THE MATTERS OF THE HEART. WHAT THE HEART WANTS IT WANTS. WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART?

 THE MATTERS OF THE HEART 

Question; what is in your heart? 

1 samuel 16:7 says that “the Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the lord looks at the heart.” 

Today, the Holy Spirit taught me something precious and priceless. I have always wondered why every time I get something I thought would make me happy, I end up not. Question why, couldn’t tell. And every time the answer i would get from within the deepest of my soul is ‘the heart wants what it wants.’ So I began to wonder what was in my heart. I would ask myself, 

“Rachel what do you really want?” it is simple but in truth very complicated. So I invite you to walk with me on this journey called the matters of the heart. 

What is the heart? And what is in your heart? The bible is full of scriptures that talk about the heart. All throughout the bible from Genesis to Revelation God’s attention is put on the heart. When God speaks, he speaks to the heart. 

Jesus says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33). Luke 17:20-21 says ‘the kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say here it is, or there it is because the kingdom of God is within you.” Note ‘within you’ emphasis mine. Why, because he makes known the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). The heart is not just an organ that is in your body. It is a sacred place. Deuteronomy 6:5-6 says, “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your  hearts.”  Jeremiah 31:33 says; “This the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the lord. ‘ I will put my laws in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.” 

Salvation is a personal relationship with God. It is a love relationship. It deals with the matters of the heart because that is where the new covenant was made. The disciples ask Jesus why he speaks to the people in parables in Matthew 13:11-12. He replies and says, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you and not to them. Whoever has will be given more and he will have abundance and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” Here is the interesting part, he goes to explain to them why he speaks to them in parables; though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand; in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: you will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving; for this peoples’ hearts have become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed up their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with ears, understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them (Isaiah 6:9-10). 

The meaning of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:18-19 reveals what the heart is. It is the ground where the sower sows the word. When the first man sinned and disobeyed God, the ground was cursed because of him (Genesis 3:17). And in Genesis 3:19 God said, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food ‘until’ you return to the ground since from it you were taken.” This disobedience led to a separation between God and man. God saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain. (Genesis 6:5-6). The heart of man has to return back to the heart of God. God’s heart is his will, his word, his commandments, laws; like in the Lord’s Prayer when Jesus said let your will be done on earth as it is heaven. In other words you have to let the will of God be done in your life as it is in heaven for Him alone knows the good plans He has for you (Jeremiah 29:11).

When David got the revelation that God desires truth in the inner most parts (heart), having realized that ‘against him and only him’ had he sinned and done what was evil in his sight, confessing that he had been sinful at birth and also sinful from the time his mother conceived him, he asks God to create in him a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within him. Why, because the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; broken and contrite hearts he will not despise (Psalms 51), God is esteemed with he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at His word (Isaiah 66:1-2). 

The heart is where the will of the mind is. It is where the power of choice lies. For Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart is (Matthew 6:21). My heart says of you,“seek his face” (Psalms 27:8) But the heart of man had become divided between God’s will and its own will at the fall in Genesis 3:4-6. But the story of Noah in Genesis chapter six to eight teaches us two things about the heart; choice and obedience. Noah found grace in the eyes of God that because of his choice and obedience when God smelled the aroma of his sacrifices from a pure heart, he said in His heart that never again will He curse the ground (heart) because of man even though every inclination of his heart was evil from childhood. (Genesis 8:21) Hence a promise of salvation to mankind which was conditioned on the fact he had to return back to the ground; He God who is the porter and we the clay to mould us into what he wants us to be. (Jeremiah 18:6). 

In Ezekiel 11:19 God says, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” Why, because He knew that was the ground where He sows His word and as long as it was still divided, even if He sows His word, it will be like the seed that fell on rocky places or the one that fell among thorns or the one which was heard but not understood. So what am I trying to say? God is after our hearts and nothing else. God is love. To love God, we have to be obedient to Him and only Him. For obedience is better than sacrifice. And obedience is of the heart. We can only be obedient if we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our strength. God is our first love. And we have forsaken our first love and we don’t do the things we did at first (Revelation 2:4-5). When man sinned, he forsook his first love by disobedience. And God was grieved in his heart that he cursed the ground. God is grieved with us too, he speaks and we hear but don’t listen. How are we to understand with our hearts if we don’t listen? But He says in Isaiah 54, that He will take us back with everlasting kindness and have deep compassion on us; that though the mountains be shaken and hills removed, yet his unfailing love for you and me will not be shaken nor His covenant of peace be removed just as He promised too in the days of Noah to never again curse the ground because of man. 

Today I realized what it meant “the heart wants what it wants’’. It’s after its first lover God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And the moment you find Him in His truthfulness and wholeness, you find that Peace Jesus promised; the one that surpasses all understanding. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace that I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27). Today I share with you the testimony of Grace. Just like the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters, He is still present today to take us back to the Father. He is the Helper, Comforter, Counselor, the Guide. He stands at the door knocking, choose like Noah did to hear His voice and open the door of your heart for Him to come in and eat with you and you with Him (Revelation 2:20). He counsels us to buy from him gold refined in the fire, so we can become rich; white clothes to wear so we can cover our shameful nakedness; and salve to put on our eyes so we can see. The Holy Spirit says to those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! Just like in Isaiah  6:9-10; if with love, we listen, obey and repent, we will find the Peace that our hearts long for and will we be able to understand whatever God sows in our hearts because the secrets of the kingdom of God are given to us. It is up to us to choose. Therefore I urge you my brothers and sisters to choose whole heartedly today whom u will serve and let us not be like our fore fathers who worshipped God with their lips yet their hearts where far from Him because their worship was rules taught by men but to stand firmly rooted and grounded in Him believing that neither persecution, death, lack, hardship, famine, danger, nakedness nor sword can separate us from the love of Christ. 

The question I have always asked myself; ‘What is in my heart, what do I really want?’ Well, today, I have come to realize that all what my heart wants is to dwell in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the lord and to seek Him in His temple for in the day of trouble, He will keep me safe in His dwelling, He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at His tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord. The lord is my light and salvation, whom shall I fear? The lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalms 27)

It’s your turn now. The heart wants what it wants. What is in your heart, what do you really want? If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19).