A Heart Like King David's

Yesterday, I wrote about David's mighty men of valor from Zebulun and their undivided heart. The issue of an undivided heart has been on my mind ever since, so I thought we'd look at David's heart today.

You probably remember the story from 1 Chronicles 17 of David's desire to build God a house. (Leanna Paraphrase coming up) "That's an admirable thought, David, but I don't need you to build Me a house. Instead, I'll build you a house. A house of descendants that will never end. A throne and kingdom that last forever." 

David was speechless for a few minutes.

"I brought you out of the fields and made you the man you are, David. I've put you in this place."

Finally, David sat before the Lord and worshipped. "Who am I, God, that you would bother with me at all?"

Even when David was king, he remembered the fields. He remembered his days as a shepherd boy. Even when he was old, David was a shepherd at heart. Did he make terrible mistakes? Yes. He did. We all do. He made mistakes and he suffered for them, but he always found his way back to his Heavenly Father.

David understood who he was (and who he was not) in relation to the awesomeness of Almighty God. 

He understood who God was, too, and he loved Him.

David wanted to do something huge for God, build a temple of gold for Him. 

What he didn't quite see was that sitting before God in worship and humility WAS something huge. 

Giving God credit for all He did WAS something huge.

Shepherding His people with God's own heart WAS something huge.

Following God into battle against His enemies, when he was a poet at heart, WAS something huge.

Loving Him without reservation, dancing before Him in the street without self-consciousness, WAS something huge.

David loved the Lord His God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength and it was huge. All-consuming. 

He fought for the Lord and His people and wrote poems and songs while he did it. His was a heart that worshipped all the time. 

His mind was set on God.

How do we have a David heart? We do what David did. When he took spoils of gold and silver and bronze, he dedicated it to the Lord. David had a house of cedar. The gold he collected was for God's house.

He didn't allow his eyes to linger on the riches of this world. Instead, he put them on God alone. 

If we put our eyes on God alone, if we focus on seeing people and things the way God sees them, treating them like He says, we'll begin to have a heart like David's. 

An undivided heart.

And that's the best heart of all.

Today, let's take our eyes off the things of this world and focus them on God. We sang this song by Helen Lemmel (1922) when I was a child, and the words are still true today. 

"Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in His wonderful face;

and the things of earth will grow strangely dim 

in the light of his glory and grace." 

(Helen Lemmel 1922 -public domain)

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In case you missed the post yesterday, here's the link: Zebulun's Undivided Heart Helped Change a Nation

And here's the link to an indepth look at loving with our whole heart: Loving with our whole hearts
#undividedheart #goodSunday #kingdavid

Zebulun's Undivided Heart Helped Change a Nation

When King David was at Ziklag, mighty men of valor came to help him. They were remarkable men, but my personal favorites are the men of Issachar and the men of Zebulun.

There were two hundred men from Issachar who understood the times and knew what Israel should do. What's amazing to me is that their kinsmen knew they understood the times, too, so they followed them. Think about that for a minute. 

The men of Issachar knew what was right to do. People knew they understood what was right, so they followed along and did the right thing, too. 

Oh, that we would be so concerned with doing right!

The men of Zebulun were awesome men. Here's what Scripture said about them:

"Of Zebulun, there were 50,000 men who went out in the army, who could draw up in battle formation with all kinds of weapons of war and helped David with an undivided heart." 1 Chronicles 12:33 nasb

The men of Zebulun were disciplined.

They were diversified and multi-talented.

They recognized authority and submitted to it.

They had singleness of purpose and allowed no distractions.

Imagine 50,000 talented, skilled, and disciplined people who were submitted wholly to a common cause.

We've seen what that kind of dedication can do from those who have submitted wholly to the cause of ISIS. It's remarkable. And terrible.

But what if the body of Christ in this country finally said, "We've played at fake church long enough? Let's get totally real and follow Christ with every fiber of our being." 

