What Lurks Below the Surface of Your Heart?
Sometimes we get way more concerned with the part of our Christianity that "shows" and not what actually lies beneath in our mind, heart and soul.
An iceberg seems like it could be a fitting visual of our Christian walk with only 10% of the average iceberg peaking above the water. Icebergs range in size from a large piano to a 10 story builing! Thus, the small portion of the ice you see above the water can be incredibly small compared to the massive ice that lurks beneath the surface. Sometimes we get way more concerned with the part of our Christianity that “shows” and not what actually lies beneath in our mind, heart and soul.
The more I study the Bible the more I realize how concerned God is with our heart. If what shows on the surface doesn’t match the inside, our Lord is unimpressed with our shiny outer vessel. Jesus talks about this often in regards to the Pharisees looking perfectly religious on the outside, but utterly untransformed on the inside.
Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Jesus points this out in a pretty brash way to get the point across to believers that this is NOT the example to follow. We should not aspire to LOOK good and be ugly on the inside as the Pharisees.
Matthew 5:20
For I [Jesus] tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is the same Jesus that chose to hang out with the outcasts of society, such as the tax collectors, prostitutes, etc maybe because he was keenly aware of who desired redemption the most desperately. Although, I hope we can all agree that WE ALL desperately need redemption. It doesn’t matter how pretty the package is on the outside, if the 90% below the surface is ugly.
God gave Moses the ten commandments so that the Israelites would understand God’s priorities and have the law to follow:
Exodus 20: 1-17
And God spoke all these words: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
They were pretty straight forward rules, but as I covered earlier in this post…God is less concerned about rule following and more about complete, heart transformation. Jesus lays this out for us in Matthew 5-7 with the Beautitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus shows up on the scene he goes deeper than the Ten Commandments; he teaches God not only doesn’t want us to murder, he doesn’t even want us to be angry (Matthew 5:21-22). He not only doesn’t want us to commit adultery, he doesn’t even want us to look lustfully at another (Matthew 5:27-28). God doesn’t even want us to take a single step down a path that our thoughts are going to tempt us to ACT in a manner that doesn’t honor him. If our mind and heart are the first “filter” for our behavior then transformation (or lack thereof) is evident in the actions that we display. The parts of us that show on the surface represent the 90% that lurks beneath.
What are your actions saying about what lies within your flesh; within your mind, heart and soul. Do your actions reveal the heart of Jesus? Do you love people like Jesus loved people? (This by the way doesn’t always mean being warm and fuzzy, sometimes this means holding people accountable.) Do you forgive those that have done you wrong or are you nice to their face and harbor resentment within? Do you secretly struggle with porn or lust while seemingly portraying a devoted marriage? Let’s dig deep into our core and see what is lurking beneath; if it isn’t honoring to God then our outer 10% that we are showing off to the world is just a whitewashed tomb. Let us make sure our 10% exterior portrays what lies within the 90% that lies below the surface.
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