God Wants Your Heart

Numbers 14:24 "But my servant Caleb––this is a different story. He has a different spirit; he follows me passionately. I'll bring him into the land that he scouted and his children will inherit it. (The Message)

God has just finished telling Moses that none of the Israelites will enter the Promised Land because of their lack of faith and constant contempt for what He has done for them.  But then he singles Caleb out as being different.  He says that because of Caleb’s heart after Him, because of his passion and desire to follow God, he will inherit the Promised Land.  That’s all God focusses on, not Caleb’s intelligence, or physical strength, or anything else.  He looks at Caleb’s spirit, his passion for following God.  And because of Caleb’s heart after God, he blesses Him.  We see this so often in the Bible.  The story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) is another example.  Jesus walks into Jericho, and Zacchaeus is so determined to see Jesus and to know more about him, that he climbs a tree to get a better look.  Jesus recognises Zacchaeus’s desire to know him, walks up to the tree and tells Zacchaeus that he wants to go to his place for a meal.   Zacchaeus was not a popular guy, in fact he was despised by the Jews because he was a tax collector who took more than he should, yet Jesus ignored this and responded to the heart that he saw was after Him.  And when Zacchaeus had spent some time with Jesus he responded to Jesus’s love by making a real change in his life.  He stood up in front of everyone and made a commitment to give half his belongings to the poor and pay back 4 times anything he had taken wrongfully.  Then there’s the thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43).  Here was a guy that literally had nothing left to give.  He was dying, only hours left to live.  He recognises Jesus as the Son of God, and asks Jesus to remember him.  From a human perspective we would think this guy was clutching at straws, hedging his bets.  But Jesus didn’t think like that, he saw the thief’s heart.  He saw a heart desiring relationship with him, and he honoured it.  He showed love and compassion to the thief even while they were both hanging on crosses dying.  He said to the thief “Today you will be with me in paradise”.  Jesus sees hearts after Him and he loves them, responds to them and blesses them.  He meets them where they are and ministers to them.  He never leaves them, always honours them.

We see time and time again scripture examples of God responding to hearts which are genuinely seeking Him.  When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment is, his answer was that it is to love God with everything we’ve got (Matthew 22:37).  And God wants us to be passionate for him, in Revelation 3 Jesus rebukes a church for being lukewarm towards him, and says that he wishes they were either hot or cold because anything would be better than lukewarm.  But then he goes on to say:

‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.’ (Rev 3:20 TNIV)

Again, all he asks for is for us to have a heart after him, and then he will come into our lives and bless us.

It can be easy to get distracted in our day to day lives.  It can be easy to get busy and not make time for God.  It can be easy to be more focussed on getting through each day, making ends meet and trying to find times for ourselves.  But the more I learn to “Run the Race” the more I realise that in order to get through life I need my heart to be after God.  I need to seek Him first in all that I do, to make Him my number one each and every day.  I need to keep my eyes on Him, and not let anything get in my way.  I need to be disciplined, focussed and committed to Him.  By doing this I know that He is at work in my life, true to His promise to work for my good in all things (Romans 8:28), and I know that by seeking Him first He will meet all my needs (Matt 6:33).  My daily prayer is that He will help me to seek Him first, to grow in Him each day and be able to show His love to those around me.  And I would encourage you to do the same.  Set your heart after Him, make Him number one in your life, and watch how he meets with you, gives you what you need, and blesses you beyond comprehension!

There is NO Condemnation!

