Foundational to having a heart for God is to simply believe in God and his way of salvation in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 11:6 reminds us that those who draw near to God and would please him must believe that he exists. And Romans 10:9-10 tells us we must believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead – which implies that we believe he died too. As I Corinthians 15:3-4 tells us the summary of the gospel is that Jesus died for sins, was buried, and rose on the third day. Believing in God and in Jesus as our Savior is the first step to having a heart for him.
Tag: Christianity
Remember and Celebrate!
Tomorrow is Independence Day. The day we celebrate the birth of our country. The day we celebrate our freedom. The day we remember those who died to make all of this possible.
Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Time to celebrate our new birth. Time to celebrate our freedom from the penalty and power of sin. Time to remember the one who made all this possible.
People after God’s Heart 4
What does it look like to have a heart for God? Four brief thoughts:
Daily Walk: Solomon speaks of his father David as walking before God with an upright heart (I Kings 3:6). To walk befor God is to live before him. All of life is to be lived before God. A heart for God is not reserved to “religious” activities. All of life is to be lived with a heart for God.
Talk: Jesus says that “out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). If we have a heart for God it will show in what we say. We will talk in a way that pleases him. We will talk about him.
Loving God: What is the greatest Command? Jesus tells us it is to love God with all your heart (Matthew 22:37). If we have a heart for God, we will love him – and not just a little, but with all our hearts.
Loving People: A few posts back, I noted that being a people after God’s heart meant we did all his will (Acts 13:22). His will is summed up by Jesus as loving God (see last point) and loving people (Matthew 22:39). We cannot claim to love God if we don’t love people.
Do we have hearts for God? Does it show in our walk and talk? Does it show in our love for God and people?
Pastors after God’s Heart
I mentioned in a past blog that the Bible uses the phrase “after God’s heart” or something similar at least four times by my count. Two refer to David. A third is found in Jeremiah 3:15 –
“And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
The context of this verse references a specific time, but the application is timeless. We need shepherds after God’s heart – pastors whose hearts beat like God’s heart. Pastors who have hearts for God and seek to do all his will.
As a pastor, I know all too well how easy it is to get caught in the busyness of ministry. But what I need is a heart for God. What the church I pastor needs is a man after God’s heart. And how will I have such a heart? Through God’s Word that reveals his heart and through prayer that submits my life to his will. And then from this heart flows the ministry God desires.
And what does God desire. Back to the verse: “who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” God desires his people to be fed. They need the Word – to know it and to understand it to the point that they can live it.
The apostles said they would devote themselves to prayer and the Word (Acys 6:4). That must be my calling – to be in the Word and prayer so that I might have a heart for God, and then prayerfully preach the Word so that God’s people might have a heart for God.
God, help me to be a shepherd after your heart, and raise up countless shepherds after your own heart – that you might lead your people to be a people after your heart.
People After God’s Heart 3
In the last post, we noted that to be a people after God’s heart is to to do all his will. Saul’s problem was that he didn’t – he had a bad case of selective obedience. But wait – David – the man after God’s heart – wasn’t perfect either. He didn’t do all God’s will – he blew it some very serious ways. So what was the difference?
I think the difference was the heart. David wanted to obey fully – Saul didn’t care. When confronted, Saul just started making excuses. David was broken – crying out for mercy and forgiveness.
So which one are we more like? Saul with his selective obedience and excuse-making? Or David trying to obey and repenting with a humble contrite spirit when he failed?
People After God’s Heart 2
The phrase “after God’s heart” or something similar is used at least four times in Scripture – two to refer to David. God says of David that he is “a man after my heart, who will do all my will” (Acts 13:22). That second phrase helps define the first. A person after God’s heart is one who does all God’s will. Not part, not some, not a little – all.
This was Saul’s problem. He chose to do some of God’s will. He was content to wait for Samuel to make the sacrifice – until Samuel didn’t come, then Saul did it his way. And he was told that his kingdom would not continue because God had “sought out a man after his own heart” (I Samuel 13:14) – a man who would do God’s will.
Later God tells Saul to wipe out the Amalekites. Saul wipes out some of them, and then brings the rest for a sacrifice to God. How religious and pious of him! But no – again he did it his way rather than doing all God’s will.
We can be like this. We try to do the Christian life our way. We obey partly – when it is easy, or it makes sense, or we feel like it. We have selective obedience. I have a pastor friend who tells his congregation that the Christian life is not like a convenience store. At a convenience store, you take just what you want. I’ll take salvation, but not baptism; church attendance, but not ministry; some prayer today, but not tomorrow; some love and joy and peace, but not patience or self-control. Each of us can fill in our own tendencies, but God didn’t design the Christian life this way. He wants us to be a people after his heart – who do all of his will.
What are we doing our way instead of God’s way? How do we pick and choose like Saul what to obey? How are we failing to be people after God’s heart?
People after God’s Heart
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!
Oceans Drained Dry
A good way to conclude this week’s discussion about God’s amazing heart for us might be to reflect again on these wonderful words from F. M. Lehman:
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Drain the oceans and fill the sky – and you still have not grasped the depths of God’s love! A great thought to prepare us to gather tomorrow to worship this great God of love!
Grasping the Ungraspable
God’s heart for us is one of mercy, love, and grace. Our great need is to grasp this with our hearts and minds. So Paul prays that you:
“May have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” – Ephesians 3:18-19a
We need strength to comprehend his love. A few verses earlier, Paul makes clear that this strength comes from the Spirit – so we need God’s help to grasp his love.
We need to comprehend his love – how broad and long and high and deep God’s love for us is. We need to know this love…which surpasses knowledge. To know what is unknowable. To grasp what is ungraspable. The point is that God’s love is too deep to fathom. We can always go deeper. We can always reach higher. We can always move further. We can always grasp more and more because there always is more.
And so we pray that we might each day know his love a little more. Grasp a little more. Comprehend a little more.
May this be our prayer…and our experience!
Amazing Grace
As I mentioned in my last post, God takes us who were dead in our sins and makes us alive in Christ because of his mercy, love, and grace (Ephesians 2:4-5). Verse 7 adds a wonderful description to God’s grace. Paul refers to God’s grace as the “immeasurable riches of his grace.” Ponder that phrase.
Immeasurable – too big, too vast, and too immense to measure or consider or fathom. Were you to spend your entire life investigating the riches of God’s grace to us, you would never reach the end, never fully grasp it or comprehend it.
Riches – Here, in his grace, is true riches. With his grace that makes us alive, we are truly wealthy. The richest person on the earth (financially) is a pauper without God’s grace. And the poorest person on the planet (financially) who has received God’s grace is wealthy beyond measure. True riches are found, not in material things, but in God’s grace.
Immeasurable riches. Do we believe this? Are we living like it?
