GodReflection: Power Words
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; – Psalms 95:6
I live in a digital world that creates a nanosecond attention span.
Soundbite communication is the 21st century reality. I can only skim the surface of subjects I judge of interest. Everything else passes before my eyes at the speed of a celebratory pyrotechnic display.
To examine takes time.
From pulpits and pundits preconceived opinions flow in abundance toward my ears. The flow is so rapid—and often so bias—that the words seldom make the detour through my mind.
To examine the opinion avalanche cannot be at mach speed.
In my fast-paced world, there are two realms where I must slow down and examine with unhurried focus. Both are areas of eternal importance. Neither are soundbite subjects.
The truth is, I will never be able to comprehend either subject fully while I walk upon the face of earth.
However, I am beginning to understand with intense clarity my need to know God and to know my heart is my greatest aim. Both demand time for focused examination.
The Creator wants me to know Him. He wrote down His story. The more I examine His story the more I learn of His constant and consistent love for me.
He tells me the story of Jesus. Through Jesus, I receive grace that allows God to count me as sinless. I come to know God by time spent in examination of the character and the acts of Jesus. By seeing Jesus I see God.
The more I examine Scripture and the more I allow the Holy Spirit to live and work through me, the greater I understand and know the Creator.
To examine is key to the process.
Now, here comes the challenge—to know my heart.
At times God seems easier to know than my heart.
In her 1815 novel Emma, Jane Austen writes, “Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
Because of the residual of my Adamic wiring, to know my own heart is to clear away deception. That makes knowing God indispensable to heart health.
Since my heart connects to my portrayal of Jesus before others and as heart affects destiny, I want to live in examination mode.
Job places his finger on reality when he asks his accusers, “Would it turn out well if He examined you? Could you deceive Him as you might deceive a mortal?”
Translation: God knows my heart.
A self-inflicted heart exam in quiet and reflective stillness is always in order. Surely, that is an act of worship.
I worship because of the confidence I have in Jesus’ gracious blood to purify both recognized and unrecognized defects found in my heart.
As I went through the process of this morning’s post, I came across a plea in the Lamentations that reminds me of the power that flows from self-examination tied to action: Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.
To bow, to kneel, and to examine, provide power for the journey and worship of my Maker.
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells – A GodReflection on Examine as a Word of Power.
God Reflection 