James 3:14

"But if you have bitter envy and self seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth."

It's funny how you hear, "follow your heart" when your heart is controlled by your brain. Interesting! 1 Samuel 16:7, "But the Lord said to Samuel do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." God looks at a mans heart for the kind of person he is. For God has shown love, grace and mercy to one another. Jesus did the same thing. Now God wants us to do so as well. It's difficult to distinguish your heart from your brain with that kind of thought process. Matthew 6:21 says, "for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." It's interesting when something that you care so much about, as an animate object, is taken from you or you have to give up, your true colors come out. Where your treasure is, so will your heart be. Now we begin to break it down how God begins to look at us. When we show the love we have for an object or the care shown toward something that is less than a necessity it begins to affect our relationship with God. My youth pastor, rich, once said to me, "you can't worship and praise two Gods at once, you will love one and hate the other." It's most interesting to me because it's true. If you use money for an example and compare with loving Christ, depending on how you glorify God, if it's a positive glorification, you will love God and praise Him for the blessing of the money. And some, who may have not such a strong relationship with God would praise the money and go and spend it continually and forget about the blessing God has given them. Jeremiah 17:9-10, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." I stand in awe how God is able to see inside our hearts directly and doesn't care how we look in a physical stature. Now we can begin to look into what James is telling these twelve tribes not to do. He then says at the end of the verse, "do not boast and lie against the truth." Okay, fair enough, do not yell...better words, do not tell a lie and commit to that lie. We see what happens in Acts 5:1-4' what Ananias does, "but a certain man named Anaias with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." Ouch, that hurts. He not only lied to the people he sold the possession to, not only lied to the apostles about it, and committed to the lie, but kept truthful to his lie to God. I begin to say, "hey, hello, over here, what are you doing!!!!" Ananias just did what James told him not to do. Yes, two totally different times within context, but still, I mean, come on. Directly after lieing to God, Ananias and Sapphira both died. So James says do not. Yes, we are human, yes our hearts are deceitful, and yes we commit sin every day, that doesn't mean we should lie to God. He is the creator, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, He can do whatever He wants. With a God that created the entire universe in the snap of His fingers, I wouldn't even want to begin or even better, think about lying to Him. Jesus says in John 8:32, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Amen to that! I know one thing is for sure, is that everyone, I mean everyone wants to be free.

So in continuing with what James says, I will read my bible everyday and continue in Gods word of truth. "But those who wait on the lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31