If we get the love for Jehovah and the love for neighbor in our heart, the seat of motive and affection, then out of that heart we shall say and do what pleases Jehovah. But if we do not have love in our heart, right words and works will be unacceptable, will be hypocritical and doublehearted. (Ps. 12:2; Rom. 13:8-10; 1 Cor. 13:1-3; 2 Cor. 9:7) But if Jehovah’s law of love is written in our heart it is a part of us, a part of our personality, an integral part of our seat of motive and hence it will be the source of our motives and the thing that will always move us to act properly.

¹⁴ “The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” Steps directed from a heart inscribed with Jehovah’s law are carefully, surely and firmly placed on solid footing and there will be no slipping or backsliding, no falling from the path of integrity. This world reeks with sin because it has God’s word only in a book, not in its heart: “I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Ps. 37:31; 119:11, RS) So a heart filled with Jehovah’s law is a safeguard against sinning and backsliding. This world stresses mental brilliance, but Jehovah looks on the heart. What good is the world’s wisdom when out of a wicked heart it is moved to misuse it and make it foolish in Jehovah’s sight? Is it not better to have an average mind directed into right uses by a good heart than to have a brilliant one misdirected into harmful channels by an evil heart? Do not world leaders even now admit that it is the world’s morals rather than its brains that cry for improvement? But this wicked system refuses the change of heart it needs for survival of Jehovah’s war of Armageddon, though many individuals are abandoning it in order to get the heart change required for preservation, namely, the erasing of wrong precepts from the figurative heart and getting Jehovah’s law written there in their place. How is this done? Please read the next article for the answer.

Some Blame God, Some Blame Devil

Some persons blame God for their misfortunes. Doing so gives them justification for pursuing a lawless course. In this they are like the eight-year-old boy mentioned in the Milwaukee Journal, March 23, 1955. This eight-year-old, arrested for an attempted burglary, had previously claimed to have started a fire in a Catholic church “because God had not answered his prayers. He said he had been praying that his father would stop drinking and stay home nights. The fire caused $200 damage.” The police, however, said the boy, who is small for his age, has been “a one man crime wave” for almost a year. He had previously been arrested for breaking into a bakery and stealing $11 in cash and $15 worth of bakery goods and for attempting burglary at another store. “Last year he was referred to the youth aid bureau for maliciously breaking numerous windows in trucks and in a factory, for attempted burglary of a factory and for tampering with boats in the Menomonee River, the police said.” Incidentally, the foregoing indicates that parental neglect and false religious teachings contribute to juvenile delinquency. On the other hand, some blame the Devil. Thus when a ten-year-old boy was asked why he started two fires near his home he replied: “The Devil was in me.” Blaming the Devil for one’s lawlessness began with Eve in Eden, and many persons, selfish or poorly informed on the Bible, do the same today. Yes, if we are frustrated or rebelling at our lot we will show it by lawless acts and then seek to justify or excuse ourselves by blaming God or the Devil!