21-23:

“It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.” (‘The Message’).

What is the solution for this internal dichotomy? It is the inner tug-of-war we all feel from day to day. What is the answer? Paul goes on to write that the answer is a Who rather than a What. It is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

“He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you are my Lord. Help me to turn a deaf ear to the siren call of sin, and listen only to you.

P.S. Thank you again for reading these notes. It’s been a little over ten years since I started to write them, and I’m grateful for the encouragement I’ve received. From next week, I will no longer post these notes on ‘the King’s church’ facebook page, but they will go onto my ‘A date with Jesus’ facebook site.

See also the blog site: http://stephenthompson216.wordpress.com/