By: Gabriela Yareliz
This morning, I was listening to a message by one of my favorite philosophers, Ravi Zacharias, and he was talking about the heart of man. Man has a heart that is evil in nature, it is wicked, and betraying.
In John chapter 2, Jesus had just performed a miracle, and the people wanted to follow him, but he did not entrust Himself to them because He knew the condition of the heart of man.
“But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” (Matthew 15 :18, 19)
What is sin? 1 John 3:4 says: Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of
the law.
It is the breaking of the moral law; which is a reflection of God’s character.
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 3:23
“You know you can look at the major religions of the world, I won’t name them, but nowhere is the doctrine of sin so clearly enunciated as in the Christian faith. Very clear, with a harp into the heart accuracy. Know while some world views may say we made a slip in the garden, we somehow can correct it. Other world views believe you can, by your own moral bootstraps pull yourself up to engineer a better life in the next world. Jesus gets right to the heart of the matter and says, out of your heart and mine are the issues of life….from this is whence come evil thoughts, adultery, prevarications, sensuality, and all that we see in our world today,” Zacharias said.
He tells the story of a two brothers who lived doing terrible and crazy things. The one brother asked a minister to come and preach at his brother’s funeral, because they knew no one at the churches. The brother made a special request of the minister, that when he talk of his brother, he refer to him as a saint.
The day of the funeral arrived, and the minister stood up and spoke about the young decendent honestly. He said, “He was rotten to the bone, but compared to his brother, he was a saint.”
You see, the purpose of the story is, we may be saints when we compare ourselves to others in the same human family. Our standard of measure and comparison is low and inadequate. But what happens when we compare ourselves to God’s holiness and righteous character? There are no saints here.
“When Jacob was wrestling with God, God could have asked him many questions– Jacob said, ‘I am not going to let you go until you bless me,’ and God asked him the most extraordinary question, ‘What is your name?’
Does an omnicient God not know my name? He said, ‘My name is Jacob.’
Why do you think He asked him that? Because years before, when he [Jacob] stole the blessing [of the first born son] of his blind father, he pretended to be Esau [the first-born]. Now, he’s kneeling before an all seeing Father, and God says, ‘Who are you?’ and he says, ‘You got me. I am Jacob.’
Because he admitted who he was, God said ‘I’ll make something great out of him.’
Ladies and Gentleman, God can never make something great out of you, until you first realize how sinful your heart is before him.” (Ravi Zacharias)
It is time we stop comparing ourselves to others. We continue thinking, “Well, I am not that bad.” We must look into the face of God and see ourselves when all of our motives, intentions and pretentions are stripped away. When we look at ourselves before God, we see ourselves as we really are.
That is the beauty of God. He shows us what we are, but He also shows us what He wants us to be. Something greater, more noble and different than what the world offers today.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 