Is Your Heart Right With God?

 

WED Evening Prayer Reflection 081920 (PS. 119: 145-176; Acts 8: 14-25; John 6:1-15)

Is your heart right with God? That’s the question raised in this passage of the book of Acts. This story touched my heart because somehow it makes me look deep down in my own life. There was this man Simon who was astonished when people received the Holy Spirit by the laying of hands of the apostles Peter and John. How cool is that! Simon must have thought. I want that too! He offered money to get this power. I tried to understand his motivation but thought it would be speculating. If we were to think logically, we can deduct that if he was willing to pay money for it, he must have been planning to earn money with it. Was that the intent of his heart? As it happened, we know that Simon didn’t receive the Holy Spirit because he was asking for it by paying for it. Could it be that there needed to be an element of sincerity in one’s disposition in order to receive the Holy Spirit? A disposition where not only we receive, accept the word of God in our lives but also, agree to be led/ ruled by it. Peter explains why he thinks Simon’s heart was not right with God. He says: “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.” Would you say this was a word of knowledge? Did Peter see Simon’s interior disposition? I would tend to agree with this because besides his ignorance about the gift of God, who would have known about his bitterness and wickedness? I think it was the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Apostle Peter’s life. Can you imagine someone confronting you with exactly what is really going wrong in your heart/intentions? The gift of Holy Spirit can accomplish that.

Can the Holy Spirit work in the lives of those whose heart are not right with God? Again, the purposes of God are sovereign! God can do anything, but from this story, we deduct that The Holy Spirit was not in Simon. But Simon realized that his heart was laid bare before God and the apostles, and he asked for forgiveness. So, The Holy Spirit was at work in him in the end, bringing him to the right disposition of his heart. This is a huge issue in the lives of believers. We should examine ourselves: Are we right with God? with our neighbor? How can we love God whom we can’t see, if we don’t love our neighbor whom we see? 1John 4:20. Maybe we think like Simon a whole lot more than we think we do.  

For example: do we think money is the solution to everything? money cannot help us achieve all goals, certainly not our peace with God. The truth is that money can be helpful to us, but it cannot end all our problems in fact, money can be the beginning of other kinds of problems that may includes spiritual blindness. The love of Money is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10). Simon was in the bliss of his spiritual darkness/ blindness until he woke up by the apostle Peter’s words of truth and saw what was wrong deep within him. 

Our Psalm 119 today is a prayer for those seeking to receive the Holy Spirit, a sincere prayer that displays total reliance on God rather than on anything else. This gift of the Holy Spirit gives wisdom; speaking in tongues; word of knowledge; the grace of God that provides guidance or sanctifying divine influences; having reasons to be thankful rather than reasons to complain. All this brings our heart to a right disposition before God. King David wasn’t amongst people you would call easily holy, but because of his love and pursuit for God, God called him “a man after my own heart.” In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus cared for their physical hunger by feeding them bread and fish, but he really wanted them to fully understand the meaning behind God’s desire to feed his people spiritually. We have a hunger and thirst that can only be satisfied by God. Are our hearts right with God? Do you wish for your heart to be right with God? With the upright heart, we should seek God. Ps 119:7

Ps. 119: 155 is funny in this Bible version and too relevant for us: “Salvation is only gibberish to the wicked because they have never looked it up in your dictionary!” Let us seek to have an upright heart before God. Also, Is. 33:15 mentions that the character of the upright person. It refrains from touching bribes, if we did, our hearts would not be right with God. 1 Cor. 6: 13 says: “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for the food: but God shall destroy both.” Faith changes a believer from the inside. God can melt hearts of stones. The Apostles Peter and John being Jews, were deeply changed, that’s why they fully accept Samaritans whom they considered half-breeds and heretics. That’s the message of the Gospel right there. They saw that Samaritans can experience the Holy Spirit like everyone else. The apostles were led by God’s word and they allow the grace of God to fully influence, their deep-seated beliefs, to inhibit their fears and anxieties. God can do that for us. 

Will we strive for a right heart with God? 

Be blessed today and forever. Amen.