Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart belong to man, But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
Pro 16:2  All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the spirits.
Pro 16:3  Commit your works to the LORD, And your thoughts will be established.

To the best of my knowledge, no man or woman comes to Christ through their mind, but rather it is their heart. Despite all the logic, the history, the evidence, the data, etc, there is no point at which one confesses Christ as their Lord and Saviour through intellectual means. The only way to God is through the heart of a humble man who is ready to confess that they are a sinner. I can say this is true for me after spending 18 years trying to “understand” God, while not preparing my heart for Him.

This is why intellectuals, psychiatrists, and scientists seem to have the most difficult time understanding faith in Christ. They simply cannot grasp that which is beyond their reasoning. Case in point, Mr. Jordan Peterson. While he has great intellect, by his own confession, he lacks the wisdom of God because he does not receive Jesus as God. In his own words, Peterson says he lives as if God were real. He does not know God to the best of my knowledge by listening to his own words.

Tell me, how many people are you in a relationship with, because it just seems to intellectually make sense? How many of you have married your spouse because it just seemed like the logical thing to do at the time? How many of you have had children simply because the math added up and you wanted someone in your life to look after you when you’re old and wearing Depends?

Do you see where I am going here? Despite our thinking differently, we are led through life by our hearts, and it’s only when our hearts have been prepared by ourselves that we can come to Christ. Once we have done so and allowed God into our hearts, He works on us and our language changes. The things we say are different. We start to realize the power of our words, and we submit them to Him. God spoke everything into existence. As image bearers of God, having freewill of choice, we do the same in our own lives, which is why we must give our tongues to Him.

Why is that?

Because our ways are pure in our own eyes. Our heart, our feelings, our emotions tell us that we are just. We believe our intentions are good. We must understand that without allowing God to weigh our spirit, to check our bias, to examine our hearts, we are capable of doing great evil and calling it good. We don’t need to look past our own children to see this. They hit their sibling, they snatch that toy, they do hurtful things as babes with a natural belief that it is just. “They did it first” is the cry we so often hear when we discipline them for their actions.

Some of us call other drivers names when they unintentionally cut us off or are not paying attention…don’t get me started on the ones that do it intentionally. Our hearts tell us we’re in the right, they’re in the wrong, and we’re just in our emotional reaction. I still can’t figure it out, though. Of all the millions of drivers on the road, why is it that I am the only good one? I digress.

Now, let’s get real for a moment. Look at every atrocious act of mankind. Every fight, every war, every racist slur, the slavery of people, the genocide of mankind, and the agenda to control the world all come from one spirit. The spirit of justification. There is not one hate crime, and I mean real hate crimes, not the “you don’t agree with me, so you must hate me” victim story being told, but actual hatred from one man to another comes from a place of justification.

• I am right and you are wrong, so I am justified.
• You did it first, so my response is justified.
• Your gender does this, so my response is justified.
• Your race does that, so my hate is justified.
• Your ancestors did evil, so my demands on you are just.
• Your homelessness, your addictions, your spiritual struggles are making a mess of our society and our church property, and my desire to push you away out of my sight down the road is justified because of my perception of what the world and our church should look like.

I’m not sorry if that last one hit a little close to home. This is not a judgment; it’s a self-reflection of my own heart as I’ve wrestled with how we ought to respond to such a world.

Justification of our sinful response to others is us simply weighing the spirits. It’s us saying one spirit is more righteous than the other.

Rom 3:9  What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

Rom 3:10  As it is written: “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NO, NOT ONE;

Rom 3:20  Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

We are not justified; He is. We are not righteous; He is. We are called to seek justice and move towards righteousness, while knowing we are sinful, falling short of His Glory. It is only by taking the humble position of not being justified or being self-righteous that we can show those who do us wrong what the love of God is.

So how do we shift? How do we deny our fleshly ways of seeking justification? How do we turn from this self-righteousness?

We simply do.

That’s it. Done. What more should I say?

• “Well, it’s harder than that,” you tell me?
• “It can’t be that simple” you demand!
• “I can’t simply change my emotional response…” You can. Not because I said so, but because God does.

Pro 16:3  Commit your works to the LORD, And your thoughts will be established.

In our justification and the need to put up a false image of righteousness, we can come up with all the reasons why our thoughts are pure. We put this verse in the wrong order. We wrestle with out thoughts trying to make sense of it all so that we can commit it to the Lord, and yet God says No! “Commit your ways to Me, and I will make your thoughts established.”

When our stinkin’ thinkin’ is wrong, we think we can get it in order on our own so that we can present these great and holy thoughts to the Lord and say , “See God, am I not reflecting your beauty?” The reality is, all we’re doing is putting on the image of Christianity. We are not allowing the image of God to be seen in us. We are, in fact, putting the lipstick on the pig…not that I want to call any of my brothers or sisters in Christ pigs.

A friend put it this way.

Be. Do. Have.

Before the Lord can establish our thoughts, we must be willing to be with Him. Reading His word and praying with Him.

Next, we must do as He asks, with commitment. I want to be very clear on this. Some of us have the false belief that committing something to the Lord means tossing it up, letting Him catch it, and saying “He will take care of it”. And, in some cases we walk with that faith that He will, and in other cases, it’s a real commitment to give something to Him to deal with, and it should be! If it’s not difficult to commit your works to the Lord, I’m going to suggest you’re not giving Him everything.

It’s when we, in our actions, in our works, in our commitment, do the will of the Father, that we become established in His thoughts. Now we have His ways because we do His works. We begin to think more like He does. Not that we require such understanding, but there are scientific studies that prove this exact formula in renewing our minds, to thinking differently, to re-programming how we think. The key difference is renewing our minds to God’s, and not the world’s.

Let me conclude with this.

What I have said here today is an entirely intellectual way of understanding God and His ways over mine or yours. It has been written from my heart and desire to know God better and make Him known. And yet, I know, the heart cannot be fully expressed in such a message. I must do. You must do. We are called to works, for faith without works is dead…and that might be the very reason why Christianity appears to be “dying” in the world. A lot of chatter, a lot of intellectual understanding, a lot of debating, and very little practical works that show that we are, in fact, different than the world based on our commitment to Him. The world sees us as we are, pigs with lipstick on.