City Life Starter

The Word

Search me, 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.

Psalm 139:23-24

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society. That is why we must go on to think of the second thing: of morality inside the individual.

C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Book 3, Chapter 1

Exegesis

C.S. Lewis points out in the beginning of book 3 how much we humans tend to focus on the outside. That we judge people not by their heart, but by their actions. We can only see their actions because when we try to judge someone’s heart, we often get it completely wrong. Then again, judging someone by their actions never gets us to the point in truly understanding why someone is doing something good or bad.

The argument continues by stating that laws, in themselves, cannot make anyone good. Humans have an easy time to find ways they can break any new law and still do what they wish. In essence, there’s a tendency to not wanting to do the right thing, and we also know it is the wrong thing to do. C.S. Lewis makes the point that we need to fix the inside and not the outside.

The Bible speaks to this exact thing. God does not judge us by our actions, but by our hearts. Why would the Psalmist ask God to search his heart? Because He knows our intentions behind what we do. Though, even, as Jeremiah notes, there is no perfect heart. We are all, to some degree, missing the mark. We are tainted by sin.

The worldly solution to sin is to make new laws, the Christian solution is Jesus, who came to save us from sin and rescue us by His grace. It is by the grace of God that we are able to do good and change our inward behavior. God can turn any sinner into a saint.

Application

My wife and I have been watching “The Good Place.” In large part because it relates to this whole series on morality. In one episode, a character is given a second chance to do good. They accomplish this for a short while and then fall back into their old ways. The aspect of “doing good” gave no benefits and provided no reward. Even the irony behind it is that each “good” action had a point system attached. Which, if this person had known about, would still create a reward based system. That is because, in every religion or every action on earth, there is a sense that we need to get something in return for doing good and that’s what the world tells you is required.

Yet, as Christians, we do not live by the aspect of a reward based system. We cannot earn our way into Heaven through our good actions outweighing the bad. We cannot pay or give anything to God to gain entrance. Nor can we get a second chance. Jesus did all the work on the cross already, we are given a free gift and eternity in paradise. We do good because of the free gift that we did not earn. That’s what matters and that’s how you should live your life as a Christian.

Prayer

Thank you Father for all that you do. You gave us the free gift of salvation through the death and resurrection of Your Son, Jesus. Help me change from the inside and to treat others better than myself, not to judge based on what the world sees, but to see people through your eyes. In Jesus’ name, amen.