HAVING A HEART FOR GOD
I Samuel 16:7c The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
King Saul had sinned against the Lord by building a monument in his own honor and rejecting the word of the Lord. While God would let Saul rule for over 40 years, God had Samuel anoint someone to follow Saul as king. This would be David. When Samuel went to anoint Saul, Samuel was impressed with him because he was tall and handsome. God’s next choice would not be like that at all. Infact, he was still just a boy maybe in his teens. David was said to be ruddy, with fine appearance and handsome features, but he was certainly not what Samuel or all Israel would have chosen to be the next king. God had plans for David, but God was also not in a hurry for David to take the throne. In the years to come God would prepare him to be a leader of men, beloved by the people, a mighty warrior, but most of all a man after God’s own heart.
I am sure that Samuel assumed that King Saul’s replacement would take over right away and already have the qualifications needed to be king, but he was obviously wrong. Samuel even thought that David’s brothers would be the better choice, but he was wrong about that too. This is when the Lord told Samuel, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” They say that most relationships will be based on that first meeting. People look immediately look to see how pretty or handsome that person may be. They check out to see if they are well groomed, nice cloths, athletic, meek, sad, afraid, self-confident, boastful, arrogant, and the list goes on and on. But for some people they try to look past all this to see what that person’s heart is like, and the reason for this is often first impressions can be wrong and really should be avoided. When God saw David’s heart he saw a heart that loved him and wanted to glorify him. God knew David’s heart had the desire and potential for it.
What makes makes for this potential is is certainly love for the Lord and wanting to live a life that will glorify him, but like David, Jews and even people in other religions have this potential. What really makes all the difference is to have Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and to have a surrendered heart to the Holy Spirit. Unless we have these we can only do as much as humanly possible as we see in David’s life and millions of others. Sad to say they all fell short. Even David struggled with sin in his life, and poor decisions that didn’t bring glory to God at all. Only with God’s help can we have any hope of loving him the way we should, or glorifying him in our life. We can not even become a Christian on our own. It is only by the grace of God that we can do anything of any worth for the Lord. Even with our best efforts to become Christ-like, we can fall terribly short at a moment's notice. Even though everyone has a portion of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, it takes God’s grace to mature us in ever increasing waves of glory. God’s grace, his unmerited favor, continually comes upon and within every person that trusts in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
When God looks at your heart what does he see? If you say a heart filled with sin, guilt and shame and you are a Christian, you are very wrong! God sees your heart in light of Jesus. He sees no sin or lack of worthiness. He sees the heart of his child! When your child messes up and even disappoints you, do you change your love for your child? Of course not! You see your love in your child, and God sees Jesus’ love in your heart too!
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for your grace. It seems that so much of our life we are constantly telling you that we are sorry, but we thank you that you know our heart. Thank you for looking at our heart, rather than our weak humanity. We love you Heavenly Father.
