The apostle John provides us a phrase stuffed with angst when he writes, “every time our coronary heart condemns us . . .” (1 John 3:20). Has your coronary heart ever condemned you; shut up your happiness in a coffin? Has it replayed your sin on the large display and made you watch it on repeat?
“Every time our coronary heart condemns us.” You’ve got sinned; you realize it. This isn’t another person enjoying quick and unfastened with the info or maligning your motives. That is you: your personal coronary heart, your personal conscience. A coronary heart that knew your secret ideas from the start of the temptation now factors the finger. While you resurface from the sin, there he stands, ready. Now that you just’re sober, the night time is now over, his low voice asks, How might you?
“Every time our coronary heart condemns us” — actually, always, with out pity. His voice threatens curses upon us. “Cursed shall you be within the metropolis, and cursed shall you be within the discipline. . . . Cursed shall you be whenever you are available, and cursed shall you be whenever you exit” (Deuteronomy 28:16, 19). He condemns us, however is he incorrect? He speaks plainer than we’d like, stronger than we are able to bear, extra precisely than we want have been true — however what can we reply? Towards God — our heavenly Father, our pierced Good friend, our grieved Spirit — how might we? We hear the rooster crow; we meet his eyes. Our resolves lie damaged, our Savior left forgotten — what now?
Find out how to Reassure Your Coronary heart
Right here within the deep sea, the apostle John seeks to reassure the true Christian’s coronary heart.
By this we will know that we’re of the reality and reassure our coronary heart earlier than him; for every time our coronary heart condemns us, God is bigger than our coronary heart, and he is aware of every thing. (1 John 3:19–20)
As a caring pastor, John comes alongside the troubled soul and seeks to uplift the kid’s coronary heart earlier than his Father. He would take away your foot from the online, if he can. He is aware of how typically our hearts — when lastly delicate to what we’ve completed — bind and abuse us. They strike repeatedly with the rod as if to make up for misplaced time. Zeal for our sin consumes him; his blows can go away us limp upon his knee.
John intervenes in 3 ways. He considers what our coronary heart forgets, he considers the one who is aware of every thing, and he reminds us who is bigger than our coronary heart.
1. What Our Hearts Neglect
By this we will know that we’re of the reality and reassure our coronary heart earlier than him.
Your coronary heart condemns you as a result of, although you will have been watchful in current months, you plunged into pornography. You dedicated adultery in your coronary heart — and this, maybe, as a married man and father. How will you look your daughter or spouse or Lord within the eyes after what these eyes have appeared upon? Is that this actually the motion of a real Christian? Your coronary heart condemns you.
Hearts delicate to sin are presents of God (Ezekiel 36:26), however hearts stuffed with godly grief can fixate on the transgression, forgetting all that God is doing in our lives moreover. All the guts can see is guilt, not progress; fruit of sin, not fruit of the Spirit. Overzealous, our hearts wield the rod for condemnation the place the Lord intends self-discipline.
So John reveals the panorama of what God is doing in us. “By this we will know that we’re of the reality and reassure our coronary heart earlier than him” (1 John 3:19) — by what? By our love for the brothers, not in phrase or discuss however in deed and in fact (1 John 3:18). Love for Christ’s folks reminds us that God is basically working in us. Serving Christ’s folks, feeding them, visiting them whereas sick or in jail, praying for them, worshiping and weeping and rejoicing with them — all are proof that no matter we did for the least of Christ’s brothers we did for Christ (Matthew 25:31–40). Surveying a lifetime of love ought to persuade our hearts whereas within the mire of our most up-to-date sin. “We all know that we’ve handed out of demise into life, as a result of we love the brothers” (1 John 3:14).
John longs to carry the chin of each son and daughter of God caught in sin, however he’s cautious all through the letter to outline who these kids are. He doesn’t cheer us cheaply. He doesn’t say, “God loves you and forgives you although you proceed to apply sin, stroll in darkness, and possess no evident love for Christ’s folks.” As James Alexander writes, “Regret with out repentance, and self-contempt with out modification are dreadful scourges” (Ideas on Preaching, 42). John can be horrified to see you assured on this life solely to be damned within the subsequent.
However he would have each true little one of God assured. And actual (but imperfect) proof of Spirit-wrought love reassures our hearts earlier than God.
2. What God Is aware of
God is bigger than our coronary heart, and he is aware of every thing.
