Let's Examine Ourselves With Truth
Examine Yourself With Truth: A Call to Guard Your Heart and Love One Another
There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts past the surface of religious habit and gets to the very core of who we are: If we claim to follow Jesus Christ, do our lives actually reflect the truth of who He is?
This is not a comfortable question. It is, however, a necessary one.
The Heart Is Where Everything Begins
Proverbs 4:23 issues one of the most urgent directives in all of Scripture. The verse calls believers to guard their hearts above all else, because the heart determines the course of a life. Not the career. Not the circumstances. Not the people around us. The heart.
When the Bible speaks of the heart in this context, it is not referring to the organ that pumps blood through our veins. It is speaking of the deep, soulish center of who we are.
Our motives live there. Our beliefs, our reasoning, our worldview, our decisions — all of it flows from that inner place. And if that place is left unguarded, sin finds an open door.
Sin does not begin in the hands or the feet. It begins in the heart and works its way outward. Adultery begins with unchecked lust. Theft begins with covetousness. Gossip begins with pride. Unforgiveness begins with self-righteousness. Every outward act of rebellion against God has a root that was first allowed to grow somewhere deep within.
This is why guarding the heart is not optional for the believer. It requires watching what we look at, what we listen to, where we go, what we say, and what we allow our hands to reach for. The fruit of an unguarded heart eventually becomes visible to everyone around us, often long after it has already done its damage.
The Fruit That Should Define Us
Galatians 5 reminds us that those who are in Christ possess the fruit of the Spirit. These nine qualities — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — are not aspirational goals we work toward. They are present realities for the believer. They already live within us.
The challenge, then, is not acquiring them. The challenge is getting out of the way and letting them flow.
When we study the life of Christ — His compassion for the broken, His mercy for the downtrodden, His courage in the face of sin, His unflinching love for humanity — we are looking at a portrait of what the Spirit of God produces in a surrendered life. The question we must ask ourselves is whether the life we are living matches the portrait.
Love Is Not Optional
In John 13:34-35, Jesus gives His followers a new commandment: love one another as He has loved them. And then He says something that should stop every believer in their tracks. He says that the world will know we are His disciples by this love.
Not by the size of our buildings. Not by the volume of our worship. Not by the correctness of our theology. By our love for one another.
This love is not a vague sentiment. It is a distinctive, sacrificial, action-driven commitment to the people of God. It prefers others. It lays down personal convenience. It meets needs. It forgives. It refuses to pick up a rock.
First John 3 presses this point even further. The passage draws a stark contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil, and one of the clearest distinguishing marks is whether a person loves their brothers and sisters in the faith. The text goes so far as to say that whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. That is not language designed to make us comfortable. It is language designed to make us honest.
When a person who names the name of Christ openly declares that they dislike another believer, something is deeply wrong. Not just relationally — spiritually. The love of God, which has been freely poured into us through the cross, does not produce contempt for the people God has redeemed. If contempt is flowing out, something has gone wrong at the source.
The Story of Cain and What It Warns Us About
The account of Cain and Abel in 1 John 3 is not included casually. Cain killed his brother because his own deeds were evil and his brother's were righteous. Jealousy, envy, and covetousness drove him to find a rock and use it.
There is a warning embedded in that story for every believer. When we hold onto offense, nurse our grievances, and quietly stockpile our resentments, we are, in a spiritual sense, looking for a rock. We tell ourselves we are justified. We rehearse the wrong that was done to us. We keep the wound fresh so the anger stays available.
But the cross of Christ calls us away from the rock entirely. Those who follow Jesus are not the ones doing the destroying. We are the ones willing to be inconvenienced, misunderstood, and even wounded for the sake of love. That is the posture of the redeemed.
Purifying Ourselves Along the Way
First John 3:3 says that everyone who has their hope fixed on Christ purifies themselves, just as He is pure. Sanctification is not a passive process. It is an ongoing, intentional examination of the self against the standard of Christ.
This means regularly asking hard questions. Where is hatred hiding in my heart? Where am I withholding love, time, resources, or forgiveness from a brother or sister? Where am I carrying a rock I need to put down?
The goal is not condemnation. The goal is confidence — the kind described in 1 John 3:21, where a heart that does not condemn us gives us boldness before God.
Examine yourself with truth today. Let the love of Christ that lives within you be the loudest thing about you. Put the rock down. Go love your eternal family.
