My friend (Curtis Snead) granted me permission to share with you! I pray this blesses you too!
A Heart Wholly Devoted...
But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the Lord all His days. 1 Kings 15:14
For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God. 1 Kings 11:4
The book of Kings in the bible is a telling of the stories of the Kings of God’s people. Solomon was the son of David and after his death became the second King of Israel. God had given Solomon wisdom beyond measure after he requested for God to give him discernment to lead His people. God also gave Solomon great wealth and earthly power and authority. Yet for all of the blessings of God, in summing up Solomon’s life, the author of Kings says, “his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God. What a tragic description of a life lived before God. Solomon had been blessed greatly by God and he was used of God to do many good things for His people. But when he was old, his heart was not wholly devoted to God. The ironic thing is that Solomon even prayed for Israel that God would,“incline our hearts to Himself” (1 Kings 9:58). He also told the congregation, “Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in all His ways..”(1 Kings 9:61). Yet in his later years, Solomon’s heart was divided so God divided his Kingdom in judgment.
Fast forward a few years in history. We read of Asa, the great grandson of Solomon. He became king over the southern Kingdom of Judah. Though he was the son and grandson of men who “did evil in the sight of the Lord” Asa did right in the sight of the Lord. Asa was not perfect in his behavior. He did not do everything right, yet the comment on his life was that his heart was wholly devoted to the Lord.
The contrast has made me think. I don’t want to be a man like Solomon. For all his money and wisdom he became foolish and poor. Instead I want to be like Asa who though not perfect in behavior he possessed the greatest treasure. I want so much to be a man who it can be said that “his heart was wholly devoted to God”, but I know my heart. I know and can feel all to well that my heart has an illness common to man, it is “more deceitful than all else and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). I long for and crave this wholly devoted heart more than anything. More than ministry, more than obedience, more than worship, I want a wholly devoted heart to the Lord my God. I know that somehow, all of life, whether it’s the day to day grind of work, raising kids, and grass cutting or the “spiritual” things of worship, prayer, and ministry, all of it is useless if my heart is turned away to other gods, and all of it is eternally valuable and satisfying if I have a wholly devoted heart to my God.
Our hearts are the core of who we are. It is the center of our affections and feelings. It is the thoughts we naturally have as opposed to the ones we try to have. It is much like our tastes. We may like broccoli while others do not. We don’t know why we do, we just do. Or it’s like love. What is it about your wife or your husband or girlfriend or boyfriend that draws you to them. You may be able to point out certain characteristics that you like about them but what is it that draws you to them above all others. That feeling that compels you to be with them and drives you crazy when you are apart. It’s those things that just happen in your feelings. It’s not so much a matter of trying to have feelings or trying to conform our tastes to what we think is right, it is the natural appeal of certain things or certain people. So to have a heart wholly devoted to God would be a natural affection for Him and a desire for His ways. This devotion goes farther than duty and obligation. It is the inclination to love God where duty is a joy and obligation is a delight.
We may decide in our minds that we like God and value His ways. We then try with our efforts and our strength to go about pleasing Him. This is a noble thing of course but it all can be done without our hearts being wholly devoted to Him. We may follow Him because of His benefits but do we really love Him from our very core, the very heart of our affection and emotion? Think of broccoli again. You may hear of it’s health benefits and decide that you should really eat it, but all the while you hate it’s taste. You like the benefits but you don’t like the broccoli. Or how about relationships. We may see a person who is attractive, rich, and in many different ways able to benefit you and your life but there is no spark of feeling or affection. We again may love the benefits of what they do for us but not love them from the heart.
So we are in a dilemma If we like what we like and love what we love naturally without trying, what if we don’t like God or His ways? What if we only like what He gives like peace and respectability and prosperity and even heaven but we don’t like Him or His demands? What do we do when we want to want God but being really honest we know that sometimes our hearts are hostile to Him?
I see two things that can help us. Two points that stretched out will hold us in tension and lead us on the path of a wholly devoted heart.
