Evil heart?

"Take care, brothers, less there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God." Hebrews 3:12

I read a Charles Spurgeon sermon once on the Syrophonecian woman who approached Jesus because her daughter had a demon. Jesus ignored her and then told her it wasn't right to give what was Israel's to dogs. He was calling her a dog, a second-rate person compared to the Jews. Her response was "Yes, Lord...". Spurgeon then took three points from this story and elaborated on them and one of them was an admonishment to not argue or disagree with the Lord. The Lord called her a dog and she didn't object but accepted it, then boldy called upon truth and her faith appealed her to God. Her daughter was healed.

I think the same principle can be applied using today's verse. I do believe we all struggle with unbelief at different times and to different degrees - it is no doubt a powerful scheme of the devil who never stops feeding us lies. But, I think an appropriate, helpful, honest - the best response to this is to confess our sin of unbelief, the fruit of an evil heart. OUCH! At least that is what I think and it's much easier to account for unbelief in some pitiful way. But I think this is deadly.

Unbelief is the most evil of sins and eternally unpardonable. It denies God and makes him to be a liar. But confession is a sweet remedy. We can boldly confess our sins to our God because he is merciful - in fact this is the crux of Christianity! Recognize your sinfulness, even boast in your weakness but trust in Jesus Christ to save the ungodly. The Hebrew writer describes faith as rest. Yes, the remedy for an evil heart is to rest in the Lord. What a blessing!