after God's own heart

For some reason, a reason carefully chosen to love and lead us well into all truth and fullness of life, the Lord called David “a man after His own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). He could have called him a man after His own mind, His own soul, His own strength…or whatever He wanted to! But He called him a man after His own heart.

Both the Old and New Testaments affirm the greatest commandment as loving the Lord with all of our being, including our hearts.

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)

“He [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’” (Matthew 22:37)

In a very real sense, sometimes the heart of the matter really is a matter of the heart. And neither giving in to whims of the heart or devaluing our hearts are the answers.

Sometimes well-meaning people, trying earnestly to be good, write off the heart by quoting Jeremiah 17:9 saying it’s deceitful and wicked. And when sin is written on our hearts (Jeremiah 17:1), they are deceitful and wicked. Left on our own, with sin written on our hearts, our hearts cannot be trusted at all. Look at some of the choices to sin that David made when he was operating out of lies and not truth. And yet, David was a man after God’s own heart. How can this be? God heals. He saves (Jeremiah 17:14). He cleanses and forgives (Psalm 51). And when we confess and repent, God is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us (1 John 1:9). He writes His truth on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), and our hearts look more like His.

It’s in aligning our hearts with His, that our hearts begin to look more and more like His. And His heart is full of life and truth.

May our hearts specifically look more like His. May our hearts be after His own heart.