After God's Heart

But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” -1 Samuel 16:7
Possibly my favorite verse in the entire Bible... I'm not known for my size or height. I'm not known to be a guy the world would look at and suggest that I couldn't amount to much of anything...but it doesn't matter. Because God doesn't view me in that manner... God doesn't view you in that manner.
God's opinion really is all that matters...And the good news is that God looks at your heart.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that Jesus, "...judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."

As we saw in last week's post, God tells us that we have new hearts too.
Hearts with His law written on them... Hearts that know God. Hearts that God seeks. (Jer. 31:31-33)
Seeking.
Life is a journey.
And on journey's we all are seeking something.
I want to build on last week's post about seeking God's face by talking about seeking God's Heart.
Because the bottom line is that we are to seek God.
Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.
Seek first our King.
Our creator.
Our redeemer.
Our lover.
When you seek someone, you seek their face.
When you seek someone you love, you seek their heart.
My prayer is that you have seen God this past week. Whether in a sunrise or sunset, in the clouds, the ocean, animals, a person, or in the brilliant night sky. God is all around us.
It's time to build upon that. Building on our knowledge of God, we must dig deep into Himself... His word.
Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God..."
When you seek someone you love, you seek their Heart.
Do you love God?
Some of us may have to stop right here and ponder that.
Some of us may have to stop right here and pray.
Some of us may need to stop and let that question sink in.
And anyone who thinks they don't need to stop right here and think about how to react to that question...needs to stop and think.
Truth is we don't.
We can't.

Without God's help to love Him, we could never love Him. Our very being is in rebellion against Him.
I'm pretty sure 1 Corinthians 13 doesn't define love as rebelling.
1 John 4:10-12 gives us the answer though: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
We can love because of what Christ has done.
He has opened the ability to love God... by loving others.
His love is made complete in us by us loving one another.
We love because God loved us first.
And so this whole sidenote brings us back to us having to seek God's heart.
And though there are plenty of characters in the Bible we could look to for this insight... one character is given probably the highest compliment in the Bible... other than Jesus.
"a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do." -Acts 13:22
This verse was referencing a verse in 1 Samuel concerning David.
David... the liar, the adulterer, the murderer, the man who was probably the worst father in the world... yep. That guy.
Because though David made mistakes aplenty... His heart was right in God's eyes.
David's example proves that though we sin, though we make mistakes, God forgives and forgets, and searches our hearts... not our history.
But let's look at what made David a man after God's own heart, and see if we can pull anything from his example.

David knew the Word of God, he quoted Jewish history, God's law, and lived his life according to it.
It is through the Bible that we get a glimpse of God's very character and nature. Without a doubt, David understood as much about God as was possible, it states 'the Lord was with David'. And he knew that God would rescue and redeem him.
How is our knowledge of God's word?
I like to view the Bible as God's song to us, most songs tell a story, every time you listen to it, you grasp something knew, you get a picture of the artist's creativity and desires. That's what the Bible does. How much do we strive to know, study, and memorize God's song?
How many lyrics do we know?
How many quotes do we know?
Compare that to how many verses we know.
Whose hearts are we seeking?

David loved to pray, if you read any of the Psalms of David, you'll notice this very quickly, most of them are directed straight to God himself, as if it was his prayer journal.
David seemed to pray nonstop.
How is our prayer life?
Whose heart are we truly seeking?


David loved God's creation, from the moment we are introduced to David, we are told he was tending sheep.
And then we see in his response to Saul just before David went to fight Goliath that he took his small shepherd job very seriously... to the point of fighting bears and lions away from his flock.
He valued human life. We see this by reading all the times he spared Saul's life. He wrote about how awesome God was in creating the world, praising God for fearfully and wonderfully making him. David loved to praise God, building his life around worshiping Him. He began construction of the temple of the LORD, brought the Ark of the LORD to Jerusalem, and rebuked idolatry within Israel.
David trusted in God. We can see this in numerous instances, probably one of the best ways we can see this though is David's response to Goliath the Philistine giant.

"David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”- 1 Samuel 17:45-47

Now thems fightin' words. But it wasn't that big or long of a fight was it? David trusted in God's deliverance. When the entire nation of Israel stood aside, allowing their own fear to consume them, allowing this one enemy to blaspheme and stomp on the name of the very God who granted them life, land, the God who rescued them from Egypt... David, who was there to be delivery boy for his brothers, became God's warrior.
Psalm 32:10, written by David, tells us:
"Many are the woes of the wicked,
   but the LORD’s unfailing love
   surrounds the one who trusts in him."


So what does this all take us to...where does it lead us?
Seeking God's heart.
It's not a bunch of dos and dont's.... though my list above may seem that way.
It's measuring our lives and bringing ourselves into conformity with the character of God and obedience to the will of God.
Seeking God's heart begins with seeking God's face.
Seeking God's face begins by realizing that God already began this seeking relationship... and is waiting for us to begin the journey.
Are we ready to start?
Maybe we already have...
Are we ready to keep going?

I know I for one would love to be known as 'a man after God's own heart.'
Do we, can we, even imagine what that would be like?
What is God's heart really like? That he would die for you and me.
That he would love us.
That he would save us.
That he would bring us into His story?
It demands a reaction.
To either seek farther... or to disregard it all.

God is searching our hearts... even now.
Maybe you have a tough decision coming up...
Maybe you are going through a struggle...
Maybe you just don't know what to do anymore...
Maybe you are perfectly fine...
The same God that came to David's rescue is the same God that can come to yours... the same God who blessed David abundantly... is the same God who may be blessing you right now.

He never changes. But we do.
And that is why we need to seek His Heart.
In that search we find His love, we find His healing, we find His companionship... because when two hearts are seeking each other... others see it.