There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts past the surface of religious habit and gets to the very core of who we are: If we claim to follow Jesus Christ, do our lives actually reflect the truth of who He is?
This is not a comfortable question. It is, however, a necessary one.
The Heart Is Where Everything Begins
Proverbs 4:23 issues one of the most urgent directives in all of Scripture. The verse calls believers to guard their hearts above all else, because the heart determines the course of a life. Not the career. Not the circumstances. Not the people around us. The heart.
When the Bible speaks of the heart in this context, it is not referring to the organ that pumps blood through our veins. It is speaking of the deep, soulish center of who we are.
Our motives live there. Our beliefs, our reasoning, our worldview, our decisions — all of it flows from that inner place. And if that place is left unguarded, sin finds an open door.
Sin does not begin in the hands or the feet. It begins in the heart and works its way outward. Adultery begins with unchecked lust. Theft begins with covetousness. Gossip begins with pride. Unforgiveness begins with self-righteousness. Every outward act of rebellion against God has a root that was first allowed to grow somewhere deep within.
This is why guarding the heart is not optional for the believer. It requires watching what we look at, what we listen to, where we go, what we say, and what we allow our hands to reach for. The fruit of an unguarded heart eventually becomes visible to everyone around us, often long after it has already done its damage.
The Fruit That Should Define Us
Galatians 5 reminds us that those who are in Christ possess the fruit of the Spirit. These nine qualities — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — are not aspirational goals we work toward. They are present realities for the believer. They already live within us.
The challenge, then, is not acquiring them. The challenge is getting out of the way and letting them flow.
When we study the life of Christ — His compassion for the broken, His mercy for the downtrodden, His courage in the face of sin, His unflinching love for humanity — we are looking at a portrait of what the Spirit of God produces in a surrendered life. The question we must ask ourselves is whether the life we are living matches the portrait.
Love Is Not Optional
In John 13:34-35, Jesus gives His followers a new commandment: love one another as He has loved them. And then He says something that should stop every believer in their tracks. He says that the world will know we are His disciples by this love.
Not by the size of our buildings. Not by the volume of our worship. Not by the correctness of our theology. By our love for one another.
This love is not a vague sentiment. It is a distinctive, sacrificial, action-driven commitment to the people of God. It prefers others. It lays down personal convenience. It meets needs. It forgives. It refuses to pick up a rock.
First John 3 presses this point even further. The passage draws a stark contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil, and one of the clearest distinguishing marks is whether a person loves their brothers and sisters in the faith. The text goes so far as to say that whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. That is not language designed to make us comfortable. It is language designed to make us honest.
When a person who names the name of Christ openly declares that they dislike another believer, something is deeply wrong. Not just relationally — spiritually. The love of God, which has been freely poured into us through the cross, does not produce contempt for the people God has redeemed. If contempt is flowing out, something has gone wrong at the source.
The Story of Cain and What It Warns Us About
The account of Cain and Abel in 1 John 3 is not included casually. Cain killed his brother because his own deeds were evil and his brother's were righteous. Jealousy, envy, and covetousness drove him to find a rock and use it.
There is a warning embedded in that story for every believer. When we hold onto offense, nurse our grievances, and quietly stockpile our resentments, we are, in a spiritual sense, looking for a rock. We tell ourselves we are justified. We rehearse the wrong that was done to us. We keep the wound fresh so the anger stays available.
But the cross of Christ calls us away from the rock entirely. Those who follow Jesus are not the ones doing the destroying. We are the ones willing to be inconvenienced, misunderstood, and even wounded for the sake of love. That is the posture of the redeemed.
Purifying Ourselves Along the Way
First John 3:3 says that everyone who has their hope fixed on Christ purifies themselves, just as He is pure. Sanctification is not a passive process. It is an ongoing, intentional examination of the self against the standard of Christ.
This means regularly asking hard questions. Where is hatred hiding in my heart? Where am I withholding love, time, resources, or forgiveness from a brother or sister? Where am I carrying a rock I need to put down?
The goal is not condemnation. The goal is confidence — the kind described in 1 John 3:21, where a heart that does not condemn us gives us boldness before God.
Examine yourself with truth today. Let the love of Christ that lives within you be the loudest thing about you. Put the rock down. Go love your eternal family.
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