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)

Relationships take time. And as time passes, we can decide whether we want to go to the next level with a person and eventually open up to them.

This doesn’t have to be a husband or wife thing. It applies to every relationship.

Hopefully, we all have someone we can tell our deepest, most sensitive secrets to. Someone we know can keep our confidence.

Friends like these know when there is something wrong with us, even when others don’t. They have been our friends for so long they can sense our mood without even talking to us.

With an acquaintance, it’s different. We might tell them a little about our life, but we usually let them know all of the good stuff. We wear a mask for them.

Ironically, we sometimes try to wear this mask for Jesus.

When we pray, we might ask him to forgive us of our little sins and ask for good things to happen to us, but we never ask him to search us. We don’t tell him to look deep down in our heart and see if there is anything within us that to change.

We hesitate to open up in this way because it’s uncomfortable. When the Holy Spirit searches us and convicts us of sin, we rationalize it away. Or, we have been living our life with a particular sin for so long, that it just becomes a part of us and we are calloused.

We forget that Jesus already knows what is in our hearts (John 2:25).

Jesus is waiting for us to invite him into our hearts and cleanse us of our grievous ways. We can’t hide our sins from Jesus; only keep them from the healing power of His presence. And by holding our sin so tightly, we do nothing but embrace our own death, while pushing away the author of life.

We should daily pray as the Psalmist does, and ask God to search our hearts. We should open ourselves up to the real healing that only God can give.

Have you let Jesus look into your heart lately? If not, why are you scared to do so?

When I read this my first thought was, guilty! I can think of many times in my life when I’ve done just as they spoke of in this devotion, I go to God and ask him to forgive me of my little sins and ask for good things to happen to me but I’ve failed to ask him to search me and as I thought about it I realized it was in those moments when I got real with God and I allowed Him to search me deep down in my heart and I spoke to Him without walls and barriers that I was able to overcome that thing that held me back and tormented me. He does indeed already know, it’s our place to be so real with Him that we speak truthfully with Him and allow Him to mend us. We aren’t going to say anything He doesn’t already know, you don’t have to have the “perfect” prayer in order to speak to God, just be real and honest with Him. I myself am a work in progress and this is an area I need to work on, I don’t need to wear a mask when I talk to God. He knows me already, He knows you. Let’s be real with God!

Have a wonderful day in The Lord!

Today’s Reading is Psalm 51:1-11