Thought for Today
Diligence Within
“And the children of Israel did secretly those things
that were not right against the Lord their God”
(2 Kings 17:9)
Truth searches out the deep things. Its ministration is one of illumination and revelation. The secret things are not hidden from the “eyes of Him, with whom we have to do”. These secret things determine our true standing before God. It is here, within the inner workings of our heart, that we find the authenticity of our lives. The desire of the sincere is to guard and protect the condition and the verity of one’s own heart. If there is darkness there it will taint our ability to deal in truth with all those around us.
Compromise brings us little by little into deception and the life of a hypocrite. It is a slow process of the Light of God within becoming dim while one gives way to self-deception. If the light within becomes darkness, how great is that darkness! The Holy Scriptures are full of examples whereby we are to be instructed and warned of this deadly malaise. We must continually set a watch upon our own hearts and pray with intensity that the Lord make known to us the secret things of our own hearts. Many a life has fallen within long before it falls without. It is the gradual decay of neglect, lethargy, and trust in something other than the fire and searching of God within our hearts. Comforting ourselves with doctrine rather than confronting the contradiction within of what God has called us to, is the darkest of all deceptions. The true in heart pursue authenticity as the prize that it is: the power to walk in His light and to know the confidence which comes from a pure and simple walk with God. The Peace which radiates from right-being is profound and liberating but the fear of exposure ever haunts the hypocrite.
“Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks,
and look well to thy herds.”
Proverbs 27:23
It is the inward part of our lives where God seeks to impart His truth to make us free from every impediment to becoming His light in this world.
“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts”
Psalm 51:6
Brian Troxel
