The Challenge of Self-Assessment

The Challenge of Self-Assessment
Jeremiah 16-20
“The heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according tohis ways, According to the results of his deeds.”
The threat to our spiritual life is not the world we live in or the evil that seems to grip society. The greatest threat to us is ourselves. It is much easier to spot the sin in others than to be honest about the sins in our own lives. We are masters of self-deception. John Calvin writes, “The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood lurks, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.” Stephen Charnock points out that “self is the great anti-Christ and anti-god in the world, that sets up itself above all else.” There are several ways our heart deceives us. First, it deceives us into denying the presence of sin. We easily see the faults in others and condemn them for their weaknesses, but remain blind to our own failures and struggles. While we easily see the faults in others, we turn a blind eye to our own self-examination. Second, it deceives us by denying the severity of sin. We condemn others for their sin but minimize the severity of sin in our own lives. Lastly, it deceives us by denying the judgment of sin. Whenever we minimize sin, we also minimize God's judgment. We make sin palatable and acceptable before God, reaffirming in our self-righteousness that we are free from its corrupting presence. Others may sin, but we remain righteous. Sin is the ultimate huckster promising us pleasure without consequences and sin without punishment.    
However, as we turn to the pages of Jeremiah, we discover a different perspective. After pronouncing judgment upon Judah for their sin, God reminds the people that in our sin, we are self-deluded. Being deceived means believing a lie and following a myth. The lie is that we are untouched by sin, and the myth is that there are no consequences for sin. We easily see (and condemn) the wrongs of others but remain ignorant and in denial about the sins that control and dominate our own lives. We are desperately sick. The word refers to a disease, pain, or illness that is incurable. Sin hides behind the veil of self-righteousness and self-delusion. However, we are not completely without hope. Our hope does not come from ourselves, for we are deceived. Our hope comes from God, for He knows the heart and can penetrate every nook and cranny and reveal the sins our heart desperately wants to control and govern. He is the only one who can pull back the screen behind which we hide our sin. He brings us hope by revealing sin’s presence so that we might obtain His forgiveness. He is able to search and investigate our entire being to discover the areas where we are steeped in sin. Not only can He search our heart, but He can do the one thing we cannot—change our heart so that we rediscover the joy of righteousness and obedience to Him. To trust in Him is not only to trust and obey His laws, but also to trust Him to reveal our hearts so that He might change us to conform to Him. The paradox of our self-deception is that the more we believe we are righteous before God, the more self-deceived we become. The starting point of transformation is self-surrender and allowing God to inventory our lives and change us. The first step in salvation is to allow God to examine our spiritual health and reveal our sin. Then we can turn to the only one who can not only avert its consequences but also change our hearts, so that we might seek the righteousness of Christ. Today, ask God to do a self-examination of our lives to reveal the areas that we are blind to. The greatest prayer in the Bible is not the pray of Jabez to receive God’s blessing, but the prayer of David to receive God’s transformation. “Search me, O God, and know my heart…and lead me in the everlasting way” (Psalm 139:23-24). This is the prayer God delights in answering.