Ok so I have been thinking about this for a while now. I don’t know who here are comic book fans but I am going to use an example out of one of them. There is a scene where Batman tells someone that deep down Clark Kent (Superman) is really a good guy and that deep down he (batman) really isn't. This has been stuck in my mind. What if deep down I really am not a good guy. I want to be and I want to serve God but sometimes deep down it feels like I don't. I want to go crazy and enjoy the sins of this world. I then think of the passage that says... “For the eyes of יהוה diligently search throughout all the earth, to show Himself to be strong on behalf of those whose heart is perfect to Him. Diḇre haYamim Bĕt (2 Chronicles) 16:9 TS2009 God knows what I truly am but I don't even know. How do I know what the true desires of my heart is. It feels as if my own heart is deceiving me. Am I really deep down a good guy or a bad guy?
I don't know the comic you are talking about but I was speaking to a friend recently, who was telling me about her dream. In this dream she killed someone, and it caused her to doubt whether she was actually a bad person. One thing I have learned from Jordan Peterson is that we are all capable of tremendous evil. I'd recommend searching youtube for some of his videos on evil. Your point about the heart deceiving you is interesting: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) Matthew Henry in his Bible commentary writes of this verse: "The heart, the conscience of man, in his corrupt and fallen state, is deceitful above all things. It calls evil good, and good evil; and cries peace to those to whom it does not belong. Herein the heart is desperately wicked; it is deadly, it is desperate. The case is bad indeed, if the conscience, which should set right the errors of other faculties, is a leader in the delusion.We cannot know our own hearts, nor what they will do in an hour of temptation. Who can understand his errors? Much less can we know the hearts of others, or depend upon them. He that believes God's testimony in this matter, and learns to watch his own heart, will find this is a correct, though a sad picture, and learns many lessons to direct his conduct" So, in answer to your question as to how do you know your true desires, all I can say is pray that God helps you find the right path. I'd like to think that we are all capable of tremendous good, even if our hearts are in the wrong place.
Deep down, I was not a good guy. I lied and cheated, doing whatever I needed to do to please myself and feed my selfish and sinful desires. I did all this while claiming the name of Christ. But in my heart, I knew I was far from him. But I didn't want to be like that. Somewhere even deeper, somehow even stronger, I was drawn to the voice of the Spirit. I kept coming back, over and over again. Eventually, I laid down my selfishness and surrendered to his love. I realized that he had given me a new heart, and that I was truly his, down to the very core of my being. This is the miracle of the death and resurrection of Christ: He has made a way for the complete and total transformation of rebels into men and women of the Kingdom. This is why he is worthy to be praised for eternity. No one else can do a thing like this, except for the Creator! 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, The old has gone, the new is here! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E4LA9dy0UpFrsjxKPNn8W6-jMRULfSwqD5voB5O5xg4/edit You are here, posting your thoughts on this. That gives me a pretty good idea to whom your heart belongs. But -- do you believe it? John 6 28 They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” 29 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”
Thanks guys. Its a privilege to fight this battle along side you. I think being honest with yourself can be the most difficult thing. Trying to not believe what the enemy says about you might be even more difficult.
"For I do not understand my own actions [I am baffled and bewildered by them]. I do not practice what I want to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate [and yielding to my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity]. Now if I habitually do what I do not want to do, [that means] I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good (morally excellent). So now [if that is the case, then] it is no longer I who do it [the disobedient thing which I despise], but the sin [nature] which lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh [my human nature, my worldliness—my sinful capacity]. For the willingness [to do good] is present in me, but the doing of good is not. For the good that I want to do, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want to do, I am no longer the one doing it [that is, it is not me that acts], but the sin [nature] which lives in me. So I find it to be the law [of my inner self], that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully delight in the law of God in my inner self [with my new nature], but I see a different law and rule of action in the members of my body [in its appetites and desires], waging war against the law of my mind and subduing me and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is within my members. Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will [rescue me and] set me free from this body of death [this corrupt, mortal existence]? Thanks be to God [for my deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind serve the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh [my human nature, my worldliness, my sinful capacity—I serve] the law of sin." - (ROMANS 7:15-25 AMP) It's a complicated reading in some ways, but I know it really helped me to understand why I still sometimes lust after wordly amd sinful things. It's my fallen body which longs for sin, but it's my renewed spirit which keeps me fighting against those desires.
