The Superior Leader - Part 5

READ: Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and productive and cuts beyond every two-edged dagger and penetrates as far as a dividing of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and is able to discern considerations and intents of the heart. And no creation is unseen before his face, but everything is naked and has been laid bare to his eyes, before whom is our account.

REFLECT
My almost two year old grandson has just learned how to say the word "scary". For the last few months he would say a word that sounded like "seegig" but you could tell he meant "scary" because he would get a look of fear on his face and he would physically recoil from whatever it was that created that fear within him.

For all of us this passage of scripture would be "seegig" if we didn't know (or didn't believe) how much God loves us and how much he wants us to trust him, obey him and ultimately be with him for all eternity. In order for this passage not to be terrifying, we must truly believe that He is on our side.

However, knowing that should not, and can not, take away from the very real and sobering truth of this passage. God's word is not just something to read. It isn't just ink on pages bound up in a nice leather (or hardcover or softcover) binding. It is alive and it is at work in our hearts, cutting through all the surface junk and the outward facades we create and gets down to what really matters: the considerations and intents of our hearts! God knows who we really are and through his word he can put us in touch with our personal reality, if we are willing to listen. It isn't always good news - in fact, there is a whole lot of junk that often accumulates in our hearts - but the good news is that God reveals it so that we can confess it, be forgiven and repent!

No one fools God! He sees all and he knows all! We might fool others or even truly deceive ourselves, but God knows "the very thoughts and attitudes of our hearts". And it will be to him that we must give an account. We can either do that right now, and then on an ongoing basis, where there is grace (mercy + love). Or we can give account on the last day, after the offer of forgiveness has been withdrawn.

PRAYER - see Psalm 139
O, Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord...Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast...For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb...My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place...All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

OBEY
Will you give an honest account to God today of the considerations and intents of your heart? Will you open up about who you really are and what you really think and feel before your Creator and Sustainer? Will you trust in his love and allow his word to reveal what lies deep in your soul? Will you bring it all into the light where it can do no more damage? Or will you delay and postpone, being unwilling to let God reveal your real self and thus your need for him? You will either account for your life now and enjoy eternity or you will spend eternity wishing you hadn't waited until you had no choice.