New Morning Mercies #67

It’s the heart that’s the problem. People, locations, and situations don’t cause me to sin; they’re where the sin of my heart gets revealed.

If you ask the little boy why he hit his sister, he won’t tell you it was because of the sin that’s in his heart. No, he’ll say, “She was bothering me.” If you ask the teenager why he came in so late, he won’t willingly take responsibility. He’ll tell you a long story of how there was an accident on the freeway, then a long train he had to wait for, and then a water main break that flooded the street he normally drives on. If you ask the father why he is so angry all the time, he won’t tell you it’s because of the selfishness and impatience in his heart. No, he’ll say it’s because of his kids; they just drive him crazy. If you ask the single person why she’s so moody and discontent, she won’t say it’s because of the jealousy that resides in her heart. She’ll point to all the ways that life has been hard. If you ask the old man why he is so mean, he won’t tell you it’s because of the bitterness that has captured his heart. No, he’ll talk about all the times in his life when he didn’t get what he knew he deserved. Sometimes I think it’s the one biblical truth that no one believes. When we do something wrong, we all tend to point outside ourselves for the cause: “This traffic makes me so angry”; “She gets me so upset”; or “My boss pulls the worst out of me.”

It’s a comfortable, street-level heresy. It feels good to think that your biggest problems in life exist outside you and not inside you, but the problem is that it simply is not true. Jesus devastated the self-atoning perspective on human behavior in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder. . . .’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. . . . You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:21–22, 27–28). Sin is a matter of the heart before it is ever an issue of our behavior. This means that your and my biggest problem in life exists inside us and not outside us. It’s the evil inside me that connects me to the evil outside me. So I must confess that I am my greatest problem. And if I confess this, I am saying that I don’t so much need to be rescued from people, locations, and situations. I am in desperate need of the grace that is alone able to rescue me from me. I can escape situations and relationships, but I have no power to escape me. This is exactly why David prayed in Psalm 51 that God would create a clean heart in him. God’s grace is grace for the heart, and that is very good news.

For further study and encouragement: James 4:1–10