Thought of the Day: Heavy Hearted, But Hopeful

"Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them."  (Deuteronomy 11:16)  "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"  (Jeremiah 17:16)  Also, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death."  Proverbs 14:12 AND Proverbs 16:25, in case I didn't catch it the first time.  "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."  (Proverbs 16:18)  Lord, help!

So what is the remedy provided to the first instruction "take care lest your heart be deceived"?  It is found in the same chapter of Deuteronomy 11, verse 13: "Obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."  And the antidote to pride and haughtiness that leads me to death?  "Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord." (Proverbs 16:20)  Lord, increase my obedience, increase my faith, and increase my love for you.  I am unable, and my mind and heart deceive me to death, literally.  Create in me a new heart, O God, and give me grace and wisdom to understand your Word.  In you alone, Jesus, do I have any hope in this life or the one to come.  Thank you for this promise in the midst of despair: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."  (Ezekiel 36:26-27 AND Ezekiel 11:19, in case I didn't catch it the first time.)

Why does God do this?  "It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel."  (Ezekiel 36:32)  No, it is not ultimately for us that God heals us or our land.  It is so that "Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord... I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.  ...Then they will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 36:36, 38b)  Again, why has God blessed us or chosen us at all?  "...to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved (Christ)."  To God alone be the glory.  Therein, and there alone, does (and always should) my hope rest.