Self-Serve Heart Surgery

Image by National Institutes of Health Library via Flickr

Being a nurse, I have had the opportunity to meet some heart surgeons in my career.  Not one of them, ever, has attempted to perform heart surgery on themselves.  I don't suppose they ever will.   Heart surgery just
isn't one of those things you will see demonstrated on the Do-It-Yourself network.

By the same token, we can never do in our hearts -- our spiritual hearts -- the things which need to be done.  We may think we can examine ourselves carefully, but we will always try to hide from our own eyes those "secret sins" which are most dear to us.  We may rationalize them, we may minimize them, but we will not shine as bright a light on them as the illumination of the Holy Spirit.


We can also never quite be sure of our motives, the "why" behind the "what" we do.  While we may think we know why we do what we do, there are so many reasons intertwined in our hearts and minds we cannot by ourselves sort out our motives as to which are true and which are false.

We must then submit ourselves to the One Great Heart Surgeon, the Great Physician, to assess the needs of our hearts and to cut away that which is not conformed to His image.   He will use His Word as a scapel, sharp and precise, to make clear what are the proper motives, what are the proper actions, what are the secret sins and the hidden intents.  His scapel, ". . .the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," (Hebrews 4:12).

So what is our role in this?  Like any heart surgery patient, our role is first to trust our Surgeon, then to submit to His hand.  We must lay down on the operating table and let Him do His work.  We must not intervene, we must not try to tell Him how to do His job. . .we must trust His heart, even when we don't understand the workings of His hand.

Our hearts must be willing and open for Him to reach into the most secret places of our hearts and remove every thing He sees inconsistent with His will and eternal purpose in Christ Jesus.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  

Psalm 139:23,24