Seeking
the Heart of God
As Christians we have been very good at bringing
the gospel message for people to receive Jesus into a person’s heart. But we
have neglected an important part of the gospel and that is about seeking and living
in God’s heart. God’s desire is that we would become united with Him. We are to
dwell in Him and He in us. …truly our
fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3) Fellowship
is the Greek word koinonia, which literally means partnership and communion.
God desires that our heart becomes one with His heart.
When we think about
having Jesus in our heart we sometimes think of Him as about three inches tall
and we sometimes treat Him as such (THE FIST JOKE). People sometimes receive
Jesus into their heart and then go on with their same lives instead of living
in His life, and serving Jesus for what a wonderful gift that He has given.
Some people treat Jesus as a good luck charm and only come to Him when they
have a need such as money, a job or any other sort of material possessions or
an emergency, when mom or dad are sick, son or daughter are sick. But Jesus
desires to live in more than just a part of our heart. He desires to fill our
heart and our entire being. Imagine this, there are 7,184,637,500 people on the
planet and Jesus, He desires to have His hands in our hands and His feet in our
feet so that we will go and do what He desires. He doesn’t split himself up
into 7 billion pieces and gives us a little bit of Him daily, but he gives us
all of him. Jesus says, “I am the
vine, you are the branches. He who abides (lives and remains) in Me, and I in
him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Only
what we do in Christ has eternal value. The chief end of man is to glorify and
worship God until the end.
Living in Christ and
seeking his heart is where you are transformed into a new person. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is
a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become
new. (2 Corinthians 5:17) The revelation of being in Christ
changes the way we see ourselves, and really “outs” us into knowing who we are.
It is in Christ where His personality is united with our personality and we
take on a new personality. We become a new person with a new attitude, new
behaviors, new likes, and dislikes. We do not really know who we are until we
see our selves in Christ, because our life is hidden in Him. Set your mind on things above, not on
things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 3:2-3)
Living in God’s
heart is living in His love. Jesus says, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If
you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My
Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you,
that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:9-11)
We live and remain in God’s love and fellowhip by following the commands
that Jesus gave all of us. All of God’s commands have to do with love, loving
God and loving others.
When we are walking
in God’s love and following His commands we can see His joy manifest in our
heart. We then do His commands with pleasure, not because we have too, but
because there is no greater joy than the joy that comes from expressing the
love of Jesus in our lives and sharing it with others. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His
commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3-4) We do God’s
commandments because we love Him, if His commandments cause a burden in us
while we try and follow them, then our relationship with God is not in love, we
are not living in Him, and I am sure that we are not living with Him either.
We are commanded to
love God with all of our heart and other people as our self. And you shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater
than these. (Mark 12:30-31) When we are living in true love we
are living in God.
It is a good to take
a real honest in depth look inside your own heart to see what changes need to
be made for the sake of your relationship with God. We must look to see if
there is anything in us that will hinder, block or could very well end our
relationship with God. As much as it may hurt when God makes our hearts
transparent and we see the wickedness that lies before us, we all must depend
upon God to make the changes in our hearts that are necessary for us to be more
like Him and to continue our fellowship with Him. We even need God to help us
in evaluating our own hearts in the light of His word and by His Holy Spirit. The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure. Who can understand it? "I the LORD search the heart and
examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what
his deeds deserve." (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
Jesus taught that we
are defiled by what comes out of our hearts. And He said, "What comes out of a man, that defiles
a man. "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders, "thefts, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. "All
these evil things come from within and defile a man." (Mark 7:20-23)
Sin is a heart
problem. The actions of sin happen when an evil desire in our heart conceives
with a temptation from the outside. Let
no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot
be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted
when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has
conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth
death. (James 1:13-15) Sometimes people have hidden evil desires
very deep in their heart and they lay dormant until an outside temptation
revives them. Psalm 139:23-24
says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties; And see
if there is any wicked way in
me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.” We must
let God search the deepest darkest parts of our hearts and remove anything that
is not from Him and replace it with more of Him.
Remember that Jesus said that the ruler of this world, Satan,
had nothing in Him, (John 14:30). In other words there was nothing in
Jesus’ heart that Satan could tempt Jesus into doing against the Father’s will.
Temptation did come and it comes to people that have a perfect heart toward
God, but the temptation does not have much appeal when there is nothing in a
person’s heart to connect with the temptation. We must ask the Lord to empty
our hearts disconnect from us anything that will cause the enemy to come at us
like a roaring lion. We must not leave any loop holes much less any foothold
for the enemy to step into.
The Lord is always
looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward Him. For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth,
to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
(2 Chronicles 16:9) This does not mean God is looking for
perfect people; rather He is looking for people who are looking toward Him as
their hope of a perfect heart. I am sure glad that the Lord is not looking for
perfect people, because before Christ we were not perfect and even after Christ
we are still not perfect, however, our hearts should be seeking His heart, so
that we can become imitators of his attributes.
God has the ability
to change our heart and even give us a new heart that is perfect toward Him. "I will give you a new heart and
put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause
you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel
36:26-27)
The Bible says to delight yourself also in the LORD, And
He shall give you the desires of your heart. Many people think that
this is a way to get God to give you what you want, I believe that the meaning
is deeper than that here is the passage. Delight
yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.
He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the
noonday. (Psalms 37:4-6) If you delight yourself in the Lord He
then is the desire of your heart, He is the one you long for, He is the reward
you seek. What can be greater than the very presence of God? In Your presence is fullness of joy; At
Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalms 16:11)
I believe that as we
delight ourselves in the Lord He will change our desires and give us His
desires, (He shall give you the desires of your heart). As we commit our
way toward the Lord He will bring us into His righteousness. The Lord can
change what we love and hate so that we now love and hate what He loves and
hates. Again this shows how we become imitators of God and of all his wonderful
attributes.
God’s word promises
that if we deeply desire His righteousness He will fill us with it. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, For they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6) The
key is your desire. This is a challenging question for many of us here today. How
much do you desire God’s righteousness? Are you willing to seek the Lord until
He rains righteousness upon you? Sow
for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For
it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
(Hosea 10:12)
Jesus promises to
reveal Himself to those who love and obey Him. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves
Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and
manifest Myself to him." (John 14:21) A pure heart before God
has great reward. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
(Matthew 5:8)
We can keep our
hearts perfect toward God by asking God to reveal and remove any thing in our
heart that would keep us from loving Him with our whole heart. “Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my
heart and my mind; for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in
your truth.”(Psalms 26:2-3) We know what is in our heart by the things
that we think and the words that come out our mouth. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing
in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14)
What we think about
is what is in our heart, and is what we become. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2) Do not let yourself be put into the
molding press of this world. The world is just trying to squeeze every ounce of
God from your life and remove God from you altogether. The word transformed is the Greek word
metamorphoo it is where we get the word metamorphosis from, the word used to
describe the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Another place that
this word is used is in (2
Corinthians 3:18) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to
glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. As we focus our mind and our
heart toward God, His Spirit is transforming us. Because when we set our heart
toward God He sets His heart toward us.
Jesus prayed that we would be united with
the other members of His body, in Him and in the Father. “I do not pray for these alone, but also
for those who will believe in Me through their word; "that they all may be
one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us,
that the world may believe that You sent Me. "And the glory which You gave
Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and
You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know
that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John
17:20-23)
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