What if we understood the authority of Jesus Christ and submitted wholly to it? 

What if we had one goal: loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves?

What if nothing deterred us from following Christ?

I told my son about some people from my church recently and he said, "Wow. They sound like adventurers. That must be so fun." 

He was right. If we understood the adventure of following Christ and were willing to embrace that adventure with an undivided heart, our walk of faith would be fun, too. Maybe hard, but definitely worth it.

Our country is in a mess, and, though we'd like to blame the lost people for our problems, Scripture suggests a different root cause. 

It's the people of God who influence a nation. When we aren't light in the darkness, the darkness increases. And that's what's happened. 

We have tried to shine our light from dirty lamps, and it's not working.

So, people of God, arise! Let us become more like the men of Zebulun. They submitted undivided hearts to their King and they helped to change the direction of a nation.

We can do that, too. If we will.

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In case you missed it, here's the link to yesterday's post: God wants a bride

If you're interested in the Hosea Bible study, here's the link to the Hosea Introduction.

#undividedheart #letyourlightshine #Jesus #linesfromleanna

How to inherit eternal life, part 5: Loving with our whole hearts

And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?" And he answered, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE." (Luke 10:25-28 NASB)

In the previous post, we considered the issue of Lordship. Loving in the way that pleases God begins with making Him our Lord, our Master. He must be the One in charge of our destiny. The only other choice is rebellion, so  we are compelled by the hope of eternity to submit to His Lordship. We cannot have it both ways. We can not love the Lord our 
God with all our heart, soul, and strength unless He is our Lord.

We turn now to the issue of loving the Lord our God with all our heart. The word translated as "heart" is kardia and refers to the muscular organ responsible for circulating blood throughout our body. Because Scripture tells us that "the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11), the heart was considered the center of life, mental and moral as well as physical. 

The reference here is to something done by the heart, as in loving God by our whole hearts, and indicates sincerity and lack of pretense. (thayer) Now we begin to see, don't we? Loving the Lord our God with all our heart involves loving Him with sincerity, and without pretense. There is nothing fake about it. 

We've all seen people who talk a great line about their faith, yet their lives tell a different story. We've likely been those people at times. Loving the Lord our God with all our heart, however, requires that we relinquish our "fake" demonstrations of love and truly love Him with every fiber of our being. 

This kind of love is a 24 hour a day love, in which thoughts of the One our heart loves are never far away. This kardia love makes every decision on the basis of that love. This kardia love has as it's goal the pleasure of the One we love. Finding ways in which we can we bring delight to the Light of our life becomes our goal. That is how we love and live when we love with our whole heart. 

Loving with all our heart requires an undivided heart. There is no one, no thing, that matters more than the object of our love. Our love for God becomes the most important love in our life. There is room for other loves, of course, but God shares first priority with no one.

The heart is a muscular organ unique in its properties. As such, it can get stronger with exercise, and the exercise of love will do a wondrous work in our hearts. The most amazing outcome of loving God with our whole heart is that, as we love Him sincerely and totally, our heart gains strength for that love and we can love Him even more. What is even more remarkable is that, in loving God more, we gain a God-given ability to love others more, as well. In a sense, by loving God with our whole hearts, we become a wellspring from which the love of God can flow to all around us. 

Selah. Pause and Consider.

By relinquishing our entire hearts to our Lord, loving Him above all others, we can become a wellspring of His love, flowing to everyone around us. What a beautiful picture of the transformation that divine kardia love can produce in us!  

Is that the way you love? Is your heart undivided? Is your Lord the priority love of your life? It is only in giving all our heart to Him that we can receive this extravagant outpouring of His love through us, and it is an exchange that is not only worth making, but also the most important exchange we can make. 

Oh, dear ones, if you have not given your "whole heart" to God, do it now and begin to let His love flow through you, unhampered, undivided. Let His love be your goal. Let His love be your priority.