Picture this:  You’re sitting in sludge.  Deep, dark, smelly sludge.  It covers you from head to toe.  You’re clothes are worn and tattered, and you can’t see any way to climb out or clean up.  Then you look up and see someone standing there, offering to lift you out of the sludge, offering to help you get clean and free of it.  And not only is he offering to help you out of the sludge, he is holding a brand new set of clothes for you.  Clothes that suit you perfectly and fit better than anything you have ever known.  You know that the clothes cost him more than you could ever have paid, but he is offering them to you for free; all you have to do is accept the offer.  Not only that, but he has a path for you to walk on, a solid, firm path which leads to a luxurious mansion that he has prepared for you.  And he will walk with you along the path to help guide you.  You jump up, you accept the new outfit, and when you do you look down and realise that the sludge is all gone.  You’re completely clean and free of it.  The new clothes look amazing on and you feel the most free you ever have.  You walk along the firm path with your new friend guiding you and encouraging you along the way.  Then one day you look down and realise that you have drifted off the path a bit, you’re walking on the edge of the sludge again.  The bottoms of your new clothes are getting dirty, you feel a little guilty for getting your new clothes dirty but you think “it’s ok, it’s only a little muck, and I’ve been in worse”.  Your friend is there, encouraging you to get back on the path.  He says he can clean the muck off and it will be like it was never there, but you choose to keep going, thinking that you’ll be fine.  Then it starts to rain, a dirty, dusty rain.  You notice that now the top of your new clothes is getting dirty and the sludge is getting deeper and harder to walk through.  Your friend is still there, encouraging you back onto the firm path.  He’s holding an umbrella to protect you from the rain and reminding you that if you let him help you back on to the path he will clean your clothes off and they’ll be like new.  But you persist, you tell him you’ll be fine, you know what you’re doing, it’s nothing you haven’t coped with before and there are other people covered in more muck than you so it’s all good.  Then you trip and fall.  You’re down in the muck, covered in it again from head to toe.  You realise that you made a mistake, that you should have gotten back on the path earlier and then you wouldn’t be where you are now.  You feel frustrated, ashamed.  You think about your new clothes and the price that your friend paid so you could have them.  How could you have let him down so badly?  Yet your friend is still there, hand out to you, offering to lift you back onto the path, to clean you up again and set you free.  His umbrella is in his hand to protect you from the storm.  He tells you that it doesn’t matter that you stumbled, that you got your new clothes covered in muck.  He says that he still cares for you, that the price is paid for the clothes and that if you take his hand he will wash you clean again and you can continue on the journey; no need for guilt and that if you just take his had it will be like it never happened.  You reach up, take his hand and find that it is true.  You are clean again, free again, and your feet are back on solid ground, what an awesome friend!

While this analogy is somewhat simplistic and clumsy, it is the analogy of our lives and what Jesus does for us.  Before we are saved, we are covered in sin, represented by the sludge.  It covers us, invades every aspect of our lives.  When we accept salvation, Jesus frees us from that.  Psalm 40 says that

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand.

Jesus puts us on a path, the plan he has for us is a good one (Jeremiah 29:11), he washes us clean and gives us new clothes to wear.  We are, in fact, new people (2 Corinthians 5:17).  And not only does he put us on the path, he walks with us to help us along.  The trouble is, life has challenges.  Sometimes it can be easy to wander off the path a little bit, to walk away from what Christ has for us.  This is where we see in the story that we are walking off the path, that the bottoms of our new clothes are getting muddy.  Sometimes we see what we are doing and correct it, we jump straight back on the path.  Other times we don’t see it, we ignore it or we justify it.  Life also has storms, the dirty and dusty rain.  We get tempted, the devil throws his fiery darts at us.  Jesus has given us an umbrella for these storms, or more appropriately, armour (Ephesians 6:10-17).  He has given us a means to avoid getting wet and stay safe.  But again at times we choose not to use it, or we forget it’s there.  The rain gets through to us, the storms slow us down.  And often that is when we stumble, when we fall into the sludge again.  So often when we fall it is easier to stay there.  To stay in the sludge and feel sorry for ourselves.  The devil tells us that we don’t deserve to be clean, that Jesus can’t possibly love us now.  He tells us that we should just stay there, wallow in it and dwell in self-pity.  Or even worse, dig deeper, enjoy the sludge, after all, it’s not that bad.  But this is not what the Word of God says.  This is contrary to the truth that sets us free (John 8:32).  Romans 8:1-2 says this:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Notice that, there is NO condemnation for us in Christ.  When we sin all we need to do is confess it and ask for forgiveness and God will forgive us and “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  It’s that easy!  No tricks, no gimmicks, no catches.  So what about our feelings of guilt?  John 3:20 says:

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Even when we get caught up in self-condemnation we can be assured that God still doesn’t condemn us.  And since God knows everything, we can trust Him over our feelings which can be swayed so easily.  Does this mean we can just do what we want and not worry about sin?  Not at all!  Paul talks about this in Romans 6 and says:

Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

Jesus has paid a great price for us, he has given us an amazing gift.  Go back to the analogy.  If someone has given you an outfit of great value, more than you can ever hope to pay, are you going to go walking through the mud with it?  Or are you going to stay on the firm, solid path to look after such a precious gift.  It is the same with what Christ has done for us.  He has set us free, he has given us the gift of eternal life.  He has won a victory for us that we could never win for ourselves.  Paul goes on in Romans 8:37-39 to say that:

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So next time you are struggling, next time you have stumbled and feel like giving up, remember that.  Remember that there is NO condemnation for you in Christ Jesus, and that nothing can ever separate you from his love!  What an awesome promise and an amazing victory!