Hymnal Page Scan: Our Great Redeemer’s Praise page 343 | Hymnary.org

Keyboard Recording:

I have been writing about heart energy on here. In my last post, I wrote about how we do not know what is in other people’s hearts or our own heart. God alone can truly search the human heart and know it. I was reading through the Biblical Illustrator Commentary of Jeremiah 17:9 and found some imagery that we can use.

Jeremiah 17:9 (NIV) says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

Here are 2 quotes from the Biblical Illustrator Commentary:

1) Albert Barnes says, “The human heart is a great deep: a deep so turbid (cloudy; thick or opaque with or as if with roiled sediment) by sin and agitated by passion (strong and barely controllable emotion) that we cannot look into it far; a deep which no line yet has been long enough to fathom.” The Deceitfulness of the Heart

Take time to envision that. The heart is so stirred up by sin…so agitated by uncontrolled and dysregulated emotions…that you cannot see into it. This made me think of the hymn “Jesus, I Come to Thee Longing for Rest” by Fanny Crosby – Learning to Live by Faith in which Fanny Crosby compares the heart to a raging sea. She says, “Now let the rolling waves, bend to Thy will, Say to the troubled deep, ‘Peace, Peace, be still.’” That’s what we are praying for God to do…to calm our troubled hearts…and to search them and cleanse them.

2) J. Griffin says, “Nature seems to have some self-rectifying provision within her, so as to subdue some partial disorders of our constitution; but this is not the case in radical defects and fatal diseases. So it is here. There may be some propensities even in human character which may go to counteract the operation of certain others, yet these do not reach the innate character of the heart, and never will they tend to purify it.” He goes on to say that the grace of God alone can do the work of purifying the heart. Deceitfulness of the Human Heart

I thought it was really interesting that he pointed that out. As we think about and envision the corruption that is within our hearts…and the dysregulation that goes throughout our bodies…we must remember that our body cannot heal itself from this disorder caused by our sin nature. We must call on God for help. So, take time to envision that. Think of how the body can heal from a cold or other ailments…envision those natural healing processes taking place. Then envision the sin nature within us…and think about how the body does not have natural healing mechanisms for it. We must call on God for help to subdue it.  Then envision the light of God going throughout your heart and purifying it…and feel the peace that brings.

These are 2 AI images that were generated based on the words in this post. Sometimes it’s interesting and helpful to see what’s automatically generated based on the post so I thought I would share these with you. This one I think was focusing on the words about the darkness that is in the heart…and having our hearts cleansed…and then your heart has a better energy:

This one focuses on the words about cleansing the heart:

We can sing the words to the hymn “Search Me, O God” by J. Edwin Orr as our prayer today to God asking Him to cleanse our hearts. Here are the words:

1 Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
cleanse me from ev’ry sin and set me free.

2 I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
fulfill Thy Word and make me pure within.
Fill me with fire where once I burned with shame;
grant my desire to magnify Thy name.

3 Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride;
I now surrender, Lord— in me abide.

4 O Holy Spirit, revival comes from Thee;
send a revival– start the work in me.
Thy Word declares Thou will supply our need;
for blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.