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\(^9\)The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

When I stop and think about what I’m truly like I can see clearly that this description is perfectly true. However, very easy to minimise or deny what’s wrong about ourselves, and that’s part of the deceitfulness of our hearts. We tell ourselves what we want to think about ourselves. Lies are hard to untangle, we are sinners by nature, lies are natural to us, but we can’t necessarily see the lies we tell ourselves for what they are. We are in a fundamentally confused state, “desperately sick“ and dying. And as Jeremiah says “who can understand it?”

\(^{10}\)“I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”

We’re immediately given the answer. The LORD.

Depending on where you stand with the LORD this is either comforting or terrifying. For those who do not trust in the LORD it means the secrets of their hearts are known to the righteous judge who will judge.

But to those who trust in the LORD there is great encouragement. The passage does focus more on judgement but surely it also has something to say about how the LORD can help us become purer. We might not know how to change and become more like how we should, but the LORD understands our hearts and is capable - as Ezekiel puts it - of removing our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh. He can cure our deepest sickness of heart.