“…a devout man and one who feared God with all his household and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.”
(Acts 10:2)
In one sentence, Scripture shows us Cornelius. Cornelius is described as “devout” and “one who feared God”; those are descriptions of his heart… yet how was his heart manifested? He “gave many alms” and “prayed to God continually”. His heart was connected to his behavior. We could call it the heart-hand connection – what is in our heart is seen in our hands.
Or we could use the picture Jesus did when our Lord referred to the fruit of a tree being how we identify it (see Matthew 7:16). All trees are of a certain kind, and they bear fruit accordingly. The fruit cannot be denied and always reveals the nature of the plant.
So, too, our works reveal who we actually are… which is important because we convince our own hearts into believing we are better (or worse) than we actually are. Check your heart-hand connection – how would truth describe you in one sentence?
Matthew 4:4 #Biblebites