Secrets
"Acknowledging our weakness we may see in the ugly, disfigured secret places of ourselves the raw material in need of the Holy Spirit." (Father Spyridon Baily)
“Let us never overlook the fact that Christ’s judgment will be directed toward “the secrets of men” (Roman 2:16). These secrets include our invisible and intangible thoughts, feelings, presuppositions, prejudices, and attitudes, as well our visible actions and audible words. When God considers what we have done, He will read our hearts and all they contain.” (Dynamis 6/10/2018)
“God reads the secrets of the heart. God reads its most intimate feelings, even those which we are not aware of…God is impressed, not with noise or size or wealth, but with quiet things … things done in secret—the inner motives, the true heart condition.” (Jean-Nicholas Grou, Charles Swindoll)
“God observes and cares about how we deal with the poor, the destitute, the young, the woman who faces an unplanned pregnancy without support. Words are one thing, deeds another. We may savor fantasies of murder, adultery, stealing, and lying in service of pleasure, but God knows the secrets that we hide in the temple of our passions (vs. 8). Let us correct our ways and our heart!” (Dynamis 2/18/2019)
“How often it happens in life that a man has one thing in his heart and another upon his lips, and wears two faces at one and the same time! It is thus also during prayer, before God Himself, Who knows the secrets of the heart; a man also frequently wears two faces, saying one thing and having another in his heart and thoughts. If, which happens still oftener, when saying a prayer, although he understands it and thinks about it, he does not sympathise in his heart with that which he is saying - being dead, and thus throwing the words to the air - then he deceives himself if he believes that he can please God by such a prayer.” (St. John of Kronstadt)
“God will judge not only people’s actions, but their motives, or “secrets.” (Foundation Study Bible, Romans 2:16)
“Let us never overlook the fact that Christ’s judgment will be directed toward “the secrets of men” (Romans 2:16). These secrets include our invisible and intangible thoughts, feelings, presuppositions, prejudices, and attitudes, as well our visible actions and audible words. When God considers what we have done, He will read our hearts and all they contain.” (Dynamis 6/14/2015)
“God reads the secrets of the heart. God reads its most intimate feelings, even those which we are not aware of…God is impressed, not with noise or size or wealth, but with quiet things … things done in secret—the inner motives, the true heart condition.” ((Jean-Nicholas Grou, Charles Swindoll)
“Heaven does not govern by outward rules and regulations etched in stone, but by the secret code written on our hearts. Dead, lifeless rules etched in stone are for dead, hard hearts." (Lisa Bevere)
“Indeed, the Fathers teach that the ascent to Heaven is connected with the descent into ourselves. The more we sink our attention deep into the soul, the more we find our secret heart; through repentance the Kingdom of Heaven descends into the heart and makes it Paradise and Heaven.” (Hierotheos Vlakos)