John instructs fallen saints to contemplate all of the proof. Right here we discover an efficient antidote for the myopic introspection of a sunken coronary heart. Take into account the Spirit’s work in your life; take into account the actual fruit of affection to God and man that hangs out of your branches, fruit that’s — reward be to God — supernatural. You might be protected to contemplate all of the proof (it’s not presumption) as a result of John tells us that God does. “God is bigger than our hearts, and he is aware of every thing.”
Your coronary heart doesn’t know every thing and sometimes forgets what it does know. God does know every thing, and he doesn’t overlook. He sees greater than your most up-to-date fall — the sin that breaks your coronary heart and sheds your tears — he sees a brand new life and fruit (even on this contrition) that provides honor to his expensive Son and indwelling Spirit. He noticed what you probably did final night time — and he sees repentance within the morning. He noticed the final week of apathy, of lust, of anger, of covetousness, of resistance to his presence, however he additionally sees this final yr of progress in purity, in evangelism, in service to the native church, in self-control, in prayer, and in data of Christ Jesus.
“Forgiven one, God is bigger than your coronary heart. His phrase is decisive. He holds the gavel.”
Peter is a superb instance of how God’s figuring out every thing — not simply our fall — comforts the kid of God. Three denials and lots of coronary heart accusations later, Peter swims out of these chilly waters to fulfill Jesus on the shore for breakfast. Three affirmations should observe three denials. However as Jesus asks thrice, “Peter, do you like me?” what does Peter say? Not, “I feel so, Lord,” or merely, “Sure, Lord, I really like you.” He affirms thrice the Lord’s data of that love. Of the third time, we learn,
Peter was grieved as a result of he stated to him the third time, “Do you like me?” and he stated to him, “Lord, you realize every thing; you realize that I really like you.” (John 21:17)
If he allowed his coronary heart to solely take into account his three denials, he may need chosen Judas’s finish. However the Lord had prayed for him, and he knew Peter’s denials have been a sorrowful chapter in a bigger story. Peter actually liked the Lord, and he reassured his coronary heart that the Lord knew it too. God is bigger than our coronary heart, and he is aware of every thing.
3. Higher Than All
God is bigger than our coronary heart, and he is aware of every thing.
Lastly, John desires to supply one other argument to restrict the violence our hearts can provide us: God is bigger than our coronary heart. Your coronary heart doesn’t sit on the judgment seat — reward God. With our coronary heart, all we are able to count on is justice. You’d condemn you. If even we stand in opposition to us, why wouldn’t a holy God? As a result of this God who is aware of every thing — not solely what we simply did, and never solely that we actually love him and his folks regardless of what we simply did — he is aware of what he has completed.
And what has he completed? He has despatched his solely Son into the world, to not condemn the world however so that the world is perhaps saved by him (John 3:17). What has he completed? He has not spared his solely Son however has given him up for us all (Romans 8:32). If God is for you, may even your personal coronary heart efficiently stand in opposition to you? To overlook mercy towards us is to overlook his personal beloved Son and stand deaf to that Son’s intercession for us.
“Father, as your love has freely chosen this son, as we’ve completed that daughter’s redemption earlier than she was even born, pour out your mercy afresh. Have we not already dealt fully with the sin? Have you ever not laid all upon me — and did I fail to separate condemnation from them so far as the east is from the west? Give heaven one other event to sing of our nice salvation.”
The Father receives such pleading with recent satisfaction. That is the God better than your coronary heart. His methods of mercy aren’t your methods, neither are his ideas of grace your expectations of grace. His methods of grace are increased than man’s — because the heavens are increased than the earth, the angel above the ant. Go to him anew, wander dwelling to him, whilst your coronary heart rehearses how unworthy you’re to be known as his son. Lookup: already he runs to you. Already he instructions the gown and ring to be introduced. Already he begins to quiet you together with his love.
Have you ever completed evil earlier than him, and your coronary heart now condemns you? Forgiven one, God is bigger than your coronary heart. His phrase is decisive. He holds the gavel. If you’re his, you could but be additional chastised, however in Christ, you’re by no means condemned. Beloved, “By this we will know that we’re of the reality and reassure our coronary heart earlier than him; for every time our coronary heart condemns us, God is bigger than our coronary heart, and he is aware of every thing” (1 John 3:19–20).
