Are Heartaches and Sin Curable?

Psalms 139:1-6 ESV

 

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

    and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

    and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

    it is high; I cannot attain it.”

 

We were created by God – Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit. So, God knows us better than anyone on this earth could ever know us, including ourselves. He knows us from the inside out. He knows everything we do, every thought we think, every attitude, and every temptation we face, etc. He is acquainted with all our ways. Nothing is hidden from the Lord. He sees it all and he knows it all.

 

So, he is absolutely the best doctor we could ever go to and the only psychiatrist we, as Christians, should ever go to. For he is the only one who knows truly what is going on in our minds and hearts, and he is the only one with the correct remedy for what ails us. And that remedy can be found for us in God’s word, but we have to be willing to listen to the Lord and then to do what he says to do, and we have to stop listening to the flesh.

 

Now, I am not saying we should not seek godly counsel, but it needs to be godly counsel based on the truths of God’s Word and not on humanistic philosophy and cultural norms and the thinking and reasoning of sinful man. For so much of what is called “Christian counseling” is barely Christian at all or it is a mixture of Christianity and the philosophies of humans in their flesh, and thus it is not godly counsel.

 

So, when we as humans are struggling with sin or when we are going through difficult trials or when we are being treated badly by others and we are sad or despondent or feeling fearful and confused, we need to go to God and to his word. For he is our only hope of salvation! He is our only truth we must follow. He is the only one who knows our minds and hearts and so he is the only one to direct us in the paths that we must go.

 

For humanistic philosophy and modern psychology will most often try to tag some mental illness tag on every sin issue. And even many Christians (or professing Christians) are buying into this way of thinking, and thus they are remaining trapped in (addicted to) sin, well because they want to be, in reality, but also because they are being handed a neat and tidy excuse for why they are still trapped in sin, and they are being told they can’t help it.

 

I remember a few years back I was attending a ladies’ Bible study in an institutional church. It must have been time for prayer requests and I think I was asking prayer for my husband who has been a lifetime addict to sexual sin (he publicly confesses this). And the ladies’ response to me was that it was a sickness and that he can’t help it. Wow! Now that is anti-biblical! God in no way makes excuses for anyone addicted to sexual sin or any sin.

 

And then a few years back I also attended a seminar of some kind at a Christian counseling center with my husband who was seeking help there with his addiction, and a man in the group asked a question in which he stated that he was basically vegging out on porn, and so the lady teaching the seminar told him that he just needed to “claim who you are in Christ,” as though that was to make it better. Another anti-biblical approach to sin!

 

There are so many bad ways in which Christians are dealing with their sin issues which are anti-biblical and which are keeping them trapped in their sins, for they are being told they can’t help it, or they just need to claim who they are in Christ, as though who we are in Christ is separate from the sins we commit, i.e. separate from the things that we do. And then they are being told they will always be an addict and their dependency needs to be in support groups and that there is where they are to receive their help.

 

Now, God did give us the body of Christ so that we could encourage and help one another in our walks of faith, but not to lead us to humanistic and anti-biblical teaching that does nothing to deliver us out of our sin but that gives us excuses so that we can remain trapped in our sins by calling it something else where we don’t have to take personal responsibility for it. But God says we must take personal responsibility and we must obey him, not man.

 

Psalms 139:13-16 ESV

 

“For you formed my inward parts;

    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

    my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

    the days that were formed for me,

    when as yet there was none of them.”

 

When God created us, i.e. when he knit us together in the wombs of our mothers he did not do this arbitrarily or then take his hands off and just let us go however we want. He made us with a purpose in mind. In his book were written all the days that were formed (or ordained) for us, when as yet none of them had come into being. So certainly he has the power to help us to overcome every obstacle that presents itself in our lives.

 

Who better to help us with our life situations than the one who created us, and who created us with a purpose in mind for our lives? We have to stop believing the lies coming from the mouths of humans who are speaking the thoughts of the flesh and not the thoughts of God. For they are telling us that God can’t help us, that there is a chemical imbalance in our brains or we have a sickness that God is incapable of healing.

 

Does that even begin to make sense? No! Who better to know how to fix anything other than the one who created it? And it isn’t as though we are not given the knowledge of these things about God and about how he works in our lives and what he is able to do in our lives if we are willing and if we will cooperate with him in believing him and then in doing what he says to do. It is all spoken to us in the Scriptures, so we are not without knowledge.

 

So, we need to trust the one who created us with our lives for he is the only one who knows us and who knows what is best for us and who knows how to fix what is broken in our minds and in our hearts. We just have to trust him, and then we need to get in his word and read it in context, for the remedy is quite clear. We have to surrender our lives to Jesus and follow him in where he leads us in doing whatever he commands us to do.

 

Psalms 139:17-18,23-24 ESV

 

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

    How vast is the sum of them!

If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

    I awake, and I am still with you.”

 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart!

    Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

    and lead me in the way everlasting!”

 

A lot of people continue in their sinful addictions (in their slavery to sin) because they don’t want to let go of their sin and they are not willing to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ and to trust him with their lives. A lot of them, too, are not willing to have God search their hearts and to show them what is lurking inside their hearts, which is what is leading them to sin.

 

They don’t want to see it because they don’t want to face the truth, and they don’t want to have to change, and so they chase after the lies for the lies don’t call them to repentance or to obedience to the Lord and they excuse away their sinful practices by calling them something else. So, they will never be free because they don’t want to be free, because if they want to be free, Jesus has provided the way. They just have to go his way.

 

The Rock of My Heart

 

Lyricist: Bassford, Matthew W.; Psalm 73

Composer: Schales, Glenda Barnhart

 

My Lord, I need nothing beside You;

Without You, I could not have stood.

Your promise is my hope and my refuge;

Your nearness, my strength and my good.

 

When I was distressed and embittered,

By things I could not understand,

Your presence was continually with me;

You always took hold of my hand.

 

I know that Your counsel will guide me

In wisdom, devotion, and love,

And afterward You’ll call me to glory

To dwell in Your presence above.

 

My heart may be broken within me;

My earthly strength may depart.

But You are my portion forever,

You are the Rock of my heart.

You are the Rock of my heart.

 

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