When I woke up this morning, I stayed on my bed praying and after a few minutes, I started praying “God help my heart, just help it, expose it and heal it“. Not because I am sick, wounded or heartbroken, but because I’ve realised what it means for the bible to call the human heart desperately wicked.

No matter how saved we will be, how anointed we would get and how much power we could hone, It is a prayer that we will be praying for the rest of our days.

While I was praying it, God brought to mind David’s prayer as well, in Psalm 139, David prayed that the Lord should “Search me, God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”. David wrote this Psalm while he pondered on the omniscience of God. He acknowledged that God knew it all, and more specifically, knew him all.

God sees what we don’t see and this includes our hearts. I’ve often pondered on what the word ‘iniquity’ means. The dictionary will tell you that it is synonymous to sin or wickedness but studying the word in the bible context, I have found that it is mostly relating to the sin of the heart. Notice how God acknowledges sin, but also acknowledges iniquity separately in Hebrews 10:17, as 2 different things. – “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more”, same with Hebrews 8:12 – “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more”.

We’ve all been there before, where our characters were saying the exact opposite of what our hearts were saying, when we’ve greeted people with a huge smile and hug but in our hearts despised them for something we had heard or seen privately. I think it has happened to the best of us and once we commit fully to God, we’ll find that it is one of the things He’ll start dealing with in us. Exposing the iniquity of our heart and helping us deal with it.

Sin is sin, yes, but iniquity is mostly associated to the sin which is not seen, like jealousy, hypocrisy, hatred, pride, lust e.t.c. Iniquity can be hidden your whole life if you choose not to confront it and you can ignore it like it does not exist but in Gods sight, it is sin, like the murder, or like the theft.

We can breeze through life without sinning but carrying so much iniquity in our heart and lately I personally have been challenging myself, not just to confess sins to God, but also the iniquity, like when I looked at someone and thought evil about them unprovoked.

The standard is being raised, it has actually been raised since Jesus death on the cross but I think He’s calling our attention to it now more than ever, that we be conscious of the state of our hearts even if our character and behaviour appears good.

I spent good time praying this earlier today, that God should help my heart, He should reveal it to Himself and me and that He should heal it.

I want to be clean before people and clean before God when He looks on my inside too.

What iniquity are you battling with? maybe it is time to acknowledge it and ask the Lord to heal you.