When I worked as a homicide detective one of the most unpleasant of all my duties was attending an autopsy. It is a brutal but necessary procedure to discover the cause of a person’s death. What was once a living and breathing human being with hopes and dreams was reduced to a lifeless form undergoing a grotesque examination of the very internal organs that gave them life.

In spiritual matters, we must first discern the truth of a matter by performing an autopsy of a person’s motives before we can declare that we understand what took place that caused their demise. That kind of evidence is not discovered by a surface examination. 

There is a murderer of spiritual lives who is afoot and prowling through our world seeking to devour our love and faith. He is a serial killer. When we see the teeth marks of his attack on his victims that surface evidence is not enough to determine the cause of death. Many declarations are being made by people who only saw the teeth marks of hell, not the cause of death that lies deeper in the life of a person.

When a physical autopsy is performed, it wasn’t hard to see the entry wound of a bullet. What the coroner was asked to discover is the damage the path of the bullet created internally, retrieve the spent bullet, and then forensically link the spent round to a gun and hopefully arrest the suspect.

Many believers are taking their cases to the court of public opinion trying to make their case without digging deeper into the corpse of those victimized by lies. It is wise to wait to discover the path a lie took on its way to strike their heart. That wound path will be part of the evidence needed to bring understanding.

All spiritual attacks are aimed at the heart. To not become a victim and find ourselves someday on a spiritual autopsy table we must protect our hearts. If our hearts are right with God and our motives are submitted to His will, we will offer no target for the murderer of our faith. We will also be able to perform a spiritual autopsy on another person with mercy and compassion.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23)