The Bible’s description of the human heart is not flattering.  It is evil and stubborn (Jeremiah 3:17, 18:12), with evil intentions (Genesis 6:5, 8:21), sick and deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), and goes after detestable things (Ezekiel 11:21).  Or as Ephesians 2:1-3 tells us – we are dead in our sins.

But Ephesians 2 goes on to say that God mercifully makes us, who were dead, alive together with Christ through faith (v4-5, 8).  That is, God gives us new hearts (Jeremiah 24:7, 31:33, 32:38-39, Ezekiel 11:19-20, 36:26-27).  No longer stubborn evil hearts, but hearts that seek to do God’s will.

And why does God do this?  Because of his mercy and love and grace (Ephesians 2:4-5) – this is God’s heart for us.  And Ephesians 5:2 says we should walk in love as Christ loved us.  That is, we should have the same heart God has – a heart of love.

So we might sum it up this way: with a new heart we respond to God’s heart with the same heart.  We become a people after God’s heart.

But what exactly does it look like to be a people after God’s heart, to have a heart for God?  And how can we grow to have more of a heart for God?  This is what I want to write (and preach) about for the next several weeks.  Basically, I looked up every passage using the word heart in the Bible.  There are 766 occurrences in my translation for those who like statistics.  After weeding out passages that don’t really apply (like Jonah being thrown into the HEART of the sea), I have grouped passages into themes that spell out what it means to have a heart for God.  Each week we’ll look at some of these themes.  Hope you’ll join me on the journey and add to the conversation!