The first is to repent of and confess that our hearts are not wholly devoted to Him. We must stop trying to fool others and God into thinking that all is well in us. That there is no shadow of turning within our hearts. We should not say that goes for others, but not us. We all need to be honest with that feeling we all have that the great hymn describes, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love…”. We need to confess the sickness of our hearts and the deception that is deep within them. Hosea puts it this way, “Break up your fallow ground, for it’s time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” (vs. 10:12) Or in Ezekiel we are told even more boldly, “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord. Therefore repent and live!” (vs18:31-32) Do you desire to live a holy life fully devoted to the Lord that comes not from what benefits you but from a heart that loves and treasures God above all else? Then first break up the hard ground of your heart and repent!
The second point that holds the first in tension is not something that we do but an understanding of what God has promised to do in us if we are willing. Let’s go back to 1 Kings. Solomon says in his benediction after dedicating the temple, “May the Lord our God be with us…. that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments.”(9:57-58) then He says in vs. 61, “Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in all His ways….” Solomon understood that in order to rightly and effectively walk in Gods ways our hearts must be inclined to God by God Himself. He also understood that the people were responsible for allowing God to do this work in them. Tragically, Solomon did not heed his own advice. God loved Solomon and surely would have inclined his heart to whole devotion to Himself, but Solomon allowed his heart to be turned away to other gods.
On the other hand, David, Solomon’s father, was a sinner. He was a murderer and an adulterer, but 1 Kings 11:4 says that David’s heart was wholly devoted to God. He said in repentance and confession to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God“…(Psalm 51:10a) and, “a broken heart you will not despise”(vs17).Like Solomon, David knew that the key to his devotion to God was the condition of his heart. In spite of his terrible sins, David sincerely sought his God through repentance and confession. He knew that only God could give him the heart of devotion that he desperately wanted. Solomon said similar things early in life but wandered away from the desiring of God to the desiring of detestable idols. We must be persistent in our wanting of God and our appealing to Him, or we like Solomon can allow our hearts to turn away. Only God can give us hearts of whole devotion to Himself but we must be willing for Him to do His work in us.
So let us all go to God with this request. That He would incline our hearts to Himself. Let us be willing to turn from our sin and rebellion and our detestable idols and turn to our great God and His promises. He will be faithful to hear and He will be faithful to His words. Listen to God in Ezekiel 36:25-27. “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from 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 be careful to observe My ordinances.” Oh, stop your self righteousness! Stop walking according to your own strength! Come to our great God through Jesus Christ for a new heart! He will give one to you. Come to Christ and he will give you His Spirit. With His Spirit comes power! Then you will see Him working in you. Then you will delight to do His commands and walk in His ways. Then with all your heart you will serve Him. With all your heart you will love Him. The righteousness that you then do will not be from you but instead will come from a heart given by God and wholly devoted to Him!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Ayomi asked me to post this here... ;-)
Ok, this is random,I know! :-) I commented on a friend's note and another fantastic friend( wink!) asked that I share with you'll here! So here goes:
Christianity is not a mechanical device that comes off the assembly line, every motor working exactly the way that every other motor does. We are not mechanical beings — we are human beings, and that makes the job much harder, more challenging. It requires more skill to work with people than with machines.
Machines can be frustrating, but people are even harder to figure out. We cannot be programmed to give the right results every time. We cannot plug in a half hour of prayer and an hour of Bible study and setting up chairs every week and passing out hymnals as any sort of spiritual assembly line that gives a predictable result. Humans are much more complicated than that...
Most times, I can't even figure myself out, and I certainly can't prescribe a formula for anyone else! We have multiple commitments- we want to be committed to family, to church, to personal growth, to community, and to worship. All these commitments are good, but they are not equally good. Sometimes our commitment to family comes before church and sometimes our commitment to the church comes before family. Sometimes we have to set aside our Bible study to take care of community concerns; sometimes we have to skip the community thing and spend time in the Bible. The balance is constantly changing and needs constant monitoring to see what we need to do at each particular moment...
But there is one commitment that always takes priority, that should never be compromised, that should never be relativized — and that is commitment to God. This comes before all other commitments — and in fact it is because we are committed to God that we also want to keep our commitments in all the other areas. Commitment to God is the foundation for all the others, for why we do them - and how we (do) can be successful in managing our multiple commitments. Put God first
The way we serve God is by desiring God, by wanting Him. We see Him as the answer to our innermost needs. We spend our time seeking Him, obeying Him, wrapping our lives around Him and not seeking the stuff that He gives. We are seeking God Himself — not to possess Him, but to be with Him. Our ultimate desire is not material stuff that will someday rot away — our ultimate desire is a friendship with the eternal God. Matthew 6:33 —'' seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be given to you''.
This idea is also found in John 4, where Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, and he says, "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." He is talking about a thirst, an internal desire, that is fully satisfied in Jesus Christ.
We all have an inner desire for something and that something is Jesus Christ, and our thirst can be satisified in no other way than through Him, and in Him it can be fully satisfied. God satisfies in a way that nothing else does.
And until we find our satisfaction in Him, our souls will thirst and we will be on a never-ending quest to fill a void in our lives! We might try to fill it with cars, or with careers, or with money, all to no avail. When it is God that we need, nothing else can substitute.
And that is what commitment to God is. It is a recognition that He is what we need. He is the power — the only power — that can help us with our deepest and most permanent needs. God wants us to desire Him, to seek Him, to look for ultimate satisfaction in Him. It doesn't get any better than Him! With Him, we can be content. With Him, our souls have rest. That is what we were made for and that is what we need.
We can chase the wind, or we can seek the Spirit of God!
We are to be content with God, and to trust Him with our lives, to trust Him to take care of everything else, to trust His instructions for how we ought to live, to trust Him for guiding us in work and in church and in family.
Now, when our innermost desire finds its satisfaction in God, we will not be racing around for other thrills. We will not be driven by money, or driven by career success, or driven by public opinion. We will have no other gods before God.Everything else will be brought into subordination to God. Life will have a stable order and structure to it because it will have the right foundation
— and the key to that foundation is desire!
Commitment to God boils down to a desire for God. He is our treasure, our hope, our value, our supreme goal. He is our God — and there is no competitor. The book of Hebrews(my favorite Book of the Bible, by the way!:-) ), talks a lot about faith, often in the sense of being faithful. The whole book was written to a people who were on the verge of apostasy, of falling away from the faith. The whole book is written to encourage (us) them to remain committed to faith in Jesus Christ. The book is a manual for commitment to God.
*Do not drift away, he says. Fix your thoughts on Jesus. Don't fall short. Make every effort. Hold firmly to the faith. Approach the throne with confidence. Go on to maturity. Draw near to God. Hold on to the faith. Encourage one another. Meet together. Throw off the sin and run with perseverance. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Strengthen yourself. Worship God.*
The positive exhortations outnumber the negative ones four to one. There is a lot more said about seeking God, than about stopping sin. For example, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. " Hebrews 4:14. ...I want to stop here and thank you for this reminder to seek God! I pray not to wanna stop! I pray I don't get 'mechanical' about it while at it as well! I just wanna be commited to God! Thank you and God bless you for ...
N.B: If I get his permission to post the note here, I will gladly do so. But for now, enjoy this and God bless you! Guys, it has been quite some time , you know? Hmmm. I will write soon! Loads! Stay here. Love.
Christianity is not a mechanical device that comes off the assembly line, every motor working exactly the way that every other motor does. We are not mechanical beings — we are human beings, and that makes the job much harder, more challenging. It requires more skill to work with people than with machines.
Machines can be frustrating, but people are even harder to figure out. We cannot be programmed to give the right results every time. We cannot plug in a half hour of prayer and an hour of Bible study and setting up chairs every week and passing out hymnals as any sort of spiritual assembly line that gives a predictable result. Humans are much more complicated than that...
Most times, I can't even figure myself out, and I certainly can't prescribe a formula for anyone else! We have multiple commitments- we want to be committed to family, to church, to personal growth, to community, and to worship. All these commitments are good, but they are not equally good. Sometimes our commitment to family comes before church and sometimes our commitment to the church comes before family. Sometimes we have to set aside our Bible study to take care of community concerns; sometimes we have to skip the community thing and spend time in the Bible. The balance is constantly changing and needs constant monitoring to see what we need to do at each particular moment...
But there is one commitment that always takes priority, that should never be compromised, that should never be relativized — and that is commitment to God. This comes before all other commitments — and in fact it is because we are committed to God that we also want to keep our commitments in all the other areas. Commitment to God is the foundation for all the others, for why we do them - and how we (do) can be successful in managing our multiple commitments. Put God first
The way we serve God is by desiring God, by wanting Him. We see Him as the answer to our innermost needs. We spend our time seeking Him, obeying Him, wrapping our lives around Him and not seeking the stuff that He gives. We are seeking God Himself — not to possess Him, but to be with Him. Our ultimate desire is not material stuff that will someday rot away — our ultimate desire is a friendship with the eternal God. Matthew 6:33 —'' seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be given to you''.
This idea is also found in John 4, where Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, and he says, "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst." He is talking about a thirst, an internal desire, that is fully satisfied in Jesus Christ.
We all have an inner desire for something and that something is Jesus Christ, and our thirst can be satisified in no other way than through Him, and in Him it can be fully satisfied. God satisfies in a way that nothing else does.
And until we find our satisfaction in Him, our souls will thirst and we will be on a never-ending quest to fill a void in our lives! We might try to fill it with cars, or with careers, or with money, all to no avail. When it is God that we need, nothing else can substitute.
And that is what commitment to God is. It is a recognition that He is what we need. He is the power — the only power — that can help us with our deepest and most permanent needs. God wants us to desire Him, to seek Him, to look for ultimate satisfaction in Him. It doesn't get any better than Him! With Him, we can be content. With Him, our souls have rest. That is what we were made for and that is what we need.
We can chase the wind, or we can seek the Spirit of God!
We are to be content with God, and to trust Him with our lives, to trust Him to take care of everything else, to trust His instructions for how we ought to live, to trust Him for guiding us in work and in church and in family.
Now, when our innermost desire finds its satisfaction in God, we will not be racing around for other thrills. We will not be driven by money, or driven by career success, or driven by public opinion. We will have no other gods before God.Everything else will be brought into subordination to God. Life will have a stable order and structure to it because it will have the right foundation
— and the key to that foundation is desire!
Commitment to God boils down to a desire for God. He is our treasure, our hope, our value, our supreme goal. He is our God — and there is no competitor. The book of Hebrews(my favorite Book of the Bible, by the way!:-) ), talks a lot about faith, often in the sense of being faithful. The whole book was written to a people who were on the verge of apostasy, of falling away from the faith. The whole book is written to encourage (us) them to remain committed to faith in Jesus Christ. The book is a manual for commitment to God.
*Do not drift away, he says. Fix your thoughts on Jesus. Don't fall short. Make every effort. Hold firmly to the faith. Approach the throne with confidence. Go on to maturity. Draw near to God. Hold on to the faith. Encourage one another. Meet together. Throw off the sin and run with perseverance. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Strengthen yourself. Worship God.*
The positive exhortations outnumber the negative ones four to one. There is a lot more said about seeking God, than about stopping sin. For example, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. " Hebrews 4:14. ...I want to stop here and thank you for this reminder to seek God! I pray not to wanna stop! I pray I don't get 'mechanical' about it while at it as well! I just wanna be commited to God! Thank you and God bless you for ...
N.B: If I get his permission to post the note here, I will gladly do so. But for now, enjoy this and God bless you! Guys, it has been quite some time , you know? Hmmm. I will write soon! Loads! Stay here. Love.
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