How Is Your Heart?
What does it take to attract God’s attention? What kind of person pleases God? There are many qualities that God finds attractive in people, and all of them start in the heart.
There is a man in the Bible who teaches us lots of valuable lessons about the positive things that get God’s attention. His name is David.
After the moral and spiritual decline of Israel’s first king, Saul, God determined to raise up someone new to take his place. As the Lord searched the population of Israel, He found a young man that attracted his attention. The Lord spoke to Samuel the prophet about his find, and Samuel reported the news to King Saul:
“But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.” — 1 Samuel 13:14 (NLT)
What disqualified Saul from being Israel’s king? Why did God decide to remove him from his office? Saul had allowed his heart to become soiled with sin, rebellion, hardness, independence, bitterness and jealousy. Saul’s outward disobedience to God was simply the manifestation of what had already happened in his heart.
Sadly, this same thing happens to many people today. Over time, through the thoughts we entertain, the choices we make and the influences around us, our hearts can become polluted with something sinful or sour. This process is usually very subtle. Unfortunately, lots of folks never recognize that this has happened until these forces have done their destructive work, robbing from us the best of God’s blessings and causing us to miss a significant part of His plan for our lives.
What qualified David to be Israel’s king? Why did God decide to place him in this important leadership position? Because the Lord looked deeply into David’s heart and found it to be clean, uncontaminated and unsoiled. There was no venom of the spiritual adversary in his soul. There was no poison in his spirit. There was no spiritual independence or rebellion in his character. God looked at David’s heart and saw a heart like His!
What does God see when He looks deeply into your heart? What ugly stuff lies in the dark crevices of your spirit and soul? What things inside of you may be hindering the work God wants to do in and through you and the blessings God desires to give you? What heart issues threaten to disqualify you from fruitful and fulfilling service for Jesus Christ and His Kingdom?
We see the passion David had for a pure heart in one of the prayers he penned:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” — Psalm 139:23-24 (NLT)
God looks closely at our hearts. When he finds someone who pursues a clean, pure, unpolluted heart He has found someone He can employ for His purposes. With the Lord, everything begins and ends with the heart!
How’s your heart?
Dale O'Shields
For more information, visit the Church of the Redeemer